Surely dark UX patterns don’t work in the long run
Posted by R2_SWE2@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 46 comments
Posted by R2_SWE2@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 46 comments
qmunke@reddit
There's an infuriating trend on a lot of "news" sites to intercept the back gesture and show a list of other articles. I'm assuming it at least works on some people but it just makes me want to leave the site even quicker
aardvark_gnat@reddit
It’s unfortunate that browsers ever made that possible.
simonraynor@reddit
I'm pretty sure it's an inevitable side-effect of giving us the History API which allows for modern SPAs. Much like how tracking cookies or scrolljacking are enabled by the underlying useful technologies, arseholes will always find a way to abuse them unfortunately
aardvark_gnat@reddit
I wonder if a less powerful history API would have sucked less.
Uristqwerty@reddit
Imagine if browser devs trusted the user enough that, when a page uses the history API, the back button splits into two halves, one of which goes back one step before either the API or any form of redirect started to affect things.
Using a single UI element for both simplifies things, but creates opportunity for abuse. By not exposing the technical details to users, when the technical details are used to subvert their intentions, they have no easy workaround. A leaky abstraction.
simonraynor@reddit
Possibly, tho it would likely mean the back button wouldn't work at all in SPAs so it's pick your poison I guess
aardvark_gnat@reddit
In cases where you want the back button to work, why do you want your webapp to be single page?
simonraynor@reddit
SPA as a term covers a lot more than an actual single page. A lot of modern web apps handle all routing in JS and if navigating from (i.e.) /dashboard to /reports was done that way the expectation is that a "back" action can be handled the same way. If you set it up right you can have "normal" URLs as a user navigates around while keeping everything neatly frontend. Stuff like adding filters to a report can just amend the URL so that it can be shared easily, which does lead to better UX
That's not to say it had to be this way but I suspect there was a lot of pressure to allow it so we could move away from the way nastier (from a dev perspective) hacks we had to use before
aardvark_gnat@reddit
I don’t understand why the reports button on /dashboard shouldn’t just be a standard element with href=“../reports”.
I don’t think the filters usecase is a good argument for the history API. All you need is a way to change the URL in the URL bar.
simonraynor@reddit
That's pretty much what the history API provides, in a way that mimics (or rather, allows you to mimic) the normal behaviour of a hyperlink.
As for why it shouldn't be a plain link one reason is it's often much more efficient to only load in the parts of an application that have changed. A server rendered page will almost always have a bunch of additional DB requests for things like the logged in user's name, maybe the navigation, permissions stuff etc. which you can avoid by keeping those parts of the application in the DOM and just replacing the content based on AJAX calls. Back when this stuff was new it was often the difference between a 3s page load and a 0.5s page load.
It also allows for a much smoother "app-like" user experience, in a way that I'm still not sure is possible with regular old links as they usually flicker while the new page loads (I think it may be possible with some of the super modern page transition API stuff but that's not been around nearly as long as History)
LBPPlayer7@reddit
it's possible to just hook a page navigation with a normal instead
youtube's spfjs did this
IQueryVisiC@reddit
I had to switch to right click the back button . Left click only when I know
Wonderful-Wind-5736@reddit
One of the unforeseen advantages of ChatGPT. I can get information from news sites without ever interacting with them myself. What a bliss.
throwaway1736484@reddit
Using ChatGPT like this has been covered many times.
jug6ernaut@reddit
Anything that overrides default expected UX behavior straight infuriates me. I will outright boycott websites that do stuff like this and not look back.
hachface@reddit
This article seems deliberately naive. “If you’re doing intercepting standard events in unexpected ways you’re probably doing dark UX” — who is that advice for? The programmer implementing the event handler almost certainly is not the designer of the feature, and if they have gotten as far as coding the component it’s too late to change direction without a reputation-damaging political fight.
gjosifov@reddit
This is how capitalism works - make a copy of a product without dark patterns
and put advertisement - Tired of confusion software - our app A has UI that even grandmothers can use
but first you have to find UI / UX person who doesn't hate the users
emperor000@reddit
I don't know about this. Apple thinks that they are making their UI so that a "grandmother" can use it and their UIs tend to mostly be bad.
I'm not throwing shade on your app (no idea what it is) or really doubting your claim either. I just don't think that "a UI a grandmother can use" necessarily says much.
gjosifov@reddit
a UI a grandmother can use - WindowsXP + Winamp, every grandmother can be a DJ without reading the manual
Teams is great example of bad UI, so bad that even IT people are complaining
a grandmother can use it - it easy to explain and suggest that you don't need to read a manual or google how to do staff, you can just do staff
emperor000@reddit
Right, IT people complain, but "grandmothers" probably have no problem using it (actually, probably not, Teams can be pretty bad).
But, yeah, I got what you are saying. I'm just saying that it kind of breaks down at some point. Different users will have different needs or tolerate different things.
Dragon_yum@reddit
What’s the point of this article? It doesn’t give any example or reason why they wouldn’t work in the long run.
Yes, dark ux pattern subvert user expectations as he says but that’s literally what they are meant to do and why they are used.
Do they not work because the programmer uses a method for not what it was intended to? No one cares but the programmer.
Does a user will stop using Twitter because the X button doesn’t close the ad? Doubt that.
youngggggg@reddit
agree, the author doesn’t really make a point. Feels like a blog post just to say you wrote a blog post
emperor000@reddit
And they picked the probably the most innocuous example of "dark UX" there is as an example.
youngggggg@reddit
it’s a real problem for sure and they pointed out a great example of it. I was legit interested in learning more haha but the more never came
emperor000@reddit
I'm pretty cynical, and not to get into a debate, but this doesn't really seem like a great example to me. It's just a paid feature that redirects you to pay. That doesn't really seem "dark" to me. Unless paid features are just considered "dark" and I don't realize it.
I can't think of a "light" alternate that wouldn't be cumbersome. Just don't show the 'x'? That just seems like it makes it harder for people to discover that they can dismiss these things, even if they have to pay to do it.
imforit@reddit
If a company is myopic enough to employ dark patterns to begin with what makes you think they give a shit about the long run?
Lack of caring about the long run is a hallmark of modern tech corporations
Blaiz_Enterprises@reddit
It's a bit like the software archives of the past, where you visited them for software and they shoved a ton of ads in your face, not to mention those ads with the giant green button flashing something like "download the software here" for something entirely different often unrelated, and now almost all of them are gone - out of business.
People don't like to be deceived, and in the long run they eventually get peeved, catch on, and leave. So no, in the long run, this kind of deception is bad business. And just plain short-sighted. And yes, by the title I too thought it referred to dark colored GUIs, e.g. the modern black, but no.
Ambitious_Air5776@reddit
Those things are definitely still around, just relegated to more niche sites.
Blaiz_Enterprises@reddit
Oh damn, and here I was thinking those green buttons had died!
eracodes@reddit
The economy is now organized in such a way that making software work "in the long run" is almost never incentivized.
boogrit@reddit
Great article. I'm an idiot so I thought this was going to be about dark-themed UI's. It's great to spread awareness on stuff like this. I'm sure principled UX folks get driven wild when they see things like that.
emperor000@reddit
This seems like the most innocuous "dark UX" pattern that could have been used as an example. As critical and cynical as I am, I'm not even sure it is fair to call this "dark UX".
It's not like it is really novel or surprising for a UI with paid features to redirect users to unlock them by paying.
PureAbstract@reddit
I hate when websites hijacks the back button. Still have that one annoying news site. I clicked on clickbait title only to found out 80% of content is behind subscription paywall, decided to go back and website was like "noooo please stay here is more paywalled articles!!!11one". Ech...
EC36339@reddit
No, it doesn't.
Ads are cancer, and any business that depends on ads deserves to die.
Businesses that rely on both ads and subscription typically get most of their revenue from ads and treat paying consumer customers as second class citizens, with shitty infrastructure, poor support, and eventually by showing them ads anyway. They will generally invest more time and effort in ad infrastructure and circumventing ad blockers than in making their shit work for paying users.
A product is only yours if the vendor's primary source of income is from users paying for the product. Otherwise, YOU are the product.
oscarolim@reddit
That’s an interesting take, while using Reddit, who gets their main revenue from ads, to display said take. According to you, Reddit should be dead.
yawara25@reddit
Yes, that's what he just said. That's not a contradiction. Braindead argument.
lunchmeat317@reddit
Reddit already is dead. It's because everything is now an ad ans most of the accounts on Reddit are bots - another dark pattern.
oscarolim@reddit
Should I believe you? For all I know you’re one of those bots. 🙄
lunchmeat317@reddit
And therein lies the problem. Whether I'm a bot or not (I'm not, but it doesn't matter), your trust in the platform has already been eroded.
Again - it's another dark pattern (not necessarily UX in this case) that has short-term gains for advertisers and businesses but alienates people in the long term. You benefit and we don't. That's why we'll always try to block your ads.
EC36339@reddit
"We should improve society somewhat"
"And yet, you are participating in it! I am very smart!"
hyrumwhite@reddit
They don’t need to work in the long run, they just need to work this quarter.
(They’re still stupid, but that’s the mindset behind them)
yawara25@reddit
And then this exact same mindset is applied to the greater economy.
Saithir@reddit
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thanks for making my day just a little much better with this 10/10 joke.
EliSka93@reddit
All I'm hearing is the south park "we're sorry" clip
av1ciii@reddit
Facebook’s “growth hacks” and dark patterns in the newsfeed made their app unusable for some, but it’s still popular and they have very high MAUs.
The Windows team has similarly been deploying a bunch of ridiculous patterns to get people to use Edge, OneDrive, etc. It alienates a bunch of users, and for others it doesn’t matter. In any case, Microsoft’s M365 biz is doing pretty well.
The thing about dark patterns is that they can reward you now through the next few years. Beyond that — who knows, it’s someone else’s problem. That’s the sad truth. :-(
andarmanik@reddit
Love the article, didn’t think about the onX attributes association with the implementation, but yeah that’s exactly what’s wrong, the implementation doesn’t match the name.
One thing I’d like to add, sorry to hijack, is that one cause for dark UX is A/B testing.
Often, UI modifications are chosen not just by designer but through experimentation. One common mistake i see is commonly used buttons being replaced by “newer, money making features.” I suspect this is due to A/B testing detecting that “placing the new button where users previously frequented maximized the A/B test’s score.