Expectedly, the User Inyerface game designed by Bagaar was extremely frustrating to navigate and quite time-consuming (Bagaar). The game is “designed to induce rage: mislabeled buttons, complicated password rules, nearly impossible to close pop-up windows, slowly scrolling terms and conditions, and annoying CAPTCHA forms” (Gartenberg, 2019). The makers of the game sought to make the navigation of the site as challenging as possible, including everything that goes against strong user interface design. 

I think most of us know when we are moving through a design that is not user-friendly; oftentimes, we feel frustrated that something is not clear or the navigation is not intuitive. This particular game was infuriating, and frankly, I spent a good 10 minutes getting through the first two pages before I gave up and decided to watch a Youtuber play the game instead. Misleading words, colors, italics, and bolded text were among the few design elements that made surpassing the first page challenging. The big green button below the instructions reads “NO” and is not linked to anything. Naturally, I clicked the button, wondering if it was only the lettering and not the shape itself that needed to be clicked; however, the word “HERE” was what needed to be clicked in the line below.

The next page included a form that needed to be filled with the users chosen password, email, and signed user agreement form. Entering information into each part of the form was difficult, everything required several alterations or some degree of troubleshooting. 

As users, we often feel the impacts of a badly designed user interface but what’s more concerning is when an interface uses its design to trick its users (often consumers). These deceptive methods are what Harry Brignull describes as “dark patterns” (2011). Unfortunately, these deceptive methods are not always easily identifiable, allowing certain companies to make additional profits at the expense of the user’s ignorance. 

An area of inquiry that sparks my interest is the controversy surrounding social media user interface design. The documentary The Social Dilemma explores how the objective of these social media companies is to produce users who become dependent on ingesting content. These big tech companies use some extremely deceptive, tactful, and manipulative methods to ensure their users depend on the gratification they receive from social media – to a point where the media impacts the user’s mental well-being. The goal of encouraging users to endlessly and mindlessly scroll plays on the human psyche, in ways that the majority of users can’t begin to conceptualize (think children). TikTok’s user interface and algorithm model are notorious for having young users glued to their phones, for at times, twelve hours a day. This issue was exacerbated by the pandemic when adolescents were spending most of their time online. However, the problem persisted following the lifting of restrictions with children and teens still spending an alarming amount of time on the app. Recently, Tiktok claimed that in upcoming months they will impose a mandatory 60-minute screen limit for all users below the age of 18 (Hart, 2023). Could we say this is TikTok removing dark patterns from its design? 

References

Bagaar. (n.d.). User Inyerface – a worst-practice Ui Experiment. User Inyerface – A worst-practice UI experiment. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://userinyerface.com/

Brignull, H., Eagan, C., MacIntyre, J., Clancey, P., Overkamp, L., Brosset, P., & Prater, S. V. (2011, November 1). Dark patterns: Deception vs. honesty in Ui Design. A List Apart. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs-honesty-in-ui-design/

Hart, R. (2023, March 2). TikTok sets default daily screen time limit for under 18s. Forbes. Retrieved April 9, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/03/01/tiktok-sets-default-daily-screen-time-limit-for-under-18s/?sh=7a39f2c01bfa