The power of the dark side - Dark patterns and Mobile UX Design

THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE Dark patterns and Mobile UX Design

Hi, I’m Emilia

@2014 Sparkling Labs! 2!

Emilia Ciardi [email protected]

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The 10 Golden Rules of Mobile UX! 3!

A Dark Pattern is a type of user interface that appears to have been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things which are not in their interest and is usually at their expense.

Harry Brignull

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A Dark Pattern is a type of user interface that appears to have been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things which are not in their interest and is usually at their expense.

Harry Brignull

VS

Anti-Pattern Doesn’t work

Counter-productive

Plain bad design

Poorly executed

Easily identified with metrics

Never intentional

Works…. In its own way

Productive for one party

Exploits human weaknesses

Carefully crafted

Difficult to identify

Not always intentional


Dark Pattern

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From a business perspective, as designers, our job is to compel people to do what we want them to do.

Robert Hoekman Jr. - Designing the obvious

The 10 Golden Rules of Mobile UX! 7!We have become accustomed to grey persuasive tricks

Science says… Manipulation and trickery are in our nature ²  by age 4, 90% of children know how to lie ²  60% of people can't go 10 minutes without lying ²  90% of people looking for a date online lie in their profile ²  humans are lied to as many as 200 times a day

8!

Apple used to make privacy related information hidden and tricky…


…currently it’s just tricky


Forced Continuity: free trial silently rolls-over into a monthly paid service unless the consumer intervenes


Forced Continuity: free trial silently rolls-over into a monthly paid service unless the consumer intervenes


Definitely DARK!

Sneak into cart


Sneak into cart


Definitely DARK!


…in the real world

Smart default or Forced Continuity?


Smart default or Forced Continuity?


GREYISH

Organ Donation

Johnson & Goldstein (2003) 18!

So… should we embrace the dark side of the force?

19!

#1 Busy call center

20!

#2 Public shaming

21!

#3 Short term profit, long term damage

22!

What happened to CreditExpert?


Established brands have a lot to lose So why do they bother? ²  high pressure work environment ²  huge emphasis on metrics ²  social proof ²  not automatically detectable

24!

Why do we bother talking about them? Dark patterns are an astonishing — but nonetheless surprising — way to learn more about good design.

25!


Notification Nightmare Using notifications against the user’s interests

27!

Notification Nightmare Using notifications against the user’s interests ²  Put the user in control ²  Granular level settings ²  Smart default ²  Make notification personal 28!

Permission Machine Gun Firing away permission requests

29!

Permission Machine Gun Firing away permission requests

30!

²  Lazy permission requests ²  Permission priming

Permission priming


Bait and Switch The oldest trick in the book

32!

Hotels.com - Web


Hot

els.

com

–

Mob

ile A

pp


Friend Spam aka Growth Hacking

35!

Misdirection Confusing the user for profit

37!

38!

Why do the Yankees always win? The other team can’t stop looking at the pinstripes.

Frank W. Abagnale Sr.

Day

s.am

app


Day

s.am

app

Price Comparison Prevention

41!

Papa

Joh

n’s

Pizz

a Ap

p


Papa

Joh

n’s

Pizz

a Ap

p


Road Block Restrict or stop the completion of a user’s task with something else

44!


Reviews Manipulation Funnel bad reviews away from the store

46!

Rev

iew

s

The 10 Golden Rules of Mobile UX! 47!Apple’s review-on-delete dialog

(2008) Appirater

(2009)

Apps

fire


Embe

r


Circ

a

Manipulation/Coercion

Deceptive

Disregard user interest

Shoving

Persuasion

Transparent

Upfront about intent

Nudging

Thanks, and may the Force be with you.

@sparklinglabs [email protected] www.sparklinglabs.com