Immediately upon reading Natalie’s post about completing the User Inyerface Game, I find myself balking at what she has written. When I read, “I had the pleasure,” my immediate thought was that she was being sarcastic. Then, she continued to write that she actually enjoyed the game. This is quite the opposite from my experience. I found the game quite frustrating and annoying. That said, I can appreciate the insight she gained while playing this game as I feel that annoying as it was, the game is effective because of this annoyingness. It makes us think and reflect on our own experience and practices on the web.
Nathalie identified many similar habits or practices to me. We both have a sort of mindlessness when completing forms such as those found in the game. As she has mentioned this comes from completing these forms frequently and relying on tools like autocomplete. Because we are in the habit of doing certain tasks, we click on buttons that follow the patterns we are used to. In this way, we are prey to the designers of dark patterns as described by Brignull (2011).
Apart from having significantly different feelings about this game, I think we had very similar experiences and realizations. As frustrating as the task was, I am ultimately grateful for the awakening it has given me. I am also thankful for reading Natalie’s reflection as it has provided an opportunity to remind me of the importance of being aware of such dark patterns.
Beyond my own awareness, I think this is an important topic that should be shared with students. I see this as a component of digital citizenship and feel that students should be exposed to this kind of trickery in an educational way so that they know how to navigate internet without falling prey to malicious intent. I really find this image by Krisztina Szerovay (2017) a helpful overview of dark patterns.
References
Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.
Szerovay, K. (2017, October 31). Dark Patterns. UX Knowledge Base. https://uxknowledgebase.com/dark-patterns-3b41ed7a690e