Live data from Hacker News

Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

darkpatterns.org

151–160 of 321 posts

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#151
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a dark pattern, though? You're respecting the user's wishes to not use that permission (ignoring for the moment that you couldn't use it even if you wanted to).

Yes, permission requests should only show up at most once, per Apple, so it is definitely gray area. Not to mention, the pre permission dialog is usually deceptively similar to the Apple one.

It's not a grey area, it's a dark pattern, and you're basically intentionally breaking Apple's app policies, and screwing your users over just to get more permissions than you would get if you followed the rules.

Fuck you.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. So we can have more "This website uses cookies, okay?!?!?" banners popping up all over the place? No thanks. Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law?

>Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law? "Bureaucrats" already tell you how to design your website. There is already laws against some forms of deceitful advertising, unfair trade practices, and information sharing and the like. For example, let's say I was working to design an airline ticket booking site... https://www.transportation.gov/po…

Those aren't web site design issues, they're truth-in-advertising and business practice issues, which apply to all forms of advertising and business.

I'm talking about technical and design issues, like requiring every web site in the EU to pop up a stupid banner while you're trying to read something that blocks the content just to say, "Hey! We use cookies! Got it?" Now imagine taking that to the next level, with pages of regulations saying where and how other form elements must be laid out on the screen. Imagine another banner popping up on every EU web site saying, "Hey! Here's the link to our privacy policy! Got it?" Then clicking that away stores a cookie, which pops up the cookie banner... All because some bureaucrat who doesn't even know what an HTTP cookie is wrote a regulation requiring everyone on the whole continent to acquiesce to the bureaucrat's ignorance so he can claim to be pro-consumer and privacy-conscious and get reelected.

You want more of that?

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#153
post #5

There's no search but I'm curious if LinkedIn is included. I never took screenshots, unfortunately, but I feel like they've had close to 5 in my own experience alone.

LinkedIn is one of the most common examples when talking about dark patterns, their most famous being the number of ways they tried to get you to invite your gmail contacts.

Airbnb also wants access to your entire Google contacts or Facebook friends list if you want to use the mobile app. Let's just say that I refuse to use their mobile app and only use the desktop/browser version for this reason.

You want permission to access my entire contacts/social network? No thanks.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#154

My pet peeve: If you add a credit card to the Uber app there is no way to remove it without replacing it with another valid payment method. If you google solutions to this you get third party recommendations to plead with their customer service to have it removed. Seriously? This customer-hostile approach really needs to be killed.

You can modify your billing address to some nonsense. Payments shouldn't go through with a wrong billing address (although, I never tried it).

Really, I would be equally happy to have them remove my Uber account altogether. Except it's equally cumbersome and non-obvious. There are no immediate actions to do it from within the App or the website:

http://www.wikihow.com/Cancel-an-Uber-Account

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, permission requests should only show up at most once, per Apple, so it is definitely gray area. Not to mention, the pre permission dialog is usually deceptively similar to the Apple one.

It's not a grey area, it's a dark pattern, and you're basically intentionally breaking Apple's app policies, and screwing your users over just to get more permissions than you would get if you followed the rules. Fuck you.

No need to throw shade without knowing specifics.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#156
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just discussing this with a former co-worker. [Here in Europe.] Also: I'm pretty certain that if you had a history of using dark patterns.. that would be seen as basically fraudulent behavior here. Investors would stay far away. We both shared our distaste for a typical american way of accomplishing personal financial success - fake it til you make it, etc etc. Maybe this is a part of what sets SV apart from Eu…

cough Volkswagen cough

Sneaky germans.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#157
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other big players like Microsoft are doing it too. And that dialog can be worse: Do you like our app? It's also freaking annoying because it interrupts your workflow, the thing for which you ended up installing that stupid app in the first place. It's basically disrespectful of their users' time and needs.

I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil. Way too many people see the comments/ratings as either a support board or a way of punishing bad apps but very rarely they give a good or even just decent review, without being asked.

> I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil.

If we ever meet, I might ask you if you want to be hit in the face now or later. I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil. Way too many people see the comments/ratings as either a support board or a way of punishing bad apps but very rarely they give a good or even just decent review, without being asked.

> I feel you... I do it in my app and I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil. This is what makes the IT part of my heart die a little inside even more: when even the "good folks" in this industry feel like they have to do obnoxious things just to get ahead or keep up. Folks, this is why the bigger arguments about competition or arbitration and so on always come back to the same point ("there's no meaningful choic…

Do not delude yourself: The “good folks” in the industry do not do this.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#159
post #65
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tinder is the worst I have seen, they require you to pick between 1-5 stars to get the dialog to go away at all. Guess who always gets one star.

IIRC, you can hit the back button on that.

Nope, you can't.

Re: Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People [video]

#160
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software updates are the rare case where I can forgive it. It's annoying to have clients actively resisting updates, especially security updates.

If it was only about the security update. But in the case of iOS it is not. It's is the opportunity to start the nagging all over again. Please start using iCloud. Let's use Apple Pay now. Let's use Apple Music. On every single minor "security" update...

Or how about popping a dialog to inform me that cellular data is disabled for $app every time I open it while not connected to wifi, even though $app most certainly does not require access to data in order to work.

I'm of the "avoid popups at all cost" school of UI design. As soon as you let developers have modal UI that isn't meant to accomplish a specific, user-initiated task, they will immediately start using that power to be obnoxious.

Post reply on HN