There are already a lot of good design and UI around the world.
So, I decided to focus on the dark side of the design…

I did not know the words “Dark Pattern” before, but when I read the definition of it, some example I remembered.
“Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something. The purpose of this site is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use them.”

Fishing sites, online e-commerce services, some telephone companies, and so on… There is a lot of misguiding and complicated jargon to understand by that kind of website and services. To check details, I call to operation center and try to contact to proper staff, the ring is keeping, the automated reply said “line is busy, please wait for a moment” then waif for 15 min… ok, I stop it.

When I google dark pattern, “amazon” is auto-suggested.

I had an image of some dark pattern for Amazon previously, but nowadays, I did not have so much time to cancel something of amazon service. I remember that Audible only permit to cancel on website not through application even I could purchase 30 days trial plan through app. I remember that email subscription became better, cause last time I could find smoothly for unsubscribing. Now I can see what kind of contents are listed, and which one is activated or not, and can manage simple task. I felt more honesty this time.

So, then did dark pattern disappear?

I picked up one guy posted on Twitter how he struggled to unsubscribe digital wall street journal paper. Below is the page he started the journey to be free.

First page…

Second page…

Third page…

Fourth page…

Fifth page…

Sixth page…

Seventh page…

Finally, I could reach the time to finish…

Yes, I will click the right button to proceed the cancelation!!

What…? Why you are here. You should be the left side.
Every “ACCEPT BUTTON” till now was the left.
Then, I went back to previous procedure and lost the motivation to keep proceeding that day…

When I read the experience he had, I felt that I did conversation with person who really do not care about I am saying. Even I felt scare to visit the website and offer related to the journal.

This would be good example of “Obstruction” or “Misdirection” of dark pattern.

How to be balancing between business and customer demands. To keep run a business is important, but I felt being able to firmly explain the risk that those dark patterns are not good for the user and the service in a roundabout way, and suggesting alternatives that do not fool the user is a very important skill to be involved in creating services.

*I have not subscripted to Wall Street Journal in real, so please let me know if the contents are some misunderstand of mine, I apology and revise the contents.

Snare of dark pattern was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 1960, the “World Design Conference” was held in Tokyo. Architects, product and graphic designers from all over the world came to Japan, including Charles Eames, Jean Prouvé, Herbert Beyer, Saul Bass and Paul Rand. At the conference, they discussed what they wanted to do with design in the internationalized society. One of the issues that came up for discussion was the need to create a design that would serve as international recognition. At that time, road signs and airport signage differed from country to country and were not standardized.

They decided to unify the design of the signage system for the Tokyo Olympics, which will be held in four years time, as an international event. In other words, the Tokyo Olympics was an important event for the design world as well.

Under the leadership of graphic designer Masaru Katsumi, a total design system for the Olympics was constructed by bringing together leading designers such as Kazuto Kameifu, Hiromu Hara, Ryokko Tanaka, Mitsuo Shizui, Kohei Sugiura, and Kiyoshi Kuritsu.

It is worth noting that the pictograms were used throughout the Games and the facilities of the Games Opening Committee. The Tokyo Olympics became the first international event in history to make extensive use of language. It can be said that the aforementioned isotype idea fully blossomed here. Later, with the Expo ’10 in Osaka, the field of public design in Japan was established at a rapid pace, and it was here that the germ of today’s information design was firmly established.

At that time, with the increase in overseas travel and international exchange, building a signage system that transcends language barriers were demanded. Now we are familiar with pictogram and there are more ways not only graphic of communicating in other ways. Now we are focusing how we make the world come with person with disabilities. When I think about the fact what design could do in 1964 Olympic, I still believe the role of design are huge and get motivated to change the world again.

What was MD special a that moment?

MD was released in 1991 by SONY.

At that time, main device to listen music was Compact Disc(CD). The sound quality of CD was high, but it was not duplicable to another disc, and the main method to share music was record to Cassette Tape. The good features of MD were recordable from CD (even each song from few albums!!) and compact size compared to CD. So, people can organize their original movable soundtrack MD to anywhere.

In addition to the micro audio system set with MD, portable MD player was released, and it was huge sale. The bright future of MD seems be promised for next decades.

However, golden age did not resume so long…

Big Apple shown up

In 2001 I-pod was presenting by Jobs.
As digital information, people can bring their huge number of music with high resolution anywhere with small handy smart simple device. At that time, I was really surprised by not only huge number of music I can bring, but also easy way to upload to music. Now experience of music do not depend on a device, people can enjoy through online streaming service. Popularity of MD was declining rapidly.

Why cassette and record are revival, not MD.

I agree that Apple impact speeded up of disappearing of MD.
But there seem also some points that MD could not survive even if without Apple when I reconsider.

Good aspect of MD was small, but too much smaller than CD.
The size of the CD was just right, with a diameter of more than ten centimeters. It was very convenient to handle with our hands. With an MD, it was too small to know where it gone, or where to drop it, or to misread the words, or in any case, it was not suitable for a human hand.

In other words, things that are the right size for our hands will continue to be used indefinitely. Smart phone, Ipod, suits to hand and could manage effectively. Square shape of MD seems sometimes feel awkward for user’s hand.

Yes, we now understand that size of MD did not work well, but why cassette tape is revival. Cassettes are bad sounding, analog at its finest. You cannot get avoid the noise in, and you cannot select the song. But there is a tenderness and nostalgia in their sound. I think there are people who find love for imperfect things in this age of digital technology.

Essential pitfall of MD was uncertain fundamental usability for users, and now surprisingly cassette that kept size of usability (even nobody realized it ) and make new impression to young generations who grew up with sophisticated digital device are surviving.

This aspect might suggest what UX needs to be next time.

Heading to the office in the train, waiting someone for few minutes, taking a short break during the work, need something new inspiration, I pick up my smartphone and open and scrolling Twitter.
Sometimes it makes me new idea to breakthrough a wall to conquer, but sometimes it really disturb me to spend time more productive.

Why it is happened?
I would like to explore the reason with context of good or great product design.

What Twitter different to other apps?

First, I can predict what is going to show in my Timeline. Yes, it is texts.
Whatever contents it is, only texts have been displayed, and it does not bother me for scrolling. Even pictures or links, it is shown as link. I can guess what kind of picture of the link by text, but still have some uncertain expectation of the contents.

Second, Twitter allow me whether diving deep more or just gazing the contents smoothly. I just scrolling down with finger and stop if some points of text being interested. Space for text timeline parts are almost of the page, so it makes my finger easier to control. Icons are well chosen for required action (tweeting, checking notice, and back to home page), and displayed with organized where my thumb can reach easily. I like Instagram and its contents, but if I mention some I need to “read more” button to show all texts. Maybe, at that time, I need to jump my thumb finger to click it.

Third is the consistency that Twitter app has. Who posted that Tweet, Icons with picture that I can recognize about their personality (even it is just icon, some personality reflect to choosing picture of their top icon), Tweet contents (is it emotional? Or more business like? Or more narrative?), there are a lot of information I could get, but visual hierarchy like weight of typeface and color and thin line with consistent help me to read information organized.

Different impression for each devices

I am not an enthusiastic fan of Twitter, but I realized that there are a lot of points why I used Twitter so frequently. This is also the reason I was addicted to Twitter, and in inhibit my healthy life without digital device!! Just one caution is that I am talking about the Twitter app, and especially in case of black background.

I rarely open web version Twitter, even I hesitate to do it.

When I think that aspect, provider may need to think which device users will use with the service they want to provide. If Netflix, it might be mainly used in a home, so the device will be not only mobile smart phone, but bigger screen. In contrary, like Twitter, mainly users use the service on mobile phone. If we have time limited to consider too detail of the service, we could prioritize which device we would like to as main to show our brands too.

How the Twitter UI makes me addicted to Twitter was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.