This task was both frustrating and entertaining at the same time and will be a “game” I will get my students to play after Spring Break as I plan on having them design their own website using sites such as Weebly and Wix. That last page took me a lot longer than I would like to admit and my hope is that the frustration that my students will encounter will help them be more cognizant of how user friendly their website layout will be for the end user. My fear though, when I do get my students to play this game, is that my students will quickly get frustrated and give up instead of persevering through to find the solution. Or, once one person figures it out, they will tell everyone how to “beat the game”.
This avoidance of wanting to work through a problem/challenge and lack of perseverance is what I worry about for my students. As alluded to by the Harris (2017) video, our youth’s minds are programmed for this instant gratification of their “elicit brain” and having answers or solutions at their fingertips, but not everything can be solved through a quick Google Search or YouTube instruction video. They need to be able to think critically and work to solve problems, especially when they will be facing problems that don’t have a clear answer yet and it will be up to them to come up with the solution.
On the topic of dark patterns and how companies can exploit these tendencies. By making tasks tedious, it can manipulate people/my students into agreeing to everything or selecting “yes” just to get to what they want quickly, without them even knowing what they agreed to. As adults, we are also guilty of this. How many of us actually read through the Terms and Conditions or Privacy Statements before agreeing to them? Besides making tasks tedious, I noticed when playing through the game that my mind was programmed, from previous experience, to think that certain buttons were placed in the same location on most webpages which the game changed around. The two most prominent ones I fell for was the location of where to hide the Help Box and where to close the timer. The timer also subconsciously made me want to rush through the process which diverted my attention from the details. The timer tactic I often experience when making online purchases like when buying concert tickets on Ticketmaster where the site sets a time limit when purchasing tickets to rush you to purchase tickets or risk losing your seats.
I think that darkpatterns.org is a great way to make users more aware of the sneaky practices of some companies and be more alert so that they are not as easily manipulated (Brignull, 2011).
References
Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.
Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en
Hi Juliano,
Reading through your post, I loved that you are going to connect this activity with your students. I think I will also try this with my own grade 6 students as well. I think perhaps I will let them pair up and see how they interpret the experience and if they can see or understand the deeper message of how the game manipulates their responses, As well as if they can draw in any further connections to real life. What grade do you teach again?
Hi Meipsy,
I teach grade 6/7. I want them to try this website as an extreme example and then see if I can find one that is more subtle and see if they notice that their responses are still being manipulated.