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Comment by roter | Hacker News Reader

Funny, as I scrolled down reading, a pop-up window appeared that obscured the content, advertising a "FREE Trial!". This has almost the same impact for me as a cookie banner --- something that diverts attention. They have a big red button to press versus a smaller X to kill.

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The tiny/invisible close control is a plague. Often it's designed to look unlike common "click here to close" convention, making it especially difficult to find.

Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember something like a pop-up window pop up, but I so automatically closed it I didn't even remember there was one!

Thanks for mentioning this! We missed this _ironic issue_. Our new trial prompt features a more prominent close button now.

Still says "Free trial" and "Hide this message" in different-coloured buttons.

Is this in jest ("_ironic_")? If so, I at least am so used to such dark patterns that it did not register as a joke.

If it's meant as a joke, then OK, I can chuckle. But while I'm curious to see what happens, I'm not pressing no buttons, no sir, joke or no joke. I'm jaded like that.

This is not a consent box. Neither choice creates cookies. Nor does it force you to surrender data.

I recognized that using a smaller X close cross button was not fair and could lead, especially on mobile, to undesirable action. Now, the button is equally sized, and this should prevent accident presses for those not interested.

> 10. Deceptive Button Contrast

(The orange button has a brighter background with the same white text, making it look like the lesser option.)

You could just put it on the bottom of the page inside the text nicely explained to not make it look creepy.

Of course I understand that it can decrease CTR :(

Dark patterns get clicked (I don't know how well they convert)

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