I was relieved when I made it through what I refer to as “dark patterns” game as it had a hidden goal we needed to achieve, which made it tricky (Brignull, 2011). For this task, it took me 17 minutes and 46 seconds to complete after several tries. I became very anxious trying to meet the criteria for the password that asked me to include “Cyrillic character,” so not only were the instructions in small print but they used complex wording (Brignull, 2011). In addition, this game I found had tricky questions which would confuse participants; for example, when asked to select bows, all the images could have been a bow (Brignull, 2011). Once I discovered that the interface was trying to trick me, I started to enjoy playing the game once I finally figured out how to succeed. It was interesting to me when I understood their strategy in trying to confuse the participant.
“What’s clever here is that the level of deception is very subtle” (Brignull, 2011)
If you were to read the question they were asking, again and again, you would see that the wording had more than one meaning, so this was a subtle deception. While you are engaging in the game, there is a pop-up box that took me a bit of time to figure out that you have to click “send to the bottom.”
Making it through the last “Are you a human?” step. I kept thinking I completed it correctly, but each time I was forced to recheck my answers. It took me a while to realize my mistakes in selecting my answer.
Participating in this week’s task was undoubtedly mind-boggling. I was able to see the interface techniques web designers would use as a strategy to manipulate the audience with misleading concepts for consideration.
References
Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.
delian gaskell
December 4, 2021 — 10:23 pm
Hi Susana – I enjoyed reading through your post detailing your experience with this super frustrating website! I too felt many of the same things you did (as probably most people were meant to). I felt so anxious when the clock was set to 60 seconds and it took me a long time to get past that anxiety so I could realize I could ignore it. I also began to ‘get it’ once I realized that the web designers had actually put in road blocks to confuse us through out their interface. I also appreciated that you felt you were able to understand the designers’ strategies in this game. For me, I felt that they were throwing everything and the kitchen-sink at their users to get us to be frustrated, but now upon reflection, I can see how individual ‘roadblocks’ used in this game are in use on other sites, yet more subtly.
susana burgos-sewlal
December 5, 2021 — 2:40 pm
Hello Delian,
Thank you for sharing your experience with this task. Reading your thoughts about the information the game provided us and the timer would cause many players to experience various negative feelings. I appreciate your perspective that the creator, despite their goal, created a game that creates frustration. I agree, as the game provided no further clues when you did not pick the right images but repeated the same questions. It made me question myself what and why am I not understanding?
Susana