Dark UI Patterns at Funimation.com
A Dark Pattern is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. → http://darkpatterns.org
I like anime. Always have probably always will. Recently I wanted to re-watch Baccano!, a novel turned 2 part series about mobsters, train robberies, and adventure. If you haven’t seen it, I would definitely recommend 👍. A few moths ago I wanted to re-watch it. What came about was an odyssey of bad user interface, deceptive practices, and dark patterns.
Since Baccano! is not released on any primary online purchasing services (see iTunes, Google play, etc) and I choose not to pirate shows, the only way to watch the series online was by way of the Funimation online streaming service. Many smaller networks roll their own streaming services, usually at the cost of both experience, quality, and my patience.
After enrolling, and paying the subscription, I watched 3 or so episodes, but life/work got the best of me and about a 3 weeks later I ended up canceling my subscription. At the time, I was struck at how obvious it was that their UI tried to hide how to cancel.
A month and a half later I am reviewing my credit card charges and I come to find another charge from … Funimation 🎉. I check my emails and nope, no receipts for the payment that was just made either (nice move by the way). I then discovered the horrible truth. I, a 28 year old designer and front end developer, in all my internet savvy-ness, had been completely tricked.
Shame and regret to follow…
Our journey begins
Here is chronicle what it takes to actually unsubscribe from a Funimation subscription account.
This is the homepage, not mind-blowing on the visuals, but hey I’m sure it gets the job done. The site it self wants to have features for profiles, sharing/messaging, social media functionality, while also being a streaming service, a discovery platform, and an online store. All this comes together to make for a lot to take on.
Up top they have a pull-down style sub nav that slides everything down to reveal items like your queue, wish list… and that’s it. But hey, it is fancy. It does allow you to get to the my account page which is maybe, probably where unsubscribe is!
You could probably write quite a quite a few paragraphs about this page, but suffice to say it is a tabbed interface with a million billon things. The page has tabs for “Info” and “Account” and “Profile” all of which seem a bit redundant but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Like a good detective I finally found a “Cancel Subscription” under:
My Info → My Account → Subscription → Overview
After selecting cancel subscription on the Account page, that’s when you’re hit with this. This is a similar pattern to the link on the previous page. Present the user with simultaneous, seemingly equal options and make them figure out which is the correct one. I wouldn’t even call this active deception but It definitely falls in to determent. After a brief pause, I figured out whats-what and selected “Cancel Subscription”.
This is where the story takes a dark… dumb turn. After arriving at this page you hit what is somewhat standard for cancelations. The “Cancelation Successful, we’re sorry to see you go 😢” page. An auto-play compilation video begins with an assortment of anime characters saying “please don’t go”, ect. It’s about a minute long and actually pretty funny. It left me with a bit of a laugh thinking “hey, these guys are pretty funny” and was a pleasant end to what had been a frustrating experience.
http://www.funimation.com/subscription/dontgo
Some time later…
Sadly, I had failed in my mission. My internet-fu was not strong enough, and I had fallen for a planned and careful trap.
I had missed what was right in front of me. Often times you assume the best in people, but when you hit your third or fourth cancelation page, you probably shouldn’t. Some time latter I got the aforementioned credit card charge and assumed they were running the small time scam of 30 day cancelation, billing periods rollover, whatever whatever, blah blah blah. After going back to the site, I hunt through the UI only to find my subscription is still active. They got me. Lets rewind back to our funny little cancel subscription video page.
This is where we go beyond obfuscation in to concrete deception. I had missed the checkbox reading⤵
I have read and understand the above in relation to canceling my subscription.
Clicking this checkbox then activates the button below it. By now this is the fourth time I have had to click these words to convince them that I am really super serious.
Good ol’ loading screens. I’m not sure what technical inner-workings were going on, but I was here for about a minute. It was… pretty great. But surely I am done and have beaten the system. 🎉
Nope! and fuck you. Survey time. BOOM!
After it’s done loading you happen upon a survey. You thought that you one but if there’s anything that will deter a human, it’s a good ol’ survey. 7 questions full of who gives a what. It is worth noting here that the questions themselves are required to complete the process. Also worth noting, by this time I was getting a little ragey, so while I don’t regret any of my survey responses, I probably hit the keys a bit too hard while typing them.
Upon completion you are taken back to the My Account/Profile/My Info/Settings page and greeted with a notification.
The experience you provide for your users defines everything about who you are
Good people make bad decisions. It happens all the time. Quarterly objectives need meeting, budgets need balancing, often the person implementing a pattern like the one described above don’t even have a say in the matter. But the web is a great place and it’s only getting better. It is important to remember to keep a watchful eye on the tools we use to make sure they are making the kinds of decisions we think they should.
I have to assume that most of Funimations core audience of subscribers are young in age and may not be as prepared to navigate an interface like this. Alternatively, their parents have signed up for them and (since there are no receipt emails) easily look over a seven dollar charge like it’s a mocachino.
A UX like this, that swindles users out of a few extra bucks, is not going to make the difference between a company staying afloat or going under. All it does is punish a few fans for liking nerdy stuff, and being willing to pay for it. I like websites, I like anime, and I like good websites about anime, sometimes I just wish there were more of them.
Cheers,
Will
Anime is awesome and should make you feel like this!
And like this!
And even this.
It shouldn’t make you feel like…
this…
or this.
