
Stop Calling These Dark Design Patterns or Dark UX - tedeh
https://uxdesign.cc/stop-calling-these-dark-design-patterns-or-dark-ux-these-are-simply-asshole-designs-bb02df378ba
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ssivark
How about calling it fraud? :P

 _fraud: n. A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or
unlawful gain._

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

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xzion
There's a subreddit with the same name that calls out these kind of techniques
if you're hungry for more examples.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/](https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/)

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ehnto
Why not? It seems like a pretty good term to me. They are design patterns and
they have bad intentions.

This article is essentially saying "Stop using this term, I don't like it."

The author is a bit late to the party as well, the terms have been around for
at least 4 or 5 years.

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Reedx
He's saying the crime is worse than the punishment. The term is too soft
compared to what they're doing.

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ehnto
I guess I disagree that "asshole design" is less bad than "dark pattern". The
implication with the term dark pattern is that you are being evil. An asshole
is just someone that's annoying or selfish, but being evil means intentionally
malicious.

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greenyoda
> _Have you noticed that lately some people are trying to coin the terms "Dark
> UX" or "Dark Design Patterns"?_

I think that "Dark Patterns" is a pretty well established terminology by now.
I was effortlessly able to find a reference from five years ago:

[https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4640308/dark-patterns-
ins...](https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/29/4640308/dark-patterns-inside-the-
interfaces-designed-to-trick-you)

~~~
RobertRoberts
I think the argument he's trying to make is that "dark UX" can easily be
assumed to be "dark colored" instead of "evil/nasty/deceitful".

And I tend to agree, I had to momentarily consider what the phrase meant,
because I hadn't heard it in a long time. (not that I thought it was a color
reference, I knew what it meant)

Maybe "Deceitful UX/Design Patterns" or "Conman UX/Design Patterns" would be
more effective as phrase to accurately and quickly transfer meaning. This is a
simple marketing issue.

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greenyoda
If a term has already been around for a long time, you're probably going to
confuse more people by trying to change it than you'll help by making it more
intuitive. Also, the use of darkness as a metaphor for evil has been common in
English for centuries - think of the "Dark Side" in Star Wars, saying "Dark
Lord" to mean Satan, Sauron or some other fiendish character, etc. And it
shouldn't take much context to figure out whether someone is talking about
deceptiveness or color when reading about user interfaces.

There are lots of terminologies that are even more obscure but still well-
understood because they've been used for a long time:

\- "core dump" (even though computers with core memory are only found in
museums these days)

\- "carriage return" (even though output devices don't have a moving part
called a "carriage" anymore)

\- "dialing a phone" (even though phones don't have dials anymore)

\- The common use of a floppy disk-shaped icon to denote saving a file

~~~
RobertRoberts
> _...you 're probably going to confuse more people by trying to change it_

Confuse who? Techies that already know what it is, or pointy-haired-bosses
that make all the decisions? Give it a revolting, and undignified name, and
maybe it will stop being used.

While I applaud this work going into giving this phenomenon a name so it can
be shown the light. It needs a non-technical name to demonstrate how bad it
is.

> _There are lots of terminologies that are even more obscure but still well-
> understood because they 've been used for a long time:_

This is a _new_ phrase, created around 2010 [0], the same year the site was
registered [1]. You have a list of phrases, but none of them are proof we
shouldn't change this one, because yours are all technical terms. Dark UI
Pattern is clever phrase for a _marketing_ problem, not a technical one. And
"Dark pattern" is a very, very obscure and weak in meaning. Consider what is
more effective at getting an instantly recognizable response:

    
    
      -Dark UI Pattern
      vs
      -Dirty Rotten Button Design
    

That's a crap name, but describes the situation much more accurately. It does
matter to change the name if your intent is to describe that it's evil,
deceptive and manipulative. Here's George Carlin talking about the BS of weak
and impotent language. [3]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern)

[1] [https://darkpatterns.org/](https://darkpatterns.org/)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n2PW1TqxQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n2PW1TqxQk)

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diminoten
What's wrong with calling the patterns "Dark Design Patterns"? I couldn't tell
from the article, although those examples were pretty nasty, to be sure.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
I think the point is we shouldn’t be polite about it.

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Nomentatus
Ahole is a more general category, including sloppiness, is why. For example:
Blizzard's Hearthstone forces endless clicking by disabled people (and
everyone else) to get through their cards collection (if you press "t" you
won't go straight to cards starting with "t"), and doesn't allow you to turn
off the flashing during play if you have epilepsy. Your decks are always
presented in random order wasting enormous amounts of time, and on and on and
on. These aren't dark patterns (deliberate way of manipulating or deceiving),
it's just lazy uncaring Ahole design or pure idiocy. Be as ticked as you like
at dark design, but please don't blur the words (conflate the concepts.)

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so33
Many of these examples are outright deceptive. But I always thought that when
"dark patterns/dark UX" practices are discussed, people are referring to those
practices that are not overtly deceptive, but yet come up very close to the
line.

For a more forceful terminology, I would suggest perhaps re-appropriating a
term from urban design: Hostile architecture.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_architecture)

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scottmf
Most of the ones shown in this article aren’t really the best examples of Dark
Patterns IMO.

This trick Facebook Messenger uses to get your phone contacts is a good
example of how bad these things really are: [https://medium.com/@scf4/an-
example-of-a-dark-pattern-in-fac...](https://medium.com/@scf4/an-example-of-a-
dark-pattern-in-facebook-messenger-4211772e744f)

As developers we should be refusing to build features like this.

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newman8r
I have to admit, 'dirty screen' trick is kind of genius. I haven't used a
mobile device in years, never seen it in the wild.

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webjunkie
Actually not such a genius way to get clicks on your ads. The bounce rate on
their landing page must be pretty high. You want traffic to convert, not just
any click.

~~~
newman8r
I think it would depend on a lot of variables, if you're paying for
impressions and not clicks it would make more sense.

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wildpeaks
If "Dark Pattern" is not strong enough a term, how about something like "Con
Pattern"?

