From the first screen I am concerned about my speed and accuracy. I am aware there will be distractions and am telling myself to stay focused on the questions. I need to look closely beyond the large green no button to find where to click to move on. I begin to realize how tough this will be for me!

Filling in information is frustrating, my letters do not type on top of theirs, I must delete first. I can’t use tab to move from block to block. The timer popping up every minute is annoying as I feel like I’m not moving fast enough. I must pay so much attention to get through every screen and realize I must look at for the details that are smaller or in the background versus those that jump out at me right away. It took me two attempts to realize that number, age, and birthdate all had to match. The manner in which everything was worded made me really think about what I was wanting or what I was being asked to do. There were a lot of double negatives used throughout the site. This creates confusion for users and entangles users in multiple ways (Brignull, 2010). There were so many buttons to click on the last screen to verify I was a human! This program goes against everything I have been programmed to do using the web!

This task has made me more aware of critically thinking about what I see and interact with on the web. I must be more intentional about the information I am sharing and what I notice is explicitly stated and what is not. Knowing about practices such as the inverted pyramid where important information is found further into reading versus upfront (Brignull, 2010) will help users to critically examine the information they are agreeing to on websites. We must be aware of how user interface is designed in order to think about how it is trying to manipulate our responses!

References

Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.