Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

darkpatterns.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 321 posts

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

#51

Post by pipermerriam »

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…

Blockchain based application platforms can allow re-architecting of applications such that the data that backs the application is not "owned" by the company, but instead is either public or user owned.

Currently, if you want to use LinkedIn you have to either use their website. Sometimes there are 3rd party options that consume the API but in the current model of the web, as soon as one of those 3rd parties is seen as problematic then API access is typically revoked or restricted to give power back to the company.

In the public data model the data and API are publicly exposed and cannot be arbitrarily restricted. In the LinkedIn case this would allow a 3rd party to build a new UX on top of the LinkedIn database that excludes the copious dark patterns. Under this model, companies who abuse their users risk getting displaced by an alternate application backed by the same data that favors the user.

- Disclaimer: I work pretty much exclusively developing software in the Ethereum ecosystem which is one such blockchain based platform.

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

#52

Post by mvid »

jkaptur wrote: post #37
mvid wrote: 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.

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.

That is absolutely what happens. So irritated people like me go out of their way to open the app store and review directly.

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

#53

Post by jakub_g »

Animats wrote: post #29
sethbannon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the one of the most egregious examples of LinkedIn's dark UX. The transition from "I'm accepting incoming invites" to "I'm inviting people to connect or join LinkedIn" is intentionally subtle: https://goo.gl/photos/ncnTiMWeSBJfg3rZ6

That link itself is a dark pattern. It tries to get you to sign into Google; you can't see the photos otherwise.

works fine for me in incognito tab

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

#54

Post by micaeked »

Animats wrote: post #29
sethbannon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the one of the most egregious examples of LinkedIn's dark UX. The transition from "I'm accepting incoming invites" to "I'm inviting people to connect or join LinkedIn" is intentionally subtle: https://goo.gl/photos/ncnTiMWeSBJfg3rZ6

That link itself is a dark pattern. It tries to get you to sign into Google; you can't see the photos otherwise.

Not sure what you're seeing. I opened the link in an incognito window (therefore, no google signin), and everything works fine without signing in: http://i.imgur.com/ZKhACZM.png

Also tried a different browser with a clean slate, no issues.

Maybe the link was edited?

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

#55

Post by jpfed »

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).

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

#56

Post by johansch »

ryandrake wrote: post #49
johansch wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I would be ashamed of this practice if I worked for them. There's no shame because there are no consequences. "Oh, you were the guy at Company X that wrote that annoying Dark Pattern Y, huh? Can you walk me through the ethics of that?" - Said no interviewer ever.

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 Europe - and why SV keeps winning :). Fraud works.

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

#57

Post by exolymph »

BatFastard wrote: post #8

Spirit airlines is a user of dark patterns. But its almost like a game on their site trying to avoid all of the up-sells! I may stay away from LA Fitness just because of this article.

Spirit Airlines is an interesting case, though, because like someone else said, they're very up-front about this. Is it still a dark pattern if the company admits it and essentially warns the user?

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

#58

Post by prawn »

pesfandiar wrote: post #41
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).

There's another brilliant app rating pattern (perhaps a dark one). A dialog pops up and asks if I loved their app. A "yes" takes me to the marketplace for rating, but a "no" only allows me to send them feedback. It both positively skews the ratings and collects feedback from disgruntled users.

And you almost need to this because app store reviews are so deadly otherwise. You have no way to respond to reviewers (who've had problems) as you might on TripAdvisor and virtually no one goes out of their way to find an option to send feedback before going nuclear in a review.

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

#59

Post by chaoticgeek »

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.

This annoys me so much that when an app does this to me I actually go to to the app store to give them 1 star.

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

#60

Post by SilasX »

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…

What about certifications? Some certifying org can (for a fee) routinely audit websites for whether they use dark patterns. Then, people just know to avoid sites that don't have a good certification, and can report shady stuff.

If they push the envelope too hard, you report, they follow up and can potentially pull the cert. Maybe have browser integration too. (But good luck disambiguating between this and SSL certs for the average person...)

Post reply on HN