Dark Patterns are hard. Big Cola effect

Now, when I go to one of the catering chains, I take two 0.2 each. And every time I smile to myself with a reproach that it took the “guru” of interface manipulations half a year to see this pattern. Now this example adorns my lectures, which are based on two postulates: design is about money and good design is possible only with a fundamental scientific basis.

For those who ignored the cost in the picture, a 0.3 product costs 109.99, and a 0.2 product costs 59.99. It turns out that the cost of 100 milliliters is cheaper in a small volume. Which contradicts the developed pattern, that a larger volume is cheaper. I like to call this example the “big cola effect”, because since our post-Soviet childhood we have well replaced the fact that cola in a container of 2.25 is much more profitable than 0.33.

This is a real-life embodiment of the classic baseball bat and ball puzzle. Everyone can be convinced of this by looking at the catering to the self-service counters.

This example is good because the classic manipulation is intelligently supported by graphic design: the image of a cup with a volume of 300 milliliters is twice as large as a cup of 200, the preferred choice is indicated by the color coding of the button – green, which in the interface is responsible for continuing the action. Orange, close to red, which are responsible for failure.

The story of the “choice” interface does not end there. As I wrote in my first article continuous design – Usage changes user behavior. Therefore, in “design” there are no ready-made working solutions, there is only what works here and now for specific user habits. So at the beginning of 2023, the position of the preferred product was changed – from its “legitimate” place to the right, to the left.

Out of context, this looks like a mistake, because the preferred position is further from the “poke” of the right hand and argues with the rest of the logic of the location of the buttons. And here all the same manipulations work, but breaking a different pattern of familiarity (banner blindness).

It is likely that such a discommunication occurred between the central department of point of sale management and the regional representative office in charge of the local website and mobile application. In these digital products on the territory of the Russian Federation, this pattern is violated.

However, it is well implemented in other regions. Unlike the point of sale, on your phone or laptop, you have much more time to deal with pricing and draw conclusions. Therefore, in a correct implementation, for example, on a British website or the states, you will not be shown the price tag for both a large and a smaller volume at the same time. Only one – nothing to count here! I was surprised that the pattern in the UK works on cola)

It’s hard to imagine how much the brand loses on such a local implementation of the order online, but the amount should be impressive. However, I do not consider this a mistake of the design team or marketing, the reason for such mistakes is more fundamental and lies in the business culture, which, as I already wrote in an overview of the evolution of the welcome block on the iPhone page, should be perceived through Dawkins’ memetics.

Dark patterns are not so dark when there is an EEG.

The effectiveness of dark patterns is based on our biology, neuroscience. What Benjamin Libet once demonstrated in his famous experiment and was picked up by Daniel Kahneman.

IN article “Does Free Will Exist?” Libet writes: “I have taken an experimental approach to this question. Actions are preceded by an electrical change in the brain, a “ready potential,” which begins 550 ms before the action is taken. Subjects are aware of the intention to act through

350-400ms after the start of RP, but 200ms before the start of muscle work.

You can read more about the experiment from my pen colleague “200 milliseconds of freedom»

In simple words, we realize our choice after the decision has already been made. Naturally, in a very specific environment and circumstances. So, I do not consider the amateurish question of “will” in the article. And I consider the context in which the user and interface design are immersed. Which, as part of the coffee example, is facilitated by another small nuance – timing / time limit.

This interface turns on after 20 seconds of “no choice”. There is not much time for cost analysis. If two positions can still be handled on an empty stomach while standing in line amid the buzz, then the cost of strips in a burger, equal to the cost of strips without a burger, I managed to calculate only at home on the brand’s website.

The peculiarity of this interface is that it cannot be avoided by pressing the screen outside the buttons. Those. I’m still here, I can stand poking at the screen in an empty space, but if these are not buttons, then in 20 seconds I will see a message that will knock me off the count and immerse me in new “stressful” conditions that I did not expect before.

Couple of thoughts

Experiments Kornhuber and Decke, Libetviews SapolskyKanemanev’s model of thinking, visually dismantled on the Veritasium channel, and described in his book Think Slow, Decide Fast, are too sterile about the existence of free will. But what I know for sure is that the construction of the lack of freedom of choice, with my hands and the hands of colleagues in the shop, is well paid.