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> Edit: I'd argue that links that used to be hotlinks not being hotlinks can maybe be part of a dark pattern. If an UI tried to get people to share a site, and the people do that only because they think the links are hotlinks, then that UI could be a dark pattern and the non-hotlinks a part of that. But the dark pattern is then the UI presenting the hotlink, the "share this image directly" widget, not the hotlink itself.

I'd say the URL itself can be UI - users know what a URL to a direct image looks like and how that differs from what a URL to a page tends to look like.

That does not matter. An URL alone does not entice users to do nothing. You need more to get a proper dark pattern, to get the "convincing the user to do things" part of the definition of what makes something a dark pattern in the first place. Please, look as well at the website http://darkpatterns.org/ to see what a dark pattern is about.

So you're saying if it's not on that website it's not valid?

Come on.. If I see a URL that ends in JPG, my understanding is that I am about to load an image. If the site then shows me a page full of ads with my image somewhere on there, that's exactly what you described.

The site is tricking me into doing something that is to their benefit and to my detriment. Showing me a URL that looks like a link to an image is absolutely encouraging me to do something. It's telling me "hey click here you'll see the image right away"..

I did not want to see a page full of ads, I wanted to see a single image, but now the site has monetized me without my consent.

It feels like you're arguing for argument's sake here.

Agreed, this fits the definition when in this context and with this intent

One last try. I'll stop then.

If you are really arguing that you are inherently more likely to click on the direct link, and it is this click impulse that is used to manipulate you, and that going to a page containing that image plus ads instead is the big negative outcome, then I understand why it is a dark pattern for you.

I did not see that direct link have a higher affordance (that might stretch the term a bit too much) to be clicked on. I still don't – but if you think that there are people that are conditioned to click on those direct links, but would not click on the normal link, then I'll have o give you the point that the heuristically changing of the result page might be a dark pattern for those people.

I'm not aware of that effect, but I can't be sure that for example on reddit for people without adblocker or on mobile for some time the direct link wasn't a positive click signal that conditioned them.

I think that explains why I'm arguing. Dark patterns are a manipulation, and simply showing another page is not something I can count as a manipulation – it is not the same thing as in a window making people click on the wrong button (even though I understand that there is a similarity if you follow a specific line of thinking).

Direct link is a significant "positive signal" for the following reasons:

- you implicitly expect it won't load code to your browser

- you implicitly expect it will serve the one and only one resource that you need

- you implicitly expect that after receiving the resource no further data will be exchanged between the client and the server

- you implicitly expect it will work well with the standard UI of your viewing platform - for instance, it will be pinch-zoomable on mobile, or zoomable with mouse in desktop browsers

- you expect to work well with applicable context; for instance, a direct image link should work in "href" attribute of "a" tag (resulting in an image being embedded on a website), it should work with curl or wget (resulting in a single image file being created on your hard drive), or just browser's "save" feature (again, resulting in a single image file being created)

I'd call breaking these things a dark pattern. A particularly nasty one at that, since it's poisoning the well. Breaking users' trust in that URLs do is one of the many subtle ways of fucking the Internet for everyone for personal profit.

"Showing another page" is not a manipulation? So the redirects of yore when you would change the link-text to a URL that does not match the link-URL is not a manipulation? That is effectively what imgur does.

> A dark pattern is an UI that makes the user do something he does not want.

You mean like clicking a *.jpg link and getting something other than a raw JPEG file?

I just disagree with your definition of dark pattern then

It is not mine, it is the definition. Have a look at http://darkpatterns.org/, the video and the library, to see how it is defined.

I think that was his point, different people can define the same word in multiple ways. Just because you/your favourite source says one thing, doesn't mean everyone else agrees, for better or worse.

Actually my definition of "definition" is that it is strict.

Masters degrees, card carrying, secret-handshake knowing designer here. I remember when the notion of dark patterns was first discussed and differentiated from anti-patterns and I think this current discussion is quite ironic.

It's ironic because it is hinging on a narrowly constrained definition of "user interface" design - one that has been appropriated by web/app designers in recent years. UI goes well beyond what is IN the browser window. Discussion of user interfaces occurred before they were graphical user interfaces, well before they were web browsers. So for a discussion that hinged on the idea of the misappropriation of terms, this scores high for irony, IMHO.

SO, now that we're clear on the idea UI's can include many things, it's also clear that the URL and the items return based on the url requested absolutely fall under the notion of UI. And, this is most definitely an example of UI manipulation to create unexpected and negative results for the user to the benefit of the website.

Additionally I should point out, the whole notion of interaction design once meant something much broader than digital interfaces - as an easy example, look at Don Norman's early work and you'll see that interaction and interfaces go well beyond windowed interfaces or even digital interfaces.

Guess in what my masters degree is ;) Design of everyday things is one of my favorite books, and definitely the HCI book I enjoyed reading the most.

I'm aware that you can think of many things as being an interface. I even agree that heuristically switching the result page is deceptive. But there is a difference, though it gets hard to pinpoint it. The manipulation is on another level. It is not the same type of thinking as pre-selecting a checkbox in an installer [0]. I don't agree that it is an UI manipulation in the normal sense. I don't see which psyhcological effects are used, where the manipulation is. There is a deception if a .jpg link does not go to the image, but how manipulates that? Is the ending .jpg a something prone to be clicked on? I don't think so.

Still, while I still value the difference between a dark pattern and any random deceptive behavior, at least I understand a bit better now why people persist on mixing up the term.

[0]: http://darkpatterns.org/java-update-february-2014/

The Psychology of Everyday Things (later retitled "The Design of Everyday Things") is indeed a great book. I call out the original title, first, to be a hipster but more to point out that his very aim was to talk about things not Human Computer Interaction. It is not a book primarily about Human Computer Interaction and your regarding it as such or at least lumping it in with HCI shows a serious misunderstanding of the larger point.

It isn't that you can think of many things as interfaces it is that many things are interfaces and interfaces were around long before they became graphical or even digital/computer-based. So, URLs themselves are definitely interfaces – they're UI's and machine interfaces as well, given their multiple roles.

For the concept of Dark Patterns, the manipulation you're talking about is, at its core, abusing convention, expectation and perception to steer people into an experience that they wouldn't choose if it were more obvious. So, essentially, dark patterns are deceptive.

What I gather you're asserting is that they must also be manipulative and get people to do something, themselves? By that bar, I think the imgur returning of pages instead of images when the convention is to return an image for a url ending in .jpg, etc. may be questionable. No URL request will ever rise to the level of nuance that a visual interface will. However, I still think this case fits. It is abusing a set of conventions and intentionally guiding a user into something they weren't expecting.

Additionally, think about the multiple use cases here. It's easy to focus on the casual browser clicking a link from Reddit but it's also about the user creating the reddit post. They are following convention, using what they think is an image link, choosing to post it, only to then unwittingly be involved in serving up that annoying as hell moving cat paw ad on top of the image they're trying to share with others. That sounds a little like a dark pattern at work to me...

> It is not a book primarily about Human Computer Interaction and your regarding it as such or at least lumping it in with HCI shows a serious misunderstanding of the larger point.

The primarily I did not say, did I? The book was required reading at the first university I heard a HCI lecture. It was recommended at my masters (in HCI, both the masters and the lecture), and contents from it were teached. I'm not sure about everyone in my current team, but I know at least some have read it, and I saw general references to its content. And those guys are pretty much the core of european academic HCI.

Everyday things has that role, as I could see, exactly because it is not talking about computers. It manages to show concepts and principals in a way that makes clear how they are universal. Besides, computer interaction does not happen only through display interfaces.

> I call out the original title, first, to be a hipster but more to point out that his very aim was to talk about things not Human Computer Interaction

Actually, the foreword of the 2002 edition I have open right now explains the change of title. It describes that it is because psychology in the title made it go to the wrong bookshelf in stores, in that people did not capture that it was talking about objects and design instead of psychology itself. Where do you have your explanation from?

> What I gather you're asserting is that they must also be manipulative and get people to do something, themselves?

Exactly. Or to not do something they'd usually do.

> That sounds a little like a dark pattern at work to me...

A little, yes. I stand by that manipulation is not enough included, and deception is not enough, and the link look is not enough. But like I said, I now understand why others are mixing it up – and the point with the different use cases might apply. I was serious in my explanation in another comment that there might be a group of people for who it really works as a manipulation, even though I can't see it working in a general way without prior conditioning, and then it fits the dark pattern definition reasonably well.