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harrybr

940 karma · joined September 9, 2009

Harry Brignull

https://www.deceptive.design/book

https://testimonium.co/

http://twitter.com/harrybr

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harrybr··on xAI joins SpaceX
Genuine question: is it even theoretically possible to find some way to dump the heat that would be generated by a "data center" in space?
harrybr··on Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs
I have this example archived. Screenshots and explanation here: https://old.deceptive.design/trick_questions/

Conference video showing this example from 2010: https://youtu.be/zaubGV2OG5U?si=8PkLWhxHFSGQWuWw&t=597

harrybr··on Implementing the “one or more” UI component
The article is about a “one or more“ Ui component and I think you’re talking about a language switcher which is a different design problem.
harrybr··on Implementing the “one or more” UI component
100% agree this is solvable with words and conventional form fields. But also - it’s usually bad idea to disable a form submit button. It deprives the system an opportunity to tell the user what they need to do (i.e. if it’s disabled you can’t show an error message) and for the same reason it’s bad for accessibility.
harrybr··on TradingView's Emotional Subscription Cancellation
It is perhaps more useful to consider “fake urgency” as defined here: https://www.deceptive.design/types/fake-urgency
harrybr··on How the new Microsoft Recall feature fundamentally undermines Windows security
To add to this - did you notice the terribly ineffective demo scenario?

In the video, the WSJ reporter searches for the term "Brown leather bag" and ends up finding what appears to be an AI generated / stock image of a brown leather bag inside a PDF that has zero relevant textual content about brown leather bags.

Of all the things a user might be looking for with that search term, it's not going to be this!

harrybr··on App store to be 'split in two' ahead of EU iPhone sideloading deadline: report
Thats right.

Digital Markets Act, Article 13. Anti-circumvention

"The gatekeeper shall not degrade the conditions or quality of any of the core platform services provided to business users or end users who avail themselves of the rights or choices laid down in Articles 5, 6 and 7, or make the exercise of those rights or choices unduly difficult, including by offering choices to the end-user in a non-neutral manner, or by subverting end users’ or business users' autonomy, decision-making, or free choice via the structure, design, function or manner of operation of a user interface or a part thereof."

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32...

harrybr··on Adobe darkened pantone pallete of patterns (2022)
Ooh, this is my Twitter account. Hello everyone! A few comments:

1) This is from 2022. At the time, Adobe's CPO Scott Belsky responded saying "we can do better". Perhaps Adobe have adjusted their UI since then, I haven't checked. [EDIT] - I've just learned that there is an ongoing FTC investigation: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1735565342565343417

2) I explain this example in a bit more detail in a talk I gave at a European Parliament IMCO public hearing, about a year ago. The part about Adobe starts at roughly 3m30s. https://vimeo.com/710684291

3) If you find this topic interesting, I run the website deceptive.design which catalogs examples like this, along with legal cases and laws. I've also written a book on this topic: https://www.deceptive.design/book

harrybr··on Show HN: Learn About Deceptive (“Dark”) Patterns and Their Legal Implications
This website (formerly darkpatterns.org) was launched in 2010 and had a warm reception on hacker news. It has just had a big update with new sections on laws and legal cases, so you can have a better understanding of what might be illegal or risky to build.
harrybr··on Show HN: Laudspeaker – open-source customer journey automation
Looks good. Also see chatwoot (similar marketing automation tool that has an open source offering) https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot
harrybr··on FTC to crack down on companies that illegally surveil children learning online
As far as I can tell, this doesn't aim to stop the use of student learning data to support student learning. I think it's about the "other stuff", like selling PII to third parties or using it for targeted advertising.
harrybr··on The lucrative economics of expert witnesses
I've done a few pieces of expert witness work over the 2-3 years (on deceptive design / dark patterns).

Although expert witness hourly rates may look high, it really depends on how many hours you bill in a given period. If you're an expert in something very niche, there might not be enough cases in a given year to give you a meaningful income.

Don't quit your tech job yet. Expert witness work is usually only lucrative if your expertise is in high demand, like personal injury or medical malpractice.

harrybr··on Desperation-Induced Focus
Perhaps this is a useful counterpoint:

Aviation Psychologist David Beaty on the phenomenon of ‘Set’ (1991):

“‘Set’ is a survival characteristic we have inherited. The human brain evolved to help individuals live and survive circumstances very different from our own. It predisposes us to select our focus on that part of the picture paramount at the time – a vision often so totally focused that it ignores the rest of the environment.

Once something is identified […] it takes on a reality of its own and sticks in the mind like a burr which is difficult to dislodge. […] The mind becomes tunnelled on a particular course of action. Add to that the ingredient of fatigue and it is not difficult to see that a ‘set’ as hard as concrete can result. Furthermore, ‘set’ is infectious. There is a follow-my-leader syndrome. So it is easy to see why most aircraft accidents are caused by ‘silly’ mistakes in the approach and landing phase.

[…] ‘Set’ has been a factor in many aircraft accidents. [In a case in 1972 over Florida], the crew of a Tristar were not sure that their undercarriage was down. The accident sequence was begun by a burned out light bulb in the system which is designed to show that the undercarriage is down and locked. […] the crew examined every possible of finding the trouble. The flight engineer crawled down into the nose, while the captain and the first officer tried every combination of switches and circuit-breakers. […] the three members of crew did not notice that the autopilot had become disengaged and the aircraft was sinking […] eventually crashing into the Everglades.

Because they had become preoccupied with an unsafe landing-gear indication, they failed to monitor the critical altimeter readings. Ironically, the air traffic controller noticed on his radar that the aircraft was losing height, but instead of pointing this out simply asked diplomatically “How are things coming along there?”.

The crew, still obsessed with their landing-gear problem, assuming he referred to that, for they could thing of nothing else, replied seconds before the crash, “Everything is all right!”

– Paraphrased from The Naked Pilot by David Beaty (Ch.6)

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Naked_Pilot.html?id...

harrybr··on Spotify sees spike in traffic to cancellation page: 196% week-on-week
So they’re estimating based on a sample that may not represent the population of Spotify subscribers. The only people who know the real figures are Spotify themselves.

It would be interesting to know the names of these chrome extensions and whether the sign up experience clearly communicates the ways in which the users will be tracked.

harrybr··on Microtargeting as Information Warfare [pdf]
Also see Christopher Wylie’s book “Mindfuck”.

2018 interview with the author here: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl...

harrybr··on Covid-19: Runny nose, headache, and fatigue are commonest symptoms of omicron
This conversation is not about an abstract trolley problem of years to life / life to years. It's about reality today.

The post I was quoting ended with "Why do we still have these silly mandates?? How much longer do people want to do this?"

The issue at hand is whether a person is willing to get vaxxed, wear a mask, observe local mandates and do various other things for the benefit of others - particularly those who are clinically vulnerable. It really is offensive to refer to someone who is clinically vulnerable as "at the end of their natural lives anyway".

If, as a society, we can do a few unselfish things, this will reduce the burden on health systems so people who need care can get it. An over-burdened health system is one that can't service anyone, regardless of the source of their problem.

harrybr··on Covid-19: Runny nose, headache, and fatigue are commonest symptoms of omicron
What is the duration of a "natural life"? For someone with a disability? For someone born with an autoimmune disease? For anyone except the young and fit?

The comment was offensive because it defines a segment of society who the author feels does not deserve to live.

harrybr··on Covid-19: Runny nose, headache, and fatigue are commonest symptoms of omicron
This is the view of an individual who has no disabilities, no health issues and who is under an arbitrary age that they've decide feels far away for them. What does it mean to be a human if we cannot care for the people around us?
harrybr··on What’s the jankiest piece of tech you’ve seen a company depend on?
I worked at a well known UK newspaper about 6-7 years ago. I found out that the daily print newspaper was edited in quarkXPress without a CMS. After publishing the newspaper each night, a team of night workers would come in and copy-paste articles into the tablet edition CMS before morning (for iPad & android tablet subscribers). Entirely by hand. The main website was on a totally separate CMS so the next day, news articles were copy-pasted into that CMS by an offshore team in India. Also by hand. There was also an archive team whose job it was to copy-paste everything into some other separate archival system. By hand.
harrybr··on Ask HN: What is a good open-source marketing automation tool
This looks very useful for newsletters, but what I'm seeking is a tool that lets you create a live segment of users and send a message to them when they enter the segment. So - transactional product emails, rather than newsletters.
harrybr··on Polypane: A browser for responsive and accessible development
Sizzy is a similar product that I've been using for a year or two. It's pretty good:

https://sizzy.co/

Monthly licence fee: £5.36/month Annual: £39.07/yr Lifetime: £152.43

harrybr··on How to get users to talk to you
It’s interesting that HN readers seem to have such a blind spot about user research.

When you make your first design hire, just make sure to get someone who understands ux and user research.

They’ll understand this stuff in a much deeper way than this article. Most importantly they’ll know how to analyse and action the data they collect.

harrybr··on Dark Patterns Hall of Shame
Hi, I'm the author of the website you are referring to.

The website is built using webflow, which is a very reasonable choice for someone who wants to run a website who is not also a developer. Embedding or linking to content on third party services like youtube, twitter or airtable is not an unusual thing to do.

The website has no revenue model, and has been provided free of charge since 2010. Though it's not perfect - it would after all be preferable to entirely javascript-free - it's had a tiny net positive effect on the web.

You suggested using NocoDB instead of airtable. NocoDB was launched 3 days ago.

harrybr··on Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop
Please don’t just vent here - submit your comments to the FTC website!
harrybr··on Ethical anti-design, or designing products that people can't get addicted to
It's always interesting and a bit amusing to see HN folks inventing / discovering known ideas from design & HCI.

What njms is advocating here is effectively User-Centred Design (aka "Human Centred Design"). It has an ISO standard: https://www.iso.org/standard/52075.html

I was a Psychology undergrad in the 1990s and I was taught about this stuff way back then. It is sad that design has fallen so far from this standard.

harrybr··on Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence
Exactly. It’s amazing that this is not widely known. The deceptive GDPR pop-ups we all hate are not GDPR compliant!
harrybr··on Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence
The term “dark pattern” refers to user interface design patterns. That’s where the “pattern” bit comes from. There was already a term for anti-pattern which referred to mistakes. I wanted a term that had a Machiavellian tone to it, so I chose “dark” (Star Wars, Harry Potter, why not?).

I’m not quite sure why this term proved to be so popular. I think it is helpful to have a term that is a little vague though, as it can be a lot of work to pin down whether something is truly deceptive with an outcome of harm - or just an annoying attempt to nudge.

harrybr··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2021)
Smart | https://smart.co | Multiple Roles | Multiple locations

Transforming pensions, savings and financial wellbeing – around the world.

We have various roles in Engineering, Design, IT and other teams. Locations include London, Nashville, Krakow and Warsaw.

All roles here: https://apply.workable.com/smart-pension-1/?lng=en

I have a particular interest in getting the Senior Full-Stack JavaScript Engineer role below filled, as it is working with my team (Innovation). If you’re a remote freelancer, feel free to apply (despite it being worded for a permanent hire), just be sure to mention that you’re a remote freelancer in the application form.

Senior Full-Stack JavaScript Engineer (mainly Node & React) https://apply.workable.com/smart-pension-1/j/19F6365364/

About the Innovation team: https://www.smart.co/what-we-do/innovation-roadmap

harrybr··on Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?
You are asking about user research. There is an entire industry of user researchers out there, and lots of great books and articles. It fascinates me that HN has such a blind spot for this topic.

The responses on here are reasonable but a bit short sighted. What works in one context will not work in another.

harrybr··on Dark Patterns
I'm the person who coined the term. I was interested in design patterns and pattern libraries. I noticed that we had design patterns (good things to learn from), anti-patterns (things worth avoiding) but there wasn't an equivalent term for deceptive design practices. "Dark Patterns" was the title of a talk I gave in 2008.

I'm not sure why everyone chose to use the term. The idea of it being intentionally obscure is quite wonderfully Hacker News-eseque.

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