Deceive Deceptive Design

26 Sep 2022

Seeing ads upon ads, forgetting to cancel free trials, and ending up with twenty more items in cart (just where did these items come from??)!!!! And don’t even get me started with the in-app browsers… (PSA on that later).

Mid-lecture, I wrote down in my notebook,

“All these topics -> Bane of my social media usage.”

(Though, I can’t complain, because an online clothing business I created with my friends grew in customers thanks to Google Ads…)

So instead of complaining, I’m going to propose workarounds to these deceptive designs - or conceptual smells, that violate our mental models… And Internet noise in general!

I’ll become an annoying ad for workarounds.

Before They Charge You, Here’s Three Ways to Beat Free Trials >:(

  1. Set up a calendar reminder with notifications to cancel your free trial.
  2. Get a cash card with only up to $5 max within it (assuming the subscription charge is >$5). A few subscription platforms have been charging an initial mini-fee (up to $5) to test if the card is real and works. When the free trial ends, the subscription platform is unable to successfully charge your card. Good.
  3. I looked into some automated methods. Apparently, you can finesse with virtual credit cards through apps like DoNotPay! Apparently, these virtual credit cards “are essentially temporary card numbers used for online purchases that are usually linked to your physical credit or debit card.” Check the hyperlink above to DoNotPay to find out more!

Tipping Over Vague Tipping Models, oops.

So, I asked in class if Dashers were able to view whether or not they are tipped - and they are. But I discovered that they are only able to check the total amount, without knowing how much the tip specifically is (as of March 2022), until after their delivery is completed.

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To workaround the constant changes and confusions within tipping models, if you want to tip your driver without losing out on your delivery package - I thought, tip them $0.01-$0.10 within the app! Then, hand them a cash tip. It’s a win-win!

Do you still watch YouTube WITH ADS on Desktop version? Get AdBlock + watch videos ad-free! (YouTube Premium hates me!)

Well, it’s time for you to get AdBlock! It’s a popular ad-blocker that can be added easily to Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and various browsers; once enabled on your YouTube page, it’ll block every ad video. Enjoy your videos ad-free without paying for YouTube Premium :)

It’s worked well for me for years upon years :) But with YouTube autoplay on, ad-free YouTube streaming may contribute to the lack of taking breaks, as discussed with the possible cons of gapless playback.

Also, look how principled the devs at AdBlock are! They didn’t fold by using Google Ads themselves. I respect that: Alt

On the contrary, I don’t really trust these adblockers. Like if I blocked these ads out, how would I have found them? Alt

Must be tough to break into the adblocking industry without ads, lol.

Hopefully I can add more workarounds in future blog posts. I’ve had some for avoiding the cancellation fee from Adobe’s (Strictly) Yearly Plans by switching into a new plan, or moving past paywalls - I do so by disabling JavaScript with Chrome’s Developer Tools, but at this point, I’m not sure if I’m deceiving deceptive design, or just being a bad customer. Welp. I’m exposing myself. I might just be the bane of software designers who make smelly design.

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Alright, hey! You got to the PSA part :) I was just so flabbergasted that Instagram, FaceBook, Messenger, and TikTok all injected JavaScript code within their in-app browsers to track data from their users (I guess, what did I expect?) - I literally sat there with my mouth wide open during Arvind’s lecture… My friends who’d enter sensitive data and passwords on these app browsers came to mind… so I immediately created a PSA series of Instagram Stories to encourage using Safari and/or other trusted browsers instead of these in-app browsers:

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And I ended up creating a short video tutorial for users who replied and wanted a walkthrough of how to use their phone-default browsers: