After five minutes of fruitlessly trying various gambits to get this game started, I found myself staring at the cerulean blue screen of User Inyerface, thinking distractedly of the X-Files episode, “Pusher” where the killer mesmerizes his victims with this colour before dispatching them. I knew some classmates never got further and was beginning to think I would be one myself. I actually don’t know how I got past it. I was just clicking furiously and randomly on things when suddenly I was on the next screen. Still a mystery, but I wouldn’t be surprised, given the perversity of its creator, that random clicking is, in fact, the necessary step. Here are a few of the other features I noticed and how they might relate to dark patterns in algorithm design.

One repeated pattern is the use of procedures that break established human-machine interface conventions so that actions we automatically take, not only don’t help, but often cause even more problems. For example, instructions on buttons that should be used are faded and those that should not are coloured, or the button to accept terms and conditions which is phrased negatively, the opposite of the usual practice. Finally, the instructions for choosing a suitable password which contain an optional Cyrillic character, whereas these usually explicitly state what you must do rather than what you could do. As dark patterns, these tactics encourage inattentive users/consumers to make decisions contrary to their best interests without even knowing they have done so, indeed, thinking they have done the exact opposite. Worse, they have little legal recourse since a better course of action would have been clear if they had taken the time to read the instructions carefully.

Then, we have the timer which pops up immediately and runs throughout the gameplay. Legitimately, we see this sometimes when it is important to complete a financial transaction promptly, for example, when paying for popular concert tickets. However, it can put huge pressure on the user because it forces them to rush to complete a series of steps with which they may have no previous experience and, of course, increases the likelihood of a mistake, adding even more pressure. This technique could be used to deprive people of time to think carefully about their actions and is the same principle behind so-called “limited time offers”.

Finally, we have the Help window with the autocorrect that persistently and illogically turns “How …” into “Hypocritical”. I suspect Bagaar meant this to be merely annoying, but an algorithm could be used to subtly guide our word choices and thereby steer our questions in the direction of previously chosen answers, answers which may benefit the organization by avoiding, for example, issues of corporate liability.

The sliding age bar not only provides redundant information but may cause invalidation. If you are 28 and your birthday is at the end of June then, by custom, you are that age for the first half of the year and 29 for the second half, which may not be compatible with the calendar, which is also on the same page. The captcha pictures present a fresh host of obstacles. It appears there are only eight tick boxes for twelve pictures until you test the scroll bar on the side which moves the frame only a tiny amount. Only then do you see the hidden four. The pictures themselves are ambiguous in their relationship to the key word so it’s impossible to know if they should be included or not which leaves you in an endless loop since you inevitably fail and the game eventually takes you back to the first set. You break the loop by choosing all the pictures which of course again defies convention. It isn’t obvious how these last could be weaponized but the moral is clear. Caveat emptor.