I had a difficult time completing this task for what I believe is for two reasons. First, I had to unlearn all the navigation skills I had built up over my lifetime to surf the internet. The second is the website User Inyerface is dumb and purposefully designed to frustrate users. It has employed dark patterns in an almost comically frustrating way while not abiding by user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) principles.
The Laws of UX (2020) by Jon Yablonski had curated the best practices a designer would possess to build a successful user experience. These practices were divided into categories such as heuristic, principle, gestalt and cognitive bias. Each category contributes and is considerate of what it takes to enrich a user’s interaction with online tools and space. On the other hand, dark patterns have used similar principles but have taken a more sinister approach to “take advantage of our customers in the most effective manner” (Brignull, 2011). Navigating through each step of the User Inyerface website involved much more care and attention in order to avoid having to re-complete fillable windows or waste time exiting pop-up windows.
Contrarily, the user interface is more focused on the design of software or websites. The user interface design can be summarized down into four key factors as highlighted by Nick Babich in his article, The 4 Golden Rules of UI Design (2019). Babich’s key ideas aid in guiding users to use technology to navigate different designs within the software effectively. The key points consisted of:
- Place users in control of the interface
- Make it comfortable to interact with a product
- Reduce cognitive load
- Make user interfaces consistent
Nevertheless, User Inyerface managed to do the complete opposite from what Babich has highlighted as the key points of consideration for the user interface. It is the principles from both Yablonski (2020) and Babich (2019) theories that are skewed and meddled with that Brignull (2011) highlights as dark patterns that are employed in a sinister way by User Inyerface to frustrate and manipulate users.
References
Babich, N. (2019, October 7). The 4 Golden Rules of UI Design. Adobe UI Design. https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/ui-design/4-golden-rules-ui-design/
Brignull, H. (2011, November 1). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. A List Apart. https://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs-honesty-in-ui-design/
User Inyerface – A worst-practice UI experiment. (2019). Userinyerface.com; Bagaar. https://userinyerface.com/
Yablonski, J. (2020). LAWS OF UX : design principles for persuasive and ethical products. O’reilly Media, Inc, USA.