I ran across another great post on dark patterns by Harry Brignull on A List Apart a few days ago.  I first learned about dark patterns back in December 2010, and I was immediately intrigued by the concept of consciously using psychology & UX methodology to mislead the user.

Mr. Brignull not only provides clear illustrations and real-world examples of how dark-patterns like hidden costs, trick questions, and forced continuity are utilized but, more compellingly I think, he explains that despite whether dark patterns are implemented intentionally or via misadventure they are often hard to eliminate.  Dark patterns often perform well in A/B and multivariate test because their … (more…)

Just saw a post on Paul Irish’s Blog explaining the “protocol relative URL”, which appears to be a great way to eliminate this confusing (or possibly even scary for some) error message in IE: “This Page Contains Both Secure and Non-Secure Items”.

The code is a relatively simple change and there are very few caveats, so this seems like a fix that could significantly increase user confidence when browsing in environments that move from HTTP to HTTPS .

HTTPS Goes Mainstream

HTTPS usage has recently moved beyond the e-commerce and banking/financial sectors:

• In January of 2011 Facebook announced that HTTPS access was available everywhere,  not just for log-in.

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Jared Spool explains how to build a crappy survey that will produce suspect, if not misleading, results. And that’s in addition to frustrating/alienating your users/customers, which is never a good idea.

Links

• Jared Spool
• 19 Lessons from United Airlines on How to Build a Crappy Survey

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An examination of “Dark Patterns”, the concept of consciously using psychology & UX methodology to mislead the user. Includes links to further discussion and examination of dark patterns by Tyesha Snow, Aaron Walter and Harry Brignull.