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Dark Design Patterns and the issue of tricking users.

dislekciadislekcia
edited in Tutorials
I'm really interested in user interface design and UX in general, so this article on Dark Patterns grabbed me and didn't let go. I think it (and the related darkpatterns.org site) offers a really useful way to think about things we should all avoid doing in our game interfaces.

Plus it's just hella interesting seeing what kinds of trickery people get up to ;)
Thanked by 1Elyaradine

Comments

  • TuismTuism
    Fascinating... And quite commonplace in "marketing". Especially the mobile operators and content providers. Things are designed for people to not notice. Yuck.
  • staveystavey
    Thanks for this, really insightful article. I too am interested in UX and UI design.
  • FanieGFanieG
    So that's where "Hello Nurse" comes from? Sneaky Sneaky "Poffadders" :) Very insightful article. Thanks
  • EvanGreenwoodEvanGreenwood
    Sms's saying you are in some or other system and you can opt out of these sms's by smsing back. <- My personal most hated.
  • TuismTuism
    Skype's just asked to install an upgrade.

    And sneak in "set Bling as your default browser" (checked by default) right after "Install Click to Skype plugin" (also checked by default).

    Microsoft essentially bought a giant ass banner for their millions in Skype. Bastards.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • dislekciadislekcia
    Dark patterns in games are things like having a stock of lives in an endless runner game, using them all up if your first try at the game and then finding out that they're actually a thing you have to pay tokens to get and those tokens cost money. It's doubly annoying because you end up assuming these things are given to you every time you start a run, which is natural seeing as they only appear after you've started playing the game and aren't visible in the menu anywhere before that point. So the game has you essentially waste your "free" continues on a set of shit runs (because there's no way you're good at the game the first 3 times you die) and then teaches you that there's a stock of things that somehow persist between play sessions and you have to give them money to get more.

    And I'm not ragging on F2P games here, there are loads of ways to have a similar sort of "pay gate" for continues that isn't a dark pattern: You could give everyone 1 life per run for free and then they could buy 2 more if they wanted them when that 1 ran out; You could establish that there's a limited set of continues early on in the menu and/or pop up a confirmation box that says these things are limited when you try to use them at first (which would actually allow you to charge more for them, seeing as they'd be considered more valuable); You could have a regenerating timer in your menu for your next continue to be awarded and then charge people to fast-forward that...

    But because the emphasis is on trying to create places that people could pay you to keep playing, it seems like the "most efficient" thing to do in order to get money is to try and trick people. I hate that.
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