Reality is a Game

Game thinking from Adam Clare

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An Introduction To Dark UX Patterns

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On 19/02/2014

In Design

Like with most knowledge, user experience (UX) design can be used to “good” and “bad.” With UX there is a popular term to label ‘unethical’ design patterns: Dark Patterns. Let’s look at what dark UX patterns is and what issues arise around it.

What are Dark Patterns?

In short dark patterns are user interface (UI) that purposefully trick the user to do something that they didn’t want to do. This includes adding items to a user’s shopping cart without their knowledge or signing them up for mailing lists they don’t want to be on. It even includes placing ads so users accidentally click on them in your app.

By far, the best resource is Harry Brignull who has this great presentation that introduces Dark Patterns:

What makes a design pattern dark?

For a ton of examples, check out the great the Dark Patterns Library. There they have more categories than I’ve listed below as to what make a pattern dark, still here are the main causes of dark UX.

Inconsistency

UI and UX inconsistency is insanely annoying. This ranges from the frequencies of (and when) ads are being played to the swapping of buttons to get you to accidentally buy something. In App purchases try to get away with this sort of behaviour by training you to click in one spot for an option you want then swapping that spot to be a click for something else.

Zynga’s Words With Friends does this when you have the free version. They will switch the close dialog on ads they play around every so often so you accidentally click on ads.

Mislabeling or Obfuscating Options

Apple’s hiding of their ad tracking option in iOS 6 is a perfect example of this. Over at The Verge they have a dark pattern UX article that was inspired by Apple’s nonsense.

Easy to join, hard to leave

Joining a site, community, whatever is an easy process but leading is difficult. These designs make it hard to unsubscribe or otherwise not be bothered. Antivirus software is a notorious example of such annoyance.

This can include things that get you to sign up for a free month then automatically roll over into charging you a monthly fee. Apparently stamps.com does this.

Telling Your Friends

Friend invite :(

If you were on Facebook when games first appeared on the platform then you know why this is a bad idea. Or, if you ever have gotten an annoying email about joining some network that a friend as joined you know this is a bad idea. If you haven’t experience either of those then you are lucky.

Why dark patterns are bad

For one, you’re going user/customers/players are going to lose trust in what you do and will be more reluctant to return to what you provide.

Indeed, this can turn users away from your site as a larger problem of bad UX design. This can lead to bad UX causing bad search engine optimization (if that’s something you care about).

If you focus too much on metrics and analytics to asses success then you can find yourself only watching click throughs or ad clicks. This obsession can lead to a blindness of what really matters: providing a positive experience for your players/users.

The Verge article mentioned above also has a great example on a website failing because of its reliance on dark patterns. Experts Exchange hid information and confused users with their layout and tricked people into signing up for the site.

This is a good case study showing what can happen if you systematically use dark patterns as part of your growth strategy.

Experts Exchange could still be a dominant force today, but they’re not. They got greedy, they used dark patterns, and everyone got annoyed with them and migrated to a friendlier, more ethical competitor.

When you look at your customers in aggregate, it’s easy to be very detached and impersonal about it. To understand the reality of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your product, you have to zoom in.

Is this all bad?

Inherently designing a system for tricking people can be regarded as bullshit (as defined in this essay On Bullshit). Which to me means that it’s nearly impossible to make a dark pattern good.

So to leave this post on a positive note here’s an piece on using dark patterns for good.

Some Alternative Human Computer Interfaces For Games

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On 18/02/2014

In Experimental

With new computer interfaces getting more attention I’d like to take a quick moment to list a few of them. A couple years ago I linked to a funny interface and game: kiss bowling. You can see it in action here:

Here are other crazy ways to interact with computers (and thus games). The more practical ones are towards the bottom. It’s with noting that many of these nifty interfaces are thanks to a little device called an Arduino, which is an open source prototyping chip board. It’s also worth mentioning the MaKey MaKey which is a simple way to make your own custom controller.

Fruits and Vegetables

And here’s a MaKey MaKey in action creating music using fruits and vegetables:

The Tekken Piano:

The TekkenPiano from Mc Cool on Vimeo.

This is the final product of my project for interaction design. Took the whole semester, to get this to work but it was worth it. How it works: The piano sends a Midi-Signal, which is transferred to an arduino. According to the signals, the arduino triggers transistors, which then trigger inputs on a paewang PCB (This is the PCB of an arcadestick). The paewang is connected to an Xbox360 (you can also use it on PS3).

SUPER STREET FIRE: TURBO CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION

This is made by the fun loving people at Site3 coLaboratory.

[It] is a simulated fighting game in the style of Street Fighter. However, instead of playing a traditional video game, the participants interact with the game with motions and thoughts; wearing interactive sensors for each fist, and an EEG headband.

Google Glass

Let’s admit that this belongs in the ‘crazy’ section of this post as it makes you look like a glasshole and Google Glass gives people headaches (via Hacker News). After all, my mobile can accomplish just as much as Glass (although it’s in my pocket).

More sane HCI

Of course, there is the stuff that you (probably) already heard of like the Oculus Rift. An Oculus developer did an AMA on Reddit, there he provided this insight:

Scale that may look right on a screen will be off on the rift if its not exactly like it is in real life. HUDS don`t work. Menus need to be in 3D. Motion needs to be perfect or it will make you sick. For instance in half life you are sprinting everywhere and its very uncomfortable. head bob doesn’t work. cinematic cut scenes that take control of your head, will make you puke.

The Razer Hydra is essentially a complex two-handed joystick that knows its relative position. Combine this with the Oculus Rift and you got a stew going!

Use your hands
Noteworthy are both the Myo band and the Leap Motion. They have the same basic functionality of swinging your arms and pointing to interact with screens. There is an inherent problem with these sorts of interfaces though: your arms will get tired.

What makes these two interfaces interesting though is they are meant to augment your current workflow and not replace it.

There’s also the Kinect, Playstation Move, and a myriad of augmented reality apps.

I’ve also willingly ignored a ton of wearable tech as that would be a post on its own, same with voice control (like Siri and Google Voice).

There are tons of other weird HCI options that I’ve probably missed. Feel free to leave them in the comments.

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