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Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

darkpatterns.org

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Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#91

Post by diminoten »

dhimes wrote: post #90
diminoten wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's completely unreasonable to ask someone to change their website because you disable JavaScript.

But it's perfectly reasonable to let someone know that the website might be broken for those to whom it is most likely to appeal. A more precise suggestion about how to fix it would have been nice, however.

I disagree with the assertion that this website will most appeal to people who turn off JavaScript on websites intentionally.

And it's not useful to be informed that your website won't work if a critical component is turned off. It just isn't.

I'd even go so far as to say that people who disable JavaScript should be ignored entirely.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#92

Post by dhimes »

diminoten wrote: post #91
dhimes wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's perfectly reasonable to let someone know that the website might be broken for those to whom it is most likely to appeal. A more precise suggestion about how to fix it would have been nice, however.

I disagree with the assertion that this website will most appeal to people who turn off JavaScript on websites intentionally. And it's not useful to be informed that your website won't work if a critical component is turned off. It just isn't. I'd even go so far as to say that people who disable JavaScript should be ignored entirely.

Those who know/have cause to/have manifestation of paranoia that manifests as turn off javascript completely are certainly more likely to see the appeal for the slide show. I only made it about halfway through. Not that it's not an important topic, but not my top priority right now. A syllabus would have been useful so that I may see if I have missed something without having to spend another 10 minutes.

It can be quite useful for someone to make a suggestion that can make the website have larger appeal. It just can be. I count my suggestion for a syllabus as one.

But as a stronger example, aljazeera.com recently started redirecting ips from the US to the subdomain america.aljazeera.com. I couldn't get around it without a proxy. I wrote them an email suggesting they make the old site ("english") an option from the front page (I pointed to CNN.com as an example). They wrote me back saying they changed it and, when I went there, they even had a pop-up that allowed me to have the english site as my default. They had deliberately put in the functionality but didn't realize that some of us wanted their European coverage, not their America coverage.

In this case maybe the site will offer alternative formats. Maybe they hadn't thought of it.

I also have sites that ignore non-javascript enabled browsers- but they are web-apps and are explicit about the need for js. If I had a normal site with a widget that broke for certain people I very well might take such a comment into serious consideration. It is more helpful, as I said earlier, if such criticism also suggests something that might work well. Otherwise it just sounds like bitching.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#93

Post by dredmorbius »

diminoten wrote: post #89
dredmorbius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comments: I'm that guy who uses NoScript/ScriptSafe to disable JS on most sites. Took me several minutes to figure out what combination of hosts I had to enable to play your slideshow. My suggestion: find a simpler tool to display your slideshow. Otherwise: a pretty decent collection of horrors. I'll also note I'm that guy who generally avoids shopping online if at all possible. I'll do a lot of online research, b…

It's completely unreasonable to ask someone to change their website because you disable JavaScript.

I've got little problem giving temporary permissions to a site. I'll even dance through a round or two of attempting to load flash and other bits.

In the case of darkpatterns.org, I had to:

- Load the page.

- Allow the domain.

- Reload the page.

- Allow slideshare.net.

- Reload the page.

- Click on the Flash link (yes, Flashblock is also in service here).

- Check for more JS. Yep. Try a few.

- Rinse, wash, repeat of reload, check, click Flash, check, reload ...

Honestly, usually it's not worth my trouble. I fairly frequently encounter pages which fail to function with _all_ JS enabled (possibly due to XSS usage, I haven't troubleshot them, really not a productive use of my time in general). Given that plain Jane HTML is fine for presenting textual / graphical content this is pretty much an anti-pattern.

JS resources claimed by Darkpatterns:

www.google-analytics.com flash.quantserve.com b.scorecardresearch.com slideshare-audio.s3.amazonaws.com darkpatterns.org s3.amazonaws.com www.slideshare.net cdn.slidesharecdn.com static.slidesharecdn.com

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#94

Post by smcnally »

harrybr wrote: post #2

Hi, I'm the guy who started darkpatterns.org. It's nice to see it popping up on HN every now and then. We're actually looking for contributors to help edit and update the content. If anyone is interested, drop us a line (contact details on the site). It's intended to be a community project and we'd love to see a lot more faces and names on the about page.

I can't select from the dropdowns or see the embedded slideshow on Chrome or Safari on ipad.

Re: Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

#95

Post by abalone »

netcan wrote: post #83
abalone wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong on the facts. PayPal has always steered towards bank withdrawals as long as I can remember. Your note on chargebacks supports my point: Paying by card is better for the consumer. PayPal's trick UI steers them away from that.

Taking your point, I wonder if honestly would be a better policy. Credit Cards essentially cost paypal more. A more honest solution might be pricing in the cost of credit card transactions fees and chargeback/fraud risk to the customer. I have no doubt this would be bad for conversion rates. It introduces huge friction, going from 0 cost to small percentage costs. The way they do it now allows users to segment themse…

The PayPal equivalent would be if you had to opt-out of organ donation every morning and it never remembered your preference. That is a bad faith system.
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