
Dark Patterns are designed to confuse and enroll - aburan28
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/dark-patterns-are-designed-to-trick-you-and-theyre-all-over-the-web/
======
partiallypro
Stamps.com is so scammy. You sign up for a free trial, then get enrolled
without asking you into their payment plan. Then when you go to cancel, you
can't. You have to call. But guess what? It has weird hours. When you finally
do call during their hours it's a machine that you're talking to, not a
person.

Ok, so you have hours of when I can cancel...clearly not because you have
shift hours, since I'm talking to a machine. So why do you have specified
hours?

Stamps.com billed me for 8 months before I noticed they were billing me. I
only noticed it because I was doing my taxes. The billing size was just small
enough to fly under my radar, but just big enough to hurt a bit. I feel that
chose that pricing for that reason.

Anyhow, I saw they were in this story, so I felt I would expand upon their
"dark patterns."

~~~
Bartweiss
I have yet to work out whether "limited hours for an automated system" is a
dark pattern, or sheer stupidity.

The most horrifying variant I've seen recently was a government __website
__that kept 9am-5pm hours. No human interaction or real-time events anywhere,
but logins were locked after business hours. I 'm guessing they didn't want to
arrange special downtime periods for changes, and the only alternative they
could think of was 16 hours/day of scheduled downtime.

It's a bad day when registered mail would be _easier_ than using the automated
system.

~~~
s_kilk
> ...a government website that kept 9am-5pm hours...

Sometimes this is done because the "opening times" are baked into existing
process, (or in some cases, legislation), and so the digital replacement for
the old meat-and-paper process must be subject to the same seemingly crazy
time restrictions.

It seems mad, but if you're an underfunded branch of the state, trying to
replace a paper-based process with a website, on a staff of junior developers
and over-stretched project managers, well....

EDIT: or the process hinges on an aging perl/oracle/Solaris stack, with a pile
of cron jobs which process the day's activities overnight. And of course, the
definition of a "business day" is baked into the legislation, so the first job
needs to start at 5:10 sharp.

Source: I've seen it with my own eyes.

~~~
middlering
Actually the reason usually is parity across digital divide. So those without
access to digital services are not disadvantaged by being forced to use
business hours, while digitally-enabled get access 24 hours.

Free internet at libraries could've been a way to work around this inequality
of access, but the libraries have business hours too

------
someone7x
The thing about dark patterns is that feels like an abuse of the commons.
Because of scummy practices like this I am absolutely less willing to explore
a site that requests my email, or buy something from a random site (I just see
if it's on amazon and buy it there).

For example, a few days ago there was a Show HN about PlateJoy, which sounded
really interesting. But, the only way I could learn about it was to enter my
email and take a quiz. Now enters the part where the antics of countless other
bad actors takes its toll on an otherwise innocent website; I decide it isn't
worth the risk and move a long.

~~~
wldcordeiro
Yep, AllTrails recently went with a dark-pattern, want to see any info on the
trail? Sign-up. If you don't you'll get a brief flash of the detail page
before redirecting to a sign-up form.

~~~
notatoad
This is basically what any discussion on dark patterns i have ever seen
devolves into: "a service i use has an interaction i don't like. it's a dark
pattern." the whole term is basically a meaningless buzzword now.

requiring an email address to access a service is no more of a dark pattern
than requiring payment to access a service. they're taking something of value
in exchange for providing something of value. it's only a "dark pattern" if
they trick you into providing your email address somehow.

~~~
nitrogen
Loading the content then redirecting to or popping over an uncloseable email
form is a bait and switch, especially if you are coming from a search engine
result.

~~~
cmdrfred
Exactly, its a SEO scam. I'm sure Google will figure out a way to stop it and
give them the 40th page result they deserve.

~~~
wldcordeiro
Also it used to not be this way, there were more details hidden behind the
login but the general info used to be accessible with no login, it's only in
the recent months that they switched to hiding most content.

------
sp332
Not just the web either. This morning Cortana turned green and said "Oh hey!"
in my taskbar. I clicked it and it gave me the regular interface - there was
no alert or anything, they just wanted to boost their Cortana interaction
numbers for the day. That's wasting my time and making it less likely that I
will pay attention if there is an actual alert later.

~~~
ivraatiems
I can't stand Cortana. I honestly, genuinely don't want to talk to my
computer. I realize I might be in the minority on that, but I actually type
fast enough and know what I'm doing enough not to need to ask an "assistant"
to do it for me. Unless and until my computer is Samantha from _Her_ , I don't
need to talk to it.

What's worse, Cortana has ruined Windows search. Searching from the Start Menu
is way less expansive and useful in 10 than was in Windows 7. (I never used 8,
so I can't comment there.) It's like it's punishing me for not using something
that breaks how I want to work anyway.

~~~
sp332
So, just type then? I use Cortana to set reminders occasionally, but I can't
remember the last time I used the voice interface. My PC at home doesn't even
have a microphone.

~~~
ivraatiems
Oh yeah, I do. The problem is that Cortana has supplanted basic search
functionality. As far as I can tell, when you type a search in the Start menu
you're still going through Cortana, technically (that's why she's always
running even when she's turned off from listening to you). Cortana has access
to a limited subset of your computer. She can't search things outside your
C:\Users\\[your username] directory. Regular Windows Search doesn't have that
limitation, but to get to regular search you have to explicitly go looking for
it now.

So while I used to be able to search for a folder on my D:\ drive by hitting
start and typing its name, now I have to either go to the actual Windows
Search, or navigate to the folder manually. Even if that folder is indexed in
Windows Search, and I have full permissions on it.

~~~
perspectivep
You're upset that search got rebranded to Cortana? It can definitely search
your entire PC. I just typed the name of a script I have sitting on my D:
drive and pressed enter and it opened it.

~~~
ivraatiems
It can't. I have a Super User post [1] that describes the problem in detail.
Windows Search and Cortana appear to be two separate things. If what I
describe in my post is working on your computer, we should talk... I need to
find a solution to this issue and Microsoft Support couldn't help.

Can you tell me - do you have Cortana's voice stuff enabled? Do you have her
"learning" about you enabled in settings? Did you upgrade to W10 or do a fresh
install?

[1] [http://superuser.com/questions/1105529/cant-search-
folders-o...](http://superuser.com/questions/1105529/cant-search-folders-
outside-of-c-users-you-from-the-windows-10-start-menu)

~~~
perspectivep
I'm running the Anniversary Update. Maybe things got better. It also sounds
like you might need to rebuild your search index and make sure all the folders
you want to be searchable are indexed.

~~~
ivraatiems
Yeah... I did that, and sfc /scannow, which was also recommended. All the
necessary directories are fully indexed. If the Anniversary Update fixes it
I'll be a happy camper.

------
gthtjtkt
Experienced this recently with Hello Fresh. The 'Cancel Subscription' button
was so hard to find that I had to spend 10 minutes Googling it (the placement
had changed over time and was always difficult to find, so a lot of the search
results were no longer relevant). You had to click a button to reveal the
cancellation link, and it was a tiny line of grey text on a beige background.

Then, to make it better, they started calling me every day after I canceled my
subscription.

I was going to recommend them to all my friends and family, but instead I did
the opposite -- I told everyone to avoid them and only mentioned the negative
aspects of their service.

~~~
maxxxxx
AOL was notorious for almost being impossible to cancel. I remember when I had
Netflix for a while and decided to cancel it was really easy to do so.
Although I canceled that alone gave me a positive impression of Netflix.

~~~
zeta0134
Ditto to this. I realized I had an unused Netflix subscription, and not only
did they cancel it, the rep apologized, said that happens a lot, and helped me
negotiate a full refund with no questions asked. I came back a few months
later when the Flash came out, re-subscribed, and have been happy turning it
on once in a while to watch shows, then back off again when I'm less
interested.

It's been lovely. More companies should do this, because it makes me actively
want to support them.

~~~
talmand
I worked for a company that offered a software product that was paid on a
monthly subscription. Since a number of the companies in this industry were
seasonal, we made it possible within the software to make their own license
inactive. No phone call was necessary, but they could if they wanted. So as
long as their license was inactive they wouldn't be charged. If they
reactivated their license they would start being charged again. They would
also immediately get any updates they missed out on while inactive.

------
noxToken
AVG had (possibly still does) a dark pattern with their free AV software, and
I fell for it once.

I was in the middle of a game when the stupid ad for Web TuneUp[0] appeared
from my task bar over the screen. The linked image is exactly how it appeared
with the auto-confirm box pre-checked. In a rush to dismiss the ad to get back
to my match, I accidentally clicked the OK button instead of the tiny decline.

Of course, uninstalling that travesty was a nightmare.

[0]: [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/01/avg-putting-millions-of-
chr...](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/01/avg-putting-millions-of-chrome-users-
at-risk/)

~~~
scholia
I install Unchecky on every PC that comes near me....

[https://unchecky.com/](https://unchecky.com/)

~~~
nitrogen
Then there was the dark pattern (in BitTorrent Inc's official client IIRC?)
where you had to check some boxed and uncheck others to avoid all malware.
Does Unchecky handle those situations?

~~~
scholia
Sorry, I haven't seen that. I would guess not....

------
yedpodtrzitko
The worst thing I've seen is G2A Shield - it takes 10 steps to deactivate it,
and each step has the "cancel" button much more dominant than the "continue"
button, see: [http://imgur.com/a/PUwPC](http://imgur.com/a/PUwPC)

~~~
jonlucc
This looks remarkably similar to Audible's unsubscribe flow. I was a member,
but I've had less time to listen and increased my podcast count, so I decided
to cancel and pick it back up in a year or so.

They ask a million times if you're sure and then offer another million other
options (suspend the account for a few months, after which they will
automatically charge you again). After you get through that, including a
screen warning that you will lose unused credits, they offer a plan that will
let you keep the credits you've already paid for by paying them another,
smaller sum (I think $10 a year).

I will definitely think hard before reactivating.

~~~
bad_user
What really pissed me off about Audible is that they offered me a special
offer after initiating the cancellation process, in a fully automated process.

Maybe other people like that, but this basically tells me that their good
customers pay more than they have to, because they are fools that don't
complain, possibly subsidizing the grumpy ones. And I find this to be totally
unacceptable.

For anybody interested in an Audible alternative, check this out:
[http://downpour.com](http://downpour.com)

That's DRM-free, high quality audio books at comparable prices.

~~~
freshhawk
You only get that special offer the first time you cancel as far as I can
tell. But really, nothing about Audible is in any way defensible, I know this
because I happily tried to take advantage of that special offer thing.

------
Grue3
Here's my most recent dark pattern fail.

I tried to use Uber for the first time yesterday (in Moscow). The car wouldn't
come for way too long, so I clicked cancel and thought that was it. I even
selected a reason for cancelling. As I was walking home, a driver called me
saying that he had arrived. I said that I had cancelled the trip a long time
ago. Then the app showed that my trip cost 0 and asked to rate the driver,
which I did.

When I came home, I discovered that they sneakily took money for that trip! I
complained to the support and they said it's working as intended, but they
refunded me... in bonus points that can only be used to pay for Uber, which I
never intended to use again after this "experience".

~~~
otterley
Write them back and tell them you don't want credits, and they'll refund your
money.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Its a dark pattern that you have to ask specifically to get your money back in
the form of currency and not credit. I was actually really surprised about
this too when I had to get a trip refund from Uber.

------
mknocker
Some of these cases are not only dark patterns, they constitute was it legally
known as fraud. If you deceive someone in order to gain a financial advantage,
it is fraud. The problem is that going against those gigantic companies is
very difficult.

~~~
FireBeyond
And then others aren't dark patterns. One of the first examples, British
Airways, is pretty unfairly called out.

The article says that they imply "cheapest at the top". No, the flights aren't
shown "cheapest at the top", and they never imply they are. They're sorted in
chronological order.

There is a summary item that says the lowest fare for a booking class that
day, but that's all.

~~~
ViViDboarder
The author used it as an example of something that may just be an unintuitive
UI.

~~~
fullshark
" British Airways lists flights that are the second-lowest price as the
lowest,"

That sentence makes it sound like they deliberately always put the 2nd lowest
price as the lowest every time. It was pretty misleading or poorly written.

~~~
yaelwrites
See [http://darkpatterns.org/british-airways-distract-from-
cheape...](http://darkpatterns.org/british-airways-distract-from-cheapest-
option/).

~~~
FireBeyond
I think that's still really stretching. "In fact, it's only the lowest price
in that ticket class".

If I saw those boxes across the board, like in their example image, it doesn't
take a second thought, it's "obvious" (to me anyway), that those are the
"lowest, per class".

~~~
yaelwrites
Yeah, that's why I described it as an examples of a bad design choice that may
be accidental rather than a dark pattern. I do still think it's misleading,
though.

------
SNvD7vEJ
Adobe flash update notification always have the McAfee Antivirus trial
installer pre-selected by default.

Pisses me off every time.

~~~
oblio
Reader has the same thing :(

~~~
cptskippy
I uninstalled Reader when in started forcing UI toolbars to be open an visible
every time a PDF was opened even after I'd explicitly hidden them. I haven't
looked back either.

I have yet to encounter a PDF that doesn't render correctly in FireFox's built
in PDF.JS. I know Reader has additional features but I've honestly never used
them. You can easily set FireFox as your default PDF view and you're off to
the races.

My only gripe is the PDF icon is now FireFox's icon.

~~~
Endy
I can show you several form-fillable PDF files which FF does not merely break,
but absolutely destroys. Then again, I'm not interested in my Web browser
invading my offline activity.

------
chimprich
One pattern I've seen recently that's been increasingly prevalent (but I
haven't seen discussed anywhere) is of a form where a site gives you two
options in a dialog box along the lines of:

Would you like to sign up to our newsletter? o [[[ OK!! ]]] o No I'm an idiot
and I don't want to save money or hear about the latest job offers that may
change my life

(Exaggerated slightly.)

I'm not sure this if this technically counts as a dark pattern as it's fairly
transparent but I find it is very annoying because it is an attempt to force a
user to state an opinion they probably don't hold if they don't want to sign
up for whatever service.

I assume it does work or it wouldn't spread so widely but exploiting people's
reluctance to criticise themselves seems quite unpleasant: I imagine this
affects people with the weakest self-esteem the most.

~~~
prplhaz4
From a previous HN discussion...IMO, obnoxious and genius.

[http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/](http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11855787](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11855787)

~~~
Bartweiss
I'd be more willing to call it genius if it weren't so popular with sites that
can't deliver. Forcing people to click "I don't want to get rich" when your
site is pushing crappy stock tips just seems like a way to make users hate
you.

------
CM30
If you're in the UK, ordering a pizza from a chain gives you forms with a ton
of these patterns. Like the incredibly misleading 'tick the boxes below if you
don't want to receive an email/text message with future promotions' thing.

Or the awkward auto coupon set up, which seems like it was designed to
minimise the amount of money people were saving through codes. It's as if they
realised "hang on, lots of people are using 30-40% off codes" so stuck a cheap
5% off one in my default. The user then has to deliberately remove the auto
applied one to get the better offer, which is something many people won't
bother to do. Or maybe I'm just overly suspicious, who knows.

Either way, they make the sites rather awkward to use.

~~~
unfortunateface
If you're talking about the one starting with a D and ending in ominos - Put
all fake data in except for address and pay cash on delivery. In my experience
even thisisafakeemail@example.com and 00000 555 555 for phone number works a
treat.

------
JTon
I'm happy to see mainstream technews bringing this topic to a wider audience.
As I'm sure most HN regulars are aware, we've had many high ranking posts on
this topic

For those wanting to go right to the source:
[http://darkpatterns.org/](http://darkpatterns.org/)

~~~
blendo
Things were pretty cool until 1994. Then Canter and Siegel unleashed one of
the first commercial dark patterns:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Sie...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel)

It's been a race to the bottom ever since. Dave Egger's fine and breezy novel
"The Circle" illustrates the ethical issues quite nicely.

------
nommm-nommm
Those extra fees at the very end infuriate me the most - it makes comparison
shopping impossible. Thats including not giving me a shipping estimate until
after I enter my shipping address and payment info. I want to know what I am
going to pay before entering my payment details!! Hotel "resort fees" and
cable or Internet subscriptions are the worst offenders, I honestly can't
believe either is legal.

~~~
heywire
As someone currently paying a $22/day parking fee at a hotel, I know exactly
what you mean. However, in my case it was a booking through Hotwire, so I
didn't even know the hotel name in advance.

~~~
nommm-nommm
22 dollars is absolutely ridiculous for parking (except maybe in NYC...) but
at least you can opt out of parking by not bringing a car. "Resort fees" are
not optional thus should be included with the cost of the room. Same with
booking/processing fees when buying tickets.

------
LeonM
What about those 'free' WiFi access points that require you to login with
Facebook for 'prevention of abuse', and then abuse your Facebook account by
posting you were there.

~~~
noxToken
Do you have an example of that? That _can 't_ be a thing.

~~~
edwhitesell
It's essentially another dark pattern. In accordance with the use policy of
the Facebook APIs you can't require a like in exchange for something. If you
see that, definitely report the offender to Facebook.

Source: I used to be involved with a WiFi company that offered Facebook
"login".

Edit: clarified my involvement

~~~
throwanem
> In accordance with the use policy of the Facebook APIs you can't require a
> like in exchange for something.

Unless you're Facebook, I guess: [https://www.facebook.com/business/facebook-
wifi](https://www.facebook.com/business/facebook-wifi)

~~~
edwhitesell
Sure, they can make/break their own rules. It's been a while since I've looked
at this in detail, but my understanding is the "Like" aspect of it is
optional. On that page:

>After checking in, people will be asked if they also want to like your Page
so you can continue to connect with them on Facebook.

Of course, if using Facebook WiFi, you do check-in to the location which
triggers a host of other "features" within your Facebook account and
experience. Similar to if you check-in to a location with the standard
Facebook App.

I can see the argument that it's an extension of that experience, while
providing WiFi service in exchange for it.

------
amelius
> Though perhaps the worst class of dark pattern is forced continuity, the
> common practice of collecting credit card details for a free trial and then
> automatically billing users for a paid service without an adequate reminder.

The fact that this is even possible makes me feel like I'm in the middle ages.

~~~
ipsin
Oh God, there's a special place in hell for stamps.com.

I did not read the fine print, but made the mistake of thinking that it was a
partnership with USPS and did not incur extra fees (like a crazy $13 monthly
fee, even if you're not using the service).

By the time I discovered that, I also discovered that you can sign up on line,
but you have to cancel by phone (or "being on hold", I discovered it).

Seriously. Never stamps.com.

~~~
Spooky23
I never understood why stamps.com existed.

* Anything that isn't first class mail can be accommodated by USPS.com, Paypal and others.

* If you mail enough letters to justify a label printer, you can get a better deal on a meter.

* If you hate going to the post office, you can spend the same money that you spend on Stamps.com bullshit to buy a bunch of stamps from the post office, which are now good forever.

My mom fell into this trap a few years ago. The easiest way to disengage: Use
a good credit card like Amex. Call twice, hold for 60 seconds, hang up.
Dispute the charge. Do this 2-3x.

~~~
nommm-nommm
>* Anything that isn't first class mail can be accommodated by USPS.com,
Paypal and others.

Even PayPal does first class mail too! and they allow you to buy shipping for
non-ebay packages too! And the rates are _better_ than stamps.com.

I too can't understand stamps.com other than to fool people who don't know
better. I signed up for their free trial in order to get a $10 postage scale
and cancelled right away. I got to talk to a human who tried to convince me
why I needed it. I was like "ebay/paypal/amazon/usps are cheaper."

------
Animats
This offers an opportunity - a browser plug-in that brings up a warning
whenever a known page with a dark pattern is accessed. That would be a useful
feature to add to an ad-blocker.

I've been thinking of writing a simple add-on just to get rid of that annoying
"Get to Google Faster" box Google puts on every search result if Google isn't
your default search engine. (Google _is_ my default search engine, but because
I have their tracking blocked, their web site doesn't know this.)

Companies that do this sort of crap may not win much by it in the long run.
One of the reasons for Amazon's success is easy order cancellation. That's
what makes one-click ordering work. Their innovation was not that you can
order with one click; it's that you can easily undo a one-click order. That
makes it a safe feature for consumers. Most businesses still don't get this.

------
benologist
Dark patterns need to start winning FTC attention, period. If it's somehow not
already criminal to cunt people about, lie and mislead and steal from them on
web pages that needs to change too.

------
jimrandomh
People should use the credit card dispute process more often. If a company has
made it unreasonably difficult to cancel, or charged money that you didn't
actually agree to pay (because they hid the notice too well), that's exactly
what chargebacks are for.

~~~
deejbee
I tried that with a so called credit checking agency in the UK called "Credit
Expert". These [scumbags] deserve a Dark Pattern gold star. To see your credit
score you have to sign up with a credit card for a subscription. They know
full well that everyone wants to just make sure that their credit score is ok,
not be charged a monthly rate. They tell you it will cost X a month so you try
to cancel within the given time. You have to call a phone number- can't do it
online. That's also deliberate. You have to wait x minutes on the phone until
you get to their cancellations department. I tell them I want to cancel. They
say I 'signed up' and cancelled a year before so they are going to charge me
the first month anyway. I am forced to accept and I call my bank a perform a
chargeback. 2 months later the chargeback is reversed and I'm charged the full
amount because the bank apparently investigated and deemed it a valid
transaction.

------
gilgongo
How does Harry Brignull get his dark patterns site covered so regularly? About
once a year for the past decade, somebody does an article about it. Weird.

Anyway. I'm a designer and my work has even featured on his site (after he did
some freelancing with us - cheeky begger). His implication that people like me
sit around trying to making life harder for customers is complete bollocks. We
don't. Businesses just don't. It's bad business and nobody would willing do
it.

Usually (and I grant their might be a tiny number of exceptions) they have to
do things crappily because of constraints beyond their control. It may _seem_
malicious to the likes of a freelance design-and-run merchant like Brignull,
but it's not. It can also just be clueless visual designers wanting to make
things pretty at the expense of being usable. But mostly it's just hidden
constraints.

But hey who cares. It's good rant material.

~~~
Bartweiss
I did notice that the most common 'trick question' is a setup where "accept
our emails" and "accept third-party emails" have opposite checkbox behavior,
and it's the same behavior system in every example. My first thought was that
it's probably a quirk in some shared service/template, or else regulatory
weirdness. Hanlon's Razor and all that.

But the claim that no one is intentionally annoying/scamming customers is a
bit of a joke. Good businesses don't, and mistakes happen, but a lot of the
entries on that site are obviously, consistently screwing their customers
(RyanAir, anyone?) There are, in fact, entire businesses that exist to screw
unsuspecting customers with rollover billing, data sales, and opt-outs. Among
other things, if you're extracting value from customers once each and they
don't know your company name, there isn't any consequence to mistreating them.

Broadly, I see three things on that site. There are failures of design and
constraint, but there are also dark patterns (where you're basically sincere,
but manipulating people with things like opt-outs), and a fair amount of
straight-up abuse (where you have victims instead of customers).

~~~
gilgongo
A very small number of people may intentionally sit down to design systems
that purposefully trick users into doing things they don't want to do.
However, to lump that in as he does with a load of other things that are
basically not being done from choice is silly. Yes, they are not 100% good
things, but they are not actively malicious either. Intent. Culpability..

------
ccvannorman
Is there such a thing as Yelp for websites where they are scored for their UX
with DarkPattern being a scored attribute?

I would love to check a new website against this list, and I would also spend
my expensive time to add to this list to report dark pattern websites as they
upset me enough to take action.

------
joeblau
I'm wondering if there would be any value in an Anti-Dark Pattern plugin?
Basically a browser plugin that un-does all of the dark patterns companies use
to try and trick people and give you a straight result.

~~~
grenoire
The amount of work put into it may not necessarily be worth it the gains,
given how many different websites there are with varying implementations of
these patterns.

~~~
noxToken
Make it open source, and the community will probably maintain it. I'm sure
that if a list of sites were given, fixes for the dark patterns would be
submitted regularly.

~~~
acdha
> Make it open source, and the community will probably maintain it

… or fill the issue tracker with troubleshooting requests, demands that
someone else code something they think needs to exist, long rants about
whether something should or should not be included, etc. Open source
maintenance is far from free.

~~~
kardos
You don't have to be a BDFL, you can delegate maintenance work to community
recruits as it scales up.

~~~
acdha
It's nice when that works out but it's unfortunately not uncommon to have
projects which don't attract volunteers, attract volunteers who have
time/interest in fixing one particular thing but not maintaining it smoothly
over time, or which simply cycle through people as the cycle of
enthusiasm->overload->burnout->resignation repeats.

As a community we tend to neglect this side of things since it's neither a fun
technical problem nor something a one-time effort can fix, but it deprives the
open-source world of too many good developers.

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hobaak
I can chip in my experience for hour of code event. I volunteered to help run
some sessions. Most of the things that we did was to give a bunch of website
out of Hour of Code website. We made sure that the usage of coding exercise
doesn't have to make the users register. Alas, in spite of instructions, many
students and parents still were not able to skip the page asking for
registration. Of course, some sites were more deliberate to place registration
as if without it, nothing is going to happen. They say it is growth tactic. I
say it is abusive one.

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thereact
Some good examples of intentionally misleading web design patterns here.

As a counter, for those looking to create GOOD UI and UX or want to try and
avoid unintentionally bad designs, I wholeheartedly recommend this video on UI
tenets and traps: [https://vimeo.com/168472466](https://vimeo.com/168472466)

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greggman
Not sure if this is a dark pattern but on Airbnb the "report listing" link
disappears the moment you scroll. Searching for it I couldn't find it.

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angry-hacker
I feel like arstech way of splitting an article to two pages is also a dark
pattern. Or very annoying at best.

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JadeNB
I love Siracusa's Mac OS reviews, but it was a pain to try to queue one of
those up for offline reading (26 pages or more!).

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andrewclunn
The audio for his voice is so quiet.

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EGreg
The site itself has a dark css theme. Made reading about "dark patterns" that
much scarier. It's actually an interesting phenomenon -- how the experience is
changed by the site you read it on.

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pc86
TIL a grey background (despite the entire content area being white) is a dark
theme.

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cptskippy
You have to click on the hamburger menu and choose the dark theme. It uses the
light theme by default.

