I initially approached the game noticing techniques from the Dark Patterns reading in mind, as well as UI faux-pas:
- Misleading use of generally recognized and intuitive symbols and colours.
- Underlines and different colour text that are not links
- Use of green instead of red for negative affirmations
- Confusing wording (must, should, can, etc)
- Double negatives (if you do not…)
- Hiding command that would expedite the process (deselect/select)
- Disturbing pop ups with useless commands. (Timer and Help, “close” looks like trademark, the # of people ahead of me starts at 430 and increases by one when I click “Help”)
- Conflicting directives (Upload/Download in the same area)
- Confusing layout (selection boxes are inconsistently above or below the image)
- Forcing me to disclose personal information and upload a photo
- Including making it mandatory to select an option that I don’t like
- Inconsistent, inoperable and time consuming data entry fields (Age vs. birthday, Mrs. vs. Gender, door number picker)
- Forcing me to accept their cookies and spurious Terms & Conditions
I was moving at a good pace until the image identification pages. That’s when my approach went from analytical to game mode-big mistake! I started playing like I would and escape room, trying to use logic when selecting the images. Dissecting semantics, clicking everywhere looking for hidden links. I tried so many combinations to get past those four repeating screens and failed:
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- Glasses plural, therefore a sheet of pane is just glass
- “a” vs. no preceding articles.
- Not selecting items that had other objects in the image.
- Not to mention a deep dive into the existential meaning of “light” (that almost broke me).
All throughout, the timer and moving 1-2-3-4 were a constant distraction, almost antagonizing me. I finally vowed to quit at the 30-minute mark and I did. Five minutes into writing my experience, I went back to the game and tried one more option; selecting all the images on every set and voila. I am still not sure if that’s what actually worked or if the game was playing me and was going to let me pass regardless after a certain number of attempts. To be honest, I don’t care to find out if it means one more second on that site.
Well-played BAGAAR, 37 minutes of absolute frustration achieved!