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This talk was given at the Madgex Innovations Event (December 2010) at the Soho hotel in London. It’s a revised version of the original Dark Patterns talk given at UX Brighton 2010, containing a fair amount of new material, and a different intended audience: this talk is aimed at marketers and brand owners.
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Dirty marketing tricks that can harm your brand
DARK PATTERNS
As a brand-owner, what’s one of the worst things that could happen?
Marissa MayerVP, Search & User Experience Google
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Everyone wants to improve their conversion rates- This in itself is healthy.
DARK PATTERN
Tricks and traps
HONEST PATTERN
Candid Persuasion
DARK PATTERN: FRIEND SPAM
• Users don’t like their “voice” to be co-opted without their permission
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Friend_Spam
CreditExpert
“Having requested credit card details “to complete the report” I then find that they have taken 2 x payments of £7.99 from the card without my authority. These people are [...] devious and unscrupulous [...] obtaining revenue by small print deception.”
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review738914.html
DARK PATTERN: FORCED CONTINUATION
• Users don’t like surprises in their credit card bills!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Forced_Continuity
DARK PATTERN: TRICK QUESTIONS
• Users hate deceitful forms - they feel scammed, regardless of whether it’s legal!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Trick_Questions
All Dark Patterns have one thing in common:
POOR EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING:Why should I care about this stu!?
Your organisation is probably using tricks like this without you realising
You need to replace these Dark Patterns with Honest Patterns!
MADGEX CASE STUDY
How we used honest patterns to deliver great conversion rates for our job board email
alerts
EMAIL ALERT CREATION PAGEUser fills in form
SEARCH RESULTS PAGE User clicks “email me jobs like these”
LOG-IN / REGISTER PAGE User clicks register
REGISTRATION PAGEUser completes registration form,
EMAIL ACTIVATIONUser checks email, clicks link
• About 9 years ago, our original job board platform required users to register to create email alerts
• User Experience research showed huge potential for improvement
• Analytics showed Email alerts give DOUBLE the application rates our clients were getting from organic tra!c
Bottleneck
We had lots of options
OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT
OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rateCost: Annoying for users who feel tricked
OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does for logged in users
OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does for logged in users
Benefit: Massively inflate alert creation rateCost: Massively annoying for users who feel tricked
OPTION 3: BROADEN USERS’ SEARCH CRITERIA SO EMAIL ALERTS ARE ALWAYS SENT
“We couldn’t find you any matching jobs in Brighton today, so we emailed you some jobs in Birmingham
instead...”
OPTION 3: BROADEN USERS’ SEARCH CRITERIA SO EMAIL ALERTS ARE ALWAYS SENT
Benefit: Inflate number of emails sentCost: Users ask for one thing but get another
“We couldn’t find you any matching jobs in Brighton today, so we emailed you some jobs in Birmingham
instead...”
OPTION 4: REMOVE REGISTRATION BARRIER
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rateCost: there is no cost, everybody’s happy!
DARK PATTERN
Tricks and traps
HONEST PATTERN
Candid Persuasion
So, we went for option 4: removing the registration barrier from email alert creation.
We also removed the barrier from email alert deletion.
DID OUR USAGE OF HONEST PATTERNS PAY OFF?
June 2010
×2
June 2010
June 2010
×2
June 2010
Massive uplift in email alert creation
Zero complaints from users regarding email alerts
YOUR WEBSITE’S USER INTERFACE DEFINES YOUR BRAND’S PERSONALITY.
YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO BE.
Harry Brignull - http://darkpatterns.org
THANK YOU
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