Hacker News Reader

Comment by liveinspain55 | Hacker News Reader

Others can correct me, but I don't think that's an example of a dark pattern.

Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing.

Thinking about Exit Intent and how to optimize for it is a fairly well established part of online eCommerce. I think you made the wrong choice and your boss was probably right to be annoyed with you. It's within their prerogative to decide what user experience they offer to their users. And obviously, it's also yours to quit, but if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself.

View on HN

> Thinking about Exit Intent and how to optimize for it is a fairly well established part of online eCommerce.

Just because something is institutionalized doesn't mean it's right. Especially when that institution is eCommerce, one of the most manipulative industries in software.

I would ammend your description of dark patterns to "Deciept and manipulation by design" to see this through the lens most people do.

The user wants to leave the site. The site stops them from leaving. That sounds pretty dark to me.

Just because something is "a fairly well established part of online eCommerce" doesn't mean it is not a shitty thing to do.

'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

First - the site doesn't stop them from leaving.

Second - I didn't say it's not shitty.

I wouldn't normally nit pick on terms but this is a conversation about words and their definitions.

Dark Patterns are a deliberate attempt to defraud or deceive through the use of UI.

There are many things that are shitty - country music for one - that are not dark patterns.

Just because you and I both don't like exit intent popups, doesn't make them something that should be criminalised.

Dark Patterns describe activity that either is or should be criminal. The difference is enormous.

Some websites optimize exit intent by breaking the back button. Some malls optimize for it by making themselves difficult to navigate. It may not be a dark pattern to you, because you know how it works, but it might influence another person. I hope there will always be engineers and designers who refuse to implement them.

why does google allow them to abuse 'breaking the back button' by hijacking your history and overwriting it with the their website?

This should not be possible, it's a horrible jarring experience every time it happens to me when I click a questionable link and try to go back to the previous page.

It's close. The user wants to close the page, and you nag them again - with a deal that you could already have given them if you were honest.

"Don't go! I can change!"

Sadly it works too often in relationships as well as ecommerce.

Spoiler: no change is forthcoming.

When everything is annoying by design it becomes a mental tax on everyone using the web. It might not be a dark pattern, but it is asshole design. Neither of which anyone should tolerate or defend.

> Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing.

This is not a totally different thing. Both are examples of coercive/deceptive behavior. That makes them the same sort of thing, but differing by degree.

Definitely a dark pattern, for the record.

if you can provide a source I'll be glad to see it. I checked multiple lists of dark patterns before posting.

>Intrusive, maybe, but a dark pattern is 'deceit by design' whereas what you're describing seems to me 'being slightly annoying by design', which is a totally different thing.

We'll call it shitty pattern if you dislike dark pattern.

fine. Dark patterns involve a deliberate attempt to defraud/deceive. Expanding the definition is not helpful.

> if you do so based on a poor understanding of what a dark pattern is, you're just hindering yourself.

I expect that they refused to implement it because it was a practice they felt was bad ethically rather than because it matched some industry definition.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com