Thanks to
Harry Brignull from
Dark Patterns for bringing up the interesting topic of evil user interfaces; UIs designed to trick you into spending more money, or buying a product you don't want. Here's the best example from their
slidedeck - the Ryanair booking form. I've added some explanatory comments below each screenshot.
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| 1. Ryanair home page. |
Loads of sale fares for just £5, looks great ... lets buy a ticket ...
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| 2. The booking form. |
Looks straightforward so far, no issues yet.
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| 3. Passenger details section. |
Notice the default option for the insurance dropdown is "Please select a country of residence".
If you're not paying attention, you'll assume it is just an address question, and so you'll select your country of residence. In doing so, you are actually selecting to pay for travel insurance ... its designed to trick you into selecting it by mistake.
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| 4. Travel insurance dropdown. |
If you don't want travel insurance, then you have to select the correct option, "No Travel Insurance",
which is listed between Latvia and Lithuania.
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| 5. On error, the dropdown clears your selection. |
If you make a mistake anywhere on the form, such as shown above, forgetting to select "Yes" or "No" for the priority boarding question, then when you try and submit it, the insurance dropdown will default back to its original option, which was "Please select a country of residence". They really want you to pay for travel insurance, and this is their last chance of getting an extra few percent of users to buy it.
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