301–310 of 321 posts
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).
Why is that a "dark pattern"? What trick is it trying to pull on you?
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Even worse; let's break backwards compatibility with your paid software so that you have to purchase an upgrade license... If you've had a Mac long enough and you run paid software you know what I'm talking about. :(
Considering the wide availability of beta OS updates, I'd say that's on the developers of said software. Sure, as someone who works in audio and has to deal with a range of software instruments/effects and audio interface drivers, I know exactly what you're talking about and I have little understanding for developers expensive software/hardware that don't test and fix their products before OS releases.
Now Apple breaks backwards compatibility with this software when I upgrade.
Even in the case of the software maker still being in business, should they have to provide me free upgrades for life? If they do that then they have diminishing profits with every upgrade. On the flip side, should I have to pay for a new license when I don't need the new features and am perfectly happy staying on the existing version if it only would continue to work?
To give two quick examples of this I used to run Parallels on my Mac so I could run a couple of Windows apps that I absolutely had to have and it would have been very inconvenient to use a boot camp setup and reboot every time I needed access. Then when the Mac version changed Parallels quit working; my only option was to buy a new license for Parallels. To make matters worse; you never really know what software will break when there is an upgrade, but if you don't upgrade then you end up in the boat that some other piece of software you are running does get updated, but you can't use that software without getting the latest version of Mac.
When I compare this to Windows; I'm still running today on Windows 10 software that I purchased for Windows 95. For all of the many things I dislike about Windows; the one thing I applaud them for is their level of backwards compatibility.
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Well considering that Skype is mainly a way to, you know, contact people it doesn't seem actually insane to consider it.
Skype should be a little more private than your cell phone number is. If I add someone's phone number to my contacts list, that DOES NOT mean I want them automatically added as my Skype contact.
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This. I hate this more than I can express in a public forum. Google is notorious for it, especially when they try to get you to use the YouTube app rather than the web interface. It's not "maybe later" I want—it's "never ask me again".
There's another one by Google maps where you can't choose to avoid tolls very easily. You also can't tell it to remember that you never want to use toll roads, so it is very easy for you to suddenly find yourself on a toll road.
The tollways here are especially heinous when you don't use them often enough to justify the hassle of getting an I-Pass, since the cash toll is twice the I-Pass toll.
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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.
Like many users, I as well have fallen victim for having a temporary fit of rage and leaving a 1 star review with a 1 liner of nonconstructive feedback for an otherwise useful app.
As if to say "Fine, you want it? Here's your god damn review!"
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Just reinstalled Skype and can see that they're trying to get access to my contacts also. They tell you to set up access so you can use the app. First up is microphone, and you click allow. Second is camera, and you click allow. Third is contacts, and you click—wait a minute, why do you need this? Disallow. Don't know what they would do if they got my contacts (hopefully not spam them like LinkedIn), and don't intend…
Well considering that Skype is mainly a way to, you know, contact people it doesn't seem actually insane to consider it.
I'd say Skype is a way to communicate with people, not a way to contact people. And for me, it's a method of last resort for people I can't call/text/Facetime/Hangout. I understand some people might say yes, but it's still somewhat deceptive to put this in the same category as "enable mic" and "enable camera", which Skype cannot operate without.
Does it count if there's no user interface? Amazon has my email address, I've been a customer since the late-nineties. They keep inventing new email lists and signing me up for them. Each time I get a new "newsletter" it says something like, "You got this message because you're subscribed to the 'Tablet News' newsletter." I click the unsubscribe link to remove myself from it. Along with the unsubscribe link there's a…
I've begun adding 1-star reviews when I get requests begging for feedback. Seems like the only thing I can do to discourage the behavior
Would gofundme's entire brand and business model be considered a dark pattern? They go out of their way to make it feel like a nonprofit, promote campaigns for issues that already have actual nonprofit status/direct donation pages, and do their best to hide their fees (which, last I checked, were actually higher for legitimate nonprofits than for regular campaigns).
All of the fundraising platforms do this. They charge a fee and some go as far as "recommending" a donation amount to the platform.
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Skype should be a little more private than your cell phone number is. If I add someone's phone number to my contacts list, that DOES NOT mean I want them automatically added as my Skype contact.
Of course. But for them to ask doesn't seem like a dark pattern, since the main use case for the app is contacting people you know and it's reasonable to think most users don't want to micromanage different contact lists as you describe. The dark pattern stuff is more like when your app for rating ice cream flavors is asking for your entire address book.
To me this would be akin to facebook automatically adding the local chinese restaurant as my friend simply because I had their number saved in my phone.
While I'm familiar with the site already, I'd love to have an RSS feed of newly added submissions. Unfortunately, when I click on Recently Added I get a list with pattern definition links that all 404, and no link to the actual submission.
That and a api where you could `GET darkpatterns.org/patterns/www.linkedin.com` and get a list. Would be great for building a nice browser plugin with.