I completed the user inyerface tasks in 3min48 seconds, although it seemed like it took longer. The game really does what it says it will, it frustrates you and encourages you to click buttons that make you start over. The interface is surprisingly not the worst experience I have had on the web and although they tried hard to make it difficult to successfully get to the end of the 4 tasks the actual interface it quite clean and easy to follow, once you understand that it is at cross purposes with you. The first frustration is the buttons that you are meant to click are smaller and less obvious than the ones that would lead you back to the beginning. Once you get used to that idea it is easy to look for the right buttons. The forms fields annoyingly have writing that doesn’t automatically disappear when you first click on it and you have to delete before you start writing. The selection buttons are pre clicked at times and it is frustrating the un-click dozens of boxes but I have actually been on multiple sites that do this kind of thing. Watching Tristan Harris and Zeynep Tufekci speak about the evil underbelly of algorithms working to steer your attention in one direction or another I reflect that many website use small tactics, like pre-selecting boxes, in order to get you to purchase something you maybe did mean to purchase. This is an example of what Brignull (2011) calls a dark pattern, the default settings benefit the business. It is a small deception used to increase profits at the expense of the user.
I don’t know if I agree with Mr Harris or Dr. Tufekci that the advertising world is such a huge menace. I hate to think of myself as someone who can be easily manipulated through targeted ads, but I can understand that we are at a place with algorithms and AI that the kinds of calculations they are making are beyond human understanding. The algorithms are making calculations that take into account such huge amounts of data that it would not be possible for a person to do the same kind of targeting. If like Dr Tufekci suggest, these algorithms can have an impact on our political system and can lead people to vote in different ways then we should be concerned with the accountability of companies like facebook. If as Tristan Harris states we need to have a design renaissance to get our technology under our control and have it work for our human goals rather than simply work to increase our attention on our screens. Technology has always been a kind of double edged sword and I think these conversation are important ones to continue to have. Governments should be helping to protect it’s citizens against malevolent technologies and even against those technologies that seek to make us spend all of our time consuming, rather than improving our lives with the fantastic technology we have in our pockets.
References:
Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.
Tristan Harris (2017, July 28). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C74amJRp730
Zeynep Tufekci. (2017, November 17). We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI
