4 ms·

Wow, am I seeing hours of comments from people who've never used an iPhone or Android phone? People are complying about dark patterns and subjectivity rather th

Wow, am I seeing hours of comments from people who've never used an iPhone or Android phone? People are complying about dark patterns and subjectivity rather than taking the most simple and straightforward interpretation of "correct," which is "matches what we see every day." Are roundrect corners objectively better than right angles? How could they be? But they're definitely what designers have decided to standardize on, and are therefore "correct" for our reality in 2022.

adql 4y ago
Defining "correct" as "parroted by most" is dangerous at best.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Okay, think about it this way: you've got a designer who is turning in their work, and your job is to review it before releasing it to the customer. Typical frontend workflow. The quiz is about catching the sorts of things that many, many, many people wouldn't notice, but might still be unsettling in some vague way. The icons aren't evenly distributed, spacing is too tight or too loose. Things that look different from every other app running on the same phone. Daring to be different sounds noble in an after-school special, but putting out a mobile app with conflicting call to action or icons that don't line up isn't brave and safe.
pwinnski 4y ago
Maybe we're a bunch of backend devs scoring really badly, which is shaking our collective belief that we're detail-oriented and all-wise? Maybe I'm defending it because I scored 7230 with a rank of "SILVER (top 25%)," so I feel special? I'm no fan of dark patterns, but the most-complained-about prompt here as I type this, the one with "ADD FRIENDS" or "SKIP," is very common, and the alternative of making both options identically blue seems like worse UX to me. Maybe in large part because "ADD FRIENDS" is also so much larger than "SKIP." I suspect many people might feel better if the options were "ADD FRIENDS" as primary, and "MAYBE LATER" as secondary, since they wouldn't feel quit as uneven then.

adql 4y ago

Defining "correct" as "parroted by most" is dangerous at best.

pwinnski 4y ago
Okay, think about it this way: you've got a designer who is turning in their work, and your job is to review it before releasing it to the customer. Typical frontend workflow. The quiz is about catching the sorts of things that many, many, many people wouldn't notice, but might still be unsettling in some vague way. The icons aren't evenly distributed, spacing is too tight or too loose. Things that look different from every other app running on the same phone. Daring to be different sounds noble in an after-school special, but putting out a mobile app with conflicting call to action or icons that don't line up isn't brave and safe.

pwinnski 4y ago

Maybe we're a bunch of backend devs scoring really badly, which is shaking our collective belief that we're detail-oriented and all-wise? Maybe I'm defending it because I scored 7230 with a rank of "SILVER (top 25%)," so I feel special? I'm no fan of dark patterns, but the most-complained-about prompt here as I type this, the one with "ADD FRIENDS" or "SKIP," is very common, and the alternative of making both options identically blue seems like worse UX to me. Maybe in large part because "ADD FRIENDS" is also so much larger than "SKIP." I suspect many people might feel better if the options were "ADD FRIENDS" as primary, and "MAYBE LATER" as secondary, since they wouldn't feel quit as uneven then.