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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm old or just wrong, but "dark pattern" for me means "intentionally misleading" which doesn't seem to be the case here, this is more of a "add liveliness so users can see it's not static data" with no intention of misleading, since it seems to be true that the data is actually dynamic.

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I wouldn't go so far as to call this specific implementation a dark pattern, but it is misleading. It suggests the data updated right when I loaded the page, which obviously isn't true as I can see the same 16->17 transition on a refresh.

I'd prefer a "Data last updated at <timestamp>" indicator somewhere. Now I know it's live data and I know how old the data is. Is it as cute / friendly / fun? Probably not. But it's definitely more precise and less misleading.

On that note, the font isn't symmetrical and the bar graph itself uses jagged lines. This makes it hard to read and much less precise. I'd prefer all websites in monospaced fonts with only the straightest of lines.

Those are stylistic choices that don't really impact the ability to view the data and do not mislead like the fake data update on page load.

You're able to hover a bar to see its exact value. Very precise there. No misleading info.

the way the website has it implemented is better

That's your opinion. Mine differs.

It is indeed misleading. It is showing an untruthful value, and an untruthful change in value, on purpose. A small lie, perhaps—but nonetheless a lie.

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