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

darkpatterns.org

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

#31

Post by seanp2k2 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #28
cle wrote: post #27

One pattern that I consider "dark", but don't see in this list, is using loaded options on a dialog box. One that I often see in apps is like: Rate our app! Those really get under my skin because the developer is clearly trying to play a psychological trick on me, but it's so brazen and obvious that it just pisses me off. And bigger companies do it too (e.g. Google).

Yeah I hate that. Beyond what you said, it also suggests to me, "Not Yet must mean that it will annoy me again and again." Even if that's not true, I may never visit the page again if my perception is that it's gearing up to annoy me. I will often see: OK, NOT YET, DON'T SHOW AGAIN. Which I think is fine.

Yeah, and I don't expect that anyone tricked into / accidentally clicking "rate now" is going to leave anything but a zero-star review complaining about how the app tries to trick them and has annoying nag screens. I've written a few of those myself, then chuckled to myself since the developer was so short-sighted. If more people did that, they'd probably lay off with the "rate my app" pop-ups. If I REALLY love an app, I'll go find the developer on twitter and thank them, and write some nice reviews.

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

#32

Post by Animats »

After the first time this appeared on HN, I quit LinkedIn and deleted my profile. They still sent me "xxx wants to connect with you".

I'm really getting tired of turning down Amazon Prime on Amazon. I use Amazon less because of this. There are about three extra pages of Amazon Prime ads to click through for every purchase.

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

#34

Post by monix »

cle wrote: post #27

One pattern that I consider "dark", but don't see in this list, is using loaded options on a dialog box. One that I often see in apps is like: Rate our app! Those really get under my skin because the developer is clearly trying to play a psychological trick on me, but it's so brazen and obvious that it just pisses me off. And bigger companies do it too (e.g. Google).

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.

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

#35

Post by Animats »

johansch wrote: post #26

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.

Use 1111 2222 3333 4444, the credit card test number. This is valid at the check digit level, but known to all banks as a test number to be rejected.

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

#36

Post by duiker101 »

monix wrote: post #34
cle wrote: post #27

One pattern that I consider "dark", but don't see in this list, is using loaded options on a dialog box. One that I often see in apps is like: Rate our app! Those really get under my skin because the developer is clearly trying to play a psychological trick on me, but it's so brazen and obvious that it just pisses me off. And bigger companies do it too (e.g. Google).

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.

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

#37

Post by jkaptur »

mvid wrote: post #30
cle wrote: post #27

One pattern that I consider "dark", but don't see in this list, is using loaded options on a dialog box. One that I often see in apps is like: Rate our app! Those really get under my skin because the developer is clearly trying to play a psychological trick on me, but it's so brazen and obvious that it just pisses me off. And bigger companies do it too (e.g. Google).

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.

Wait, if they're requiring you to pick 1-5 stars to get the dialog to go away, it must be a custom dialog built by them, right?

I bet they take your one star and just hide the dialog, but take people who rate it as 5 stars to the "real" app store rating page.

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

#38

Post by hughes »

monix wrote: post #34
cle wrote: post #27

One pattern that I consider "dark", but don't see in this list, is using loaded options on a dialog box. One that I often see in apps is like: Rate our app! Those really get under my skin because the developer is clearly trying to play a psychological trick on me, but it's so brazen and obvious that it just pisses me off. And bigger companies do it too (e.g. Google).

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.

That particular phrasing also discourages negative feedback.

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

#39

Post by mtgx »

soared wrote: post #18
cs702 wrote: post #15

Great video and great website. My only nitpick: the author wants the industry to agree on a "code of ethics." Unfortunately, such exhortations strike me as naive. They are unlikely to work, because the truly bad actors will continue to use dark patterns regardless, putting pressure on all other actors to follow suit. The key challenge is not in getting the good actors to do the right thing, but in preventing the bad…

I agree and that goal sounds similar to the goal of Kill Analytics [1]. "The industry" doesn't even exist as an entity. Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. But on the other hand, Google AdSense has done a lot to improve advertising online. Popups and bad ads used to be waaay worse than they are now (not that they are okay now). So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change thin…

For advertising, there is an "industry" that can agree on such things, and it's called the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In fact, they're now acceptingpublic comments until December 22 on the new ad types that are supposed to be "leaner":

https://www.iab.com/newadportfolio/

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

#40

Post by johansch »

Animats wrote: post #35
johansch wrote: post #26

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.

Use 1111 2222 3333 4444, the credit card test number. This is valid at the check digit level, but known to all banks as a test number to be rejected.

Thanks for the tip, that may be useful in the future!

I ended up using my bank's "virtual credit card" service to create a virtual CC with a balance of 1 SEK to get rid of my Uber account. Anyway, I think this is shameful of them.

I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There is no excuse. You can't blindly blame it on A/B evaluations and what ended up making the company the most money. It's simply unethical.

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