3 ms·

> they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind I dispute

> they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind I dispute this. I work with someone who is a marketing person and very much drawn to dark pattern rubbish. Most recent incident is a good example - a sales promotion where something is added to the cart if the customer buys a certain product. I pointed out that this was a 'dark pattern' and made sure my boss knew that such an idea is illegal in the E.U. For me the illegality is not something that scares me, I doubt I will go to jail for writing the code, however, using a 'dark pattern' is a problem for me. I like to think that I am a customer focused person, my marketing clown certainly is not. In fact he cares not one iota about any of the customers, his world view is selfish. So, I point out the illegal aspect, next thing is that he wants the items given away. I don't see how that makes our products look good and I have no idea how to make money out of making a product and then shipping it to them for free. So again I am not sold on the priority of the project. Returning to the 'selfish' aspect, my marketing clown does not code or appreciate the effort involved in making the auto-add work. I can do the code for that and think I could get the MVP of it done in a day, with some testing after that. Then there is the thinking through of the unintended consequences - I imagine that we would get plenty of customer service emails if there was a problem with the offer. The UX is also not thought out. I am sure that I could spend all day getting the message to the customer sorted on the website and emails, but if I didn't do that then the whole thing would certainly be 'dark pattern'. There is nothing clever about my selfish marketing clown and his naive ways. However, he gets a performance bonus based on 'customer acquisition' metrics that the rest of us don't get. He has an interest to not care about anything other than his Google Analytics nonsense, customers, rest of the team, the company making money matters not. Although anecdotal, this is how 'dark patterns' happen - marketing clowns, their selfish ways, their inability to understand the problem space (because they don't do code or customers) and workplace bullying make these things persist.

JadeNB 10y ago
Your experience seems to support, not refute, the idea that these are conscious decisions (albeit at a marketing, rather than coding, level, which I think is probably what the original meant) rather than inadvertent bugs.
- EvilTerran 10y ago
  I don't get the impression GP's disagreeing with the "not mistakes" bit, only the "carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology" side of things - they're deliberate, yes, but more often than not they're clumsily-applied snake-oil, not the evil-genius stuff they're pitched as.
  - Theodores 10y ago
    Thanks for that. Perhaps what I see in the anecdotal 'marketing clown' is a lack of human empathy, which is kind of the foundation stone for understanding 'human psychology'. Some people lack the wiring to care about others and see things from their point of view, whether it is the customer or the workmate. They also do not pick up on basic psychology, in my example there is little appreciation of how upsells work - there are facets and nuances to this that anyone who works in retail gets to grasp. So it is a case of these people not knowing what they are doing, far from knowing the customer psychology and deliberately deceiving them, there is just no thought beyond doing some silly marketing campaign for the month end results. What is also wrong with dark pattern is that the customers have to be churned - they will not be coming back after the customer service disaster that goes with the sale. I don't care about quarterly results, I care about building a business that does not need marketing beyond word of mouth and white-hat SEO. So, in ten years time, customers will return for customer service provided to them, not to facilitate whatever silly offer is needed for my marketing clown's month end. I want customers to want to come back for a great product and great service, this is not compatible with 'dark patterns'. We often give intellect where there is none. Notably in TV dramas where the 'killer' is supposed to be clever, in reality most people that commit crime really are not thinking at all, they have not thought it all through. 'Dark patterns' is a bit like that.
  - nullc 10y ago
    > not the evil-genius stuff they're pitched as. They're refined by evolution-- ones that make money get kept, ones that don't get removed. That is about as much genius as is really needed. Better, in fact-- if no one really knows whats going on then no one can have any pangs of ethics, no one can turn whistleblower after getting fired, etc.

JadeNB 10y ago

Your experience seems to support, not refute, the idea that these are conscious decisions (albeit at a marketing, rather than coding, level, which I think is probably what the original meant) rather than inadvertent bugs.

EvilTerran 10y ago
I don't get the impression GP's disagreeing with the "not mistakes" bit, only the "carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology" side of things - they're deliberate, yes, but more often than not they're clumsily-applied snake-oil, not the evil-genius stuff they're pitched as.
- Theodores 10y ago
  Thanks for that. Perhaps what I see in the anecdotal 'marketing clown' is a lack of human empathy, which is kind of the foundation stone for understanding 'human psychology'. Some people lack the wiring to care about others and see things from their point of view, whether it is the customer or the workmate. They also do not pick up on basic psychology, in my example there is little appreciation of how upsells work - there are facets and nuances to this that anyone who works in retail gets to grasp. So it is a case of these people not knowing what they are doing, far from knowing the customer psychology and deliberately deceiving them, there is just no thought beyond doing some silly marketing campaign for the month end results. What is also wrong with dark pattern is that the customers have to be churned - they will not be coming back after the customer service disaster that goes with the sale. I don't care about quarterly results, I care about building a business that does not need marketing beyond word of mouth and white-hat SEO. So, in ten years time, customers will return for customer service provided to them, not to facilitate whatever silly offer is needed for my marketing clown's month end. I want customers to want to come back for a great product and great service, this is not compatible with 'dark patterns'. We often give intellect where there is none. Notably in TV dramas where the 'killer' is supposed to be clever, in reality most people that commit crime really are not thinking at all, they have not thought it all through. 'Dark patterns' is a bit like that.
- nullc 10y ago
  > not the evil-genius stuff they're pitched as. They're refined by evolution-- ones that make money get kept, ones that don't get removed. That is about as much genius as is really needed. Better, in fact-- if no one really knows whats going on then no one can have any pangs of ethics, no one can turn whistleblower after getting fired, etc.