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I find less and less I want to use the internet to browse sites anymore. Not just because of these dark patterns, but usability is messed up. The web should be

I find less and less I want to use the internet to browse sites anymore. Not just because of these dark patterns, but usability is messed up. The web should be redesigned to force standards compliant requiring websites to allow a “no script” support where you just go for information. Cookies are not even remotely the largest problem on the fucked UX web we have today. It’s less about data delivery and ubiquity of the original WWW concept and more about “how do we force users to stay on our platform” or “how do we extract data on our users and sell it to the highest bidder.” They also need to pass laws forcing companies who sign up users for services to have a graceful way to sign down and delete their account instead of these stupid cookie banners.

vasilegoian 5y ago
As a web developer I can only agree with all that you said. It's like some companies are actively trying to make visitors leave their websites and never come back. Or at least avoid them as much as possible.
- guntars 5y ago
  Also as a web developer, agreed, but unfortunately it’s like spam. I’d never buy fake sunglasses or penis enlargement pills from some email that appeared in my inbox, but the fact that I still get these means it’s profitable. As long as dark patterns are profitable, they’ll be around.
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
    old people. I've helped a lot of old people with their PCs and they call me about paypal scams when they do not have paypal. they want to donate to some one because of a nice horoscope email they got.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - effingwewt 5y ago
      Yea makes me so sad. When I still did computer repair the number of genuinely nice people being scammed in one way or another was depressingly high. Unfortunately some cannot be helped as they just want to feel like they are helping/connecting with someone. Sometimes, I swear the people I'd be helping knew they just didn't care, they were that desperate for human interaction. It's a tale as old as time. I remember spending far too many hours as a kid convincing my grandmother not to send various people/fake businesses money (you owe the IRS! You power is going to be shut off!) and trying to curb her purchasing on QVC (I ended up later having a roommate who worked for them - the horror stories I could tell!).
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  Partially true. If you make it too easy for the customer to get what they want, they won't have the time or inclination to engage with your true content: your brand and your ads. So, increase the complexity. A certain number of savvy people will click off immediately, but they were likely too clever to bother with your game, so no love lost there. The ones who stick with it are your ideal targets. They'll wrestle through anything you throw at them to get what they want as long as you keep teasing that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. However, you also can't make totally random, nonsensical design choices. They need to have a pattern that guides them in the darkness to the actions and outcomes you want most. It's your site after all, and no one can or will tell you how to run it as long as you show those retention and engagement numbers going up, so remember that. Now that they're spinning in circles clicking on anything and everything trying to understand the labyrinth you've set out for them, you've got nothing to worry about. They've sunk their time and attention into solving this, and you're going to have them come back soon with a new strategy they're excited to try to beat the game. Once they feel like they've beaten you, you've won. They'll keep coming back just to prove to themselves that they've figured it out. They'll search on behalf of their friends and family, rising in their estimation. Now they smirk and with just a hint of pride say whenever someone complains about how hard your site is to navigate, "Oh, it's not that hard. You've just got to know how it works."
tragomaskhalos 5y ago
Take IMDB - in the early 90's it was a fun little database hosted at the University of Cardiff, obviously limited content-wise but responsiveness was certainly not an issue. Fast forward to today and the modern behemoth it has become is essentially unusable (at least on my tablet) for quick enquiries, what with all the ads/video whatnot clogging up the homepage plus the utterly borked predictive search textbox - eurgh.
- wibagusto 5y ago
  Ugh yes perfect example—every time I go there nowadays I can’t find anything. Often I would try to find an actor/director’s filmography but it takes a good 20 seconds to find the tiny links squeezed between the ads!
  - rapnie 5y ago
    Not to mention that the movie ratings are derived from fake reviews, and you have to look at the distribution of individual user reviews to gauge if they are genuine and decide if the movie is worth watching. If its lots of 1 and 10 ratings, the movie is probably crap. Many 6-8 ratings and you're good to go. The nice thing for bad movies is that there's always a low-rating review which is a great read that gives you a good laugh.
  - dakial1 5y ago
    I always use Google, no need to navigate IMDB home: https://www.google.com/search?&q=harrison+ford+filmography+imdb https://www.google.com/search?&q=harrison+ford+filmography+i...
- slapfrog 5y ago
  https://www.imdb.com/interfaces/ https://www.imdb.com/interfaces/ > Subsets of IMDb data are available for access to customers for personal and non-commercial use. You can hold local copies of this data, and it is subject to our terms and conditions. Please refer to the Non-Commercial Licensing and copyright/license and verify compliance. > The dataset files can be accessed and downloaded from https://datasets.imdbws.com/ https://datasets.imdbws.com/. The data is refreshed daily. > Each dataset is contained in a gzipped, tab-separated-values (TSV) formatted file in the UTF-8 character set. The first line in each file contains headers that describe what is in each column. A ‘\N’ is used to denote that a particular field is missing or null for that title/name. The available datasets are as follows: [...]

vasilegoian 5y ago

As a web developer I can only agree with all that you said. It's like some companies are actively trying to make visitors leave their websites and never come back. Or at least avoid them as much as possible.

guntars 5y ago
Also as a web developer, agreed, but unfortunately it’s like spam. I’d never buy fake sunglasses or penis enlargement pills from some email that appeared in my inbox, but the fact that I still get these means it’s profitable. As long as dark patterns are profitable, they’ll be around.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
  old people. I've helped a lot of old people with their PCs and they call me about paypal scams when they do not have paypal. they want to donate to some one because of a nice horoscope email they got.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - effingwewt 5y ago
    Yea makes me so sad. When I still did computer repair the number of genuinely nice people being scammed in one way or another was depressingly high. Unfortunately some cannot be helped as they just want to feel like they are helping/connecting with someone. Sometimes, I swear the people I'd be helping knew they just didn't care, they were that desperate for human interaction. It's a tale as old as time. I remember spending far too many hours as a kid convincing my grandmother not to send various people/fake businesses money (you owe the IRS! You power is going to be shut off!) and trying to curb her purchasing on QVC (I ended up later having a roommate who worked for them - the horror stories I could tell!).
washadjeffmad 5y ago
Partially true. If you make it too easy for the customer to get what they want, they won't have the time or inclination to engage with your true content: your brand and your ads. So, increase the complexity. A certain number of savvy people will click off immediately, but they were likely too clever to bother with your game, so no love lost there. The ones who stick with it are your ideal targets. They'll wrestle through anything you throw at them to get what they want as long as you keep teasing that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. However, you also can't make totally random, nonsensical design choices. They need to have a pattern that guides them in the darkness to the actions and outcomes you want most. It's your site after all, and no one can or will tell you how to run it as long as you show those retention and engagement numbers going up, so remember that. Now that they're spinning in circles clicking on anything and everything trying to understand the labyrinth you've set out for them, you've got nothing to worry about. They've sunk their time and attention into solving this, and you're going to have them come back soon with a new strategy they're excited to try to beat the game. Once they feel like they've beaten you, you've won. They'll keep coming back just to prove to themselves that they've figured it out. They'll search on behalf of their friends and family, rising in their estimation. Now they smirk and with just a hint of pride say whenever someone complains about how hard your site is to navigate, "Oh, it's not that hard. You've just got to know how it works."

tragomaskhalos 5y ago

Take IMDB - in the early 90's it was a fun little database hosted at the University of Cardiff, obviously limited content-wise but responsiveness was certainly not an issue. Fast forward to today and the modern behemoth it has become is essentially unusable (at least on my tablet) for quick enquiries, what with all the ads/video whatnot clogging up the homepage plus the utterly borked predictive search textbox - eurgh.

wibagusto 5y ago
Ugh yes perfect example—every time I go there nowadays I can’t find anything. Often I would try to find an actor/director’s filmography but it takes a good 20 seconds to find the tiny links squeezed between the ads!
- rapnie 5y ago
  Not to mention that the movie ratings are derived from fake reviews, and you have to look at the distribution of individual user reviews to gauge if they are genuine and decide if the movie is worth watching. If its lots of 1 and 10 ratings, the movie is probably crap. Many 6-8 ratings and you're good to go. The nice thing for bad movies is that there's always a low-rating review which is a great read that gives you a good laugh.
- dakial1 5y ago
  I always use Google, no need to navigate IMDB home: https://www.google.com/search?&q=harrison+ford+filmography+imdb https://www.google.com/search?&q=harrison+ford+filmography+i...
slapfrog 5y ago
https://www.imdb.com/interfaces/ https://www.imdb.com/interfaces/ > Subsets of IMDb data are available for access to customers for personal and non-commercial use. You can hold local copies of this data, and it is subject to our terms and conditions. Please refer to the Non-Commercial Licensing and copyright/license and verify compliance. > The dataset files can be accessed and downloaded from https://datasets.imdbws.com/ https://datasets.imdbws.com/. The data is refreshed daily. > Each dataset is contained in a gzipped, tab-separated-values (TSV) formatted file in the UTF-8 character set. The first line in each file contains headers that describe what is in each column. A ‘\N’ is used to denote that a particular field is missing or null for that title/name. The available datasets are as follows: [...]