Dark UI patterns being socially acceptable. If someone advocated for or implemented a greyscale cancel button next to a vibrant and bold accept button then they should be tarred, feathered and disowned by their family.
@xmunk@Sprite A dark pattern I DESPISE is the public WiFi at a local grocery store - after agreeing to the network’s TOS you have to sign up for their newsletter to continue… unless you scroll down and click an un-highlighted button that says “no thanks, take me to wifi”
Because if you’re like me, I can use my phone in a nuclear fallout shelter or at Point Nemo in the Pacific and still have 2 bars of 5G, but the moment I step into the Home Depot or Kroger by my house, my phone barely manages a single bar of non-data service. If I need to make a call or look something up in the store, I have to use the in-store Wi-Fi.
how come? for me, it makes things clearer. I know the big shiny button is accept, grey one is decline. that way I don’t have to read to accept or decline
The dark pattern is making the shiny button “accept our spying advertising profiling cookies” and the gray one “go through some obtuse ui that takes 5 clicks to refuse being spied on”
I agree with you largely. It isn’t always a dark pattern. It is a dark pattern if it’s used shadily or maliciously, for example to trick you into downloading adware in an installer. It’s not a dark pattern, but rather good UX design if it’s used in a context to indicate a likely default choice, for instance:
We’ve detected your system is set to Dutch. Is Dutch your preferred language?
[No, let me change] [Looks good]
Maybe someone else has other examples of good uses. It’s not appropriate everywhere.
This is what I meant by them being socially acceptable - dark UI patterns are now sometimes viewed as a norm. Make your cancel button a bold red and accept a bold green if you’d like to clearly differentiate with colors… but those grey buttons are specifically designed to be boring and less noticeable.
Grey cancel buttons didn’t exist before material design and its push to have a “right” user flow.
Emphasised “continue” or “default” buttons have been around for a long time. In a software installer, nonstandard options are often less emphasised than the standard ones. For instance when choosing an installation location it makes sense for the default option, which is fine for most users, to be emphasized. If the continue and change location buttons were equally prominent the user might believe that a choice must be made here or that you are expected to choose a location. The experience of installing is more streamlined, less confusing for the less technically proficient, and requires less cognitive load when emphasis is used well.
As I said in an earlier comment, something being a dark pattern is entirely a matter of context. If used to encourage the user to shell out for gems in a mobile game, it’s a dark pattern. If used to make user experience better, it’s just good UX.
The key on what you’re talking about is how we define emphasis - traditional button emphasis might involve underlines or bold font… but, I’d argue that’s quite a bit different than de-emphasizing things - purposefully making a button less visible is only something to pursue when that choice is dangerous or requires careful consideration (and we frequently do that with speed bumps like confirm() prompts on actions that delete data).
I disagree that this is only occasionally a dark ui pattern since it is purposefully leveraging our perception to make some choices harder to see and, if you have a choice to put in front of a user, make the options obvious and clear. I also strongly dislike this particular pattern because it is used so frequently to abuse our psychology and I don’t like to see it normalized.
At the core there is a difference between trying to make one option more visible and trying to hide another one.
@xmunk@Sprite If your design rules emphasize contrast, it would be poorer design to highlight both buttons and it’s not in the colour palette to have a ‘mild’ highlighting like Windows used to have (I think some KDE desktop themes do this too) that suggests which button is the accept button, but doesn’t give the other ones zero highlighting.
Just check with your target areas jurisdiction first. At least in Germany your suggestion is considered illegal practice (I‘m unsure regarding the rest of the EU). Here, two uniform yes and no buttons are required to make an informed decision, according to courts (no suggestive design and no inconvenient hiding of the decline button are allowed). The reasoning is that if a user just clicks the highlighted button by muscle memory or convenience this cannot be considered valid consent.
God, I hope we can find a proper and widespread browser based solution to consent management soon.
@Tarte That’s a great court decision and I love how they understand that’s not valid consent!
In the case of a popup or yes/no decision, it makes sense to have two equally highlighted buttons, but I don’t think a *slight* highlighting is too much of an issue. The total contrast should be less common though. @Sprite@xmunk
Dark UI patterns being socially acceptable. If someone advocated for or implemented a greyscale cancel button next to a vibrant and bold accept button then they should be tarred, feathered and disowned by their family.
@xmunk @Sprite A dark pattern I DESPISE is the public WiFi at a local grocery store - after agreeing to the network’s TOS you have to sign up for their newsletter to continue… unless you scroll down and click an un-highlighted button that says “no thanks, take me to wifi”
Or the newsletter options that are straight up rude…
SIGN ME UP!!!
.
.
.
no thanks I hate saving money, and myself, and I kick puppies.
Just write some fake address like aaaa@aaaaa.aa, works 99% of the time
Sure… but also - fuck whoever wrote that. (And if you’re going to use a fake address please use @example.com)
deleted by creator
That does sound bad, but a grocery store’s wifi? Why would one be using that?
Because if you’re like me, I can use my phone in a nuclear fallout shelter or at Point Nemo in the Pacific and still have 2 bars of 5G, but the moment I step into the Home Depot or Kroger by my house, my phone barely manages a single bar of non-data service. If I need to make a call or look something up in the store, I have to use the in-store Wi-Fi.
Ah. Makes sense. I’ve only ever experienced that in one store, but I get it now.
@aulin I don’t use data and wanted to be able to use the internet on my break at work
how come? for me, it makes things clearer. I know the big shiny button is accept, grey one is decline. that way I don’t have to read to accept or decline
The dark pattern is making the shiny button “accept our spying advertising profiling cookies” and the gray one “go through some obtuse ui that takes 5 clicks to refuse being spied on”
I agree with you largely. It isn’t always a dark pattern. It is a dark pattern if it’s used shadily or maliciously, for example to trick you into downloading adware in an installer. It’s not a dark pattern, but rather good UX design if it’s used in a context to indicate a likely default choice, for instance:
We’ve detected your system is set to Dutch. Is Dutch your preferred language?
[No, let me change] [Looks good]
Maybe someone else has other examples of good uses. It’s not appropriate everywhere.
This is what I meant by them being socially acceptable - dark UI patterns are now sometimes viewed as a norm. Make your cancel button a bold red and accept a bold green if you’d like to clearly differentiate with colors… but those grey buttons are specifically designed to be boring and less noticeable.
Grey cancel buttons didn’t exist before material design and its push to have a “right” user flow.
Emphasised “continue” or “default” buttons have been around for a long time. In a software installer, nonstandard options are often less emphasised than the standard ones. For instance when choosing an installation location it makes sense for the default option, which is fine for most users, to be emphasized. If the continue and change location buttons were equally prominent the user might believe that a choice must be made here or that you are expected to choose a location. The experience of installing is more streamlined, less confusing for the less technically proficient, and requires less cognitive load when emphasis is used well.
As I said in an earlier comment, something being a dark pattern is entirely a matter of context. If used to encourage the user to shell out for gems in a mobile game, it’s a dark pattern. If used to make user experience better, it’s just good UX.
The key on what you’re talking about is how we define emphasis - traditional button emphasis might involve underlines or bold font… but, I’d argue that’s quite a bit different than de-emphasizing things - purposefully making a button less visible is only something to pursue when that choice is dangerous or requires careful consideration (and we frequently do that with speed bumps like confirm() prompts on actions that delete data).
I disagree that this is only occasionally a dark ui pattern since it is purposefully leveraging our perception to make some choices harder to see and, if you have a choice to put in front of a user, make the options obvious and clear. I also strongly dislike this particular pattern because it is used so frequently to abuse our psychology and I don’t like to see it normalized.
At the core there is a difference between trying to make one option more visible and trying to hide another one.
@xmunk @Sprite If your design rules emphasize contrast, it would be poorer design to highlight both buttons and it’s not in the colour palette to have a ‘mild’ highlighting like Windows used to have (I think some KDE desktop themes do this too) that suggests which button is the accept button, but doesn’t give the other ones zero highlighting.
Just check with your target areas jurisdiction first. At least in Germany your suggestion is considered illegal practice (I‘m unsure regarding the rest of the EU). Here, two uniform yes and no buttons are required to make an informed decision, according to courts (no suggestive design and no inconvenient hiding of the decline button are allowed). The reasoning is that if a user just clicks the highlighted button by muscle memory or convenience this cannot be considered valid consent.
God, I hope we can find a proper and widespread browser based solution to consent management soon.
@Tarte That’s a great court decision and I love how they understand that’s not valid consent!
In the case of a popup or yes/no decision, it makes sense to have two equally highlighted buttons, but I don’t think a *slight* highlighting is too much of an issue. The total contrast should be less common though.
@Sprite @xmunk