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Ask HN: Dark UI Patterns in Gmail?

by miki_tyler on 7/21/23, 7:54 PM with 16 comments

I have noticed that when I get a new email, let's say in the promotions tab of my inbox, a fraction of a second before I click on it, the ad below it bubbles up, and I end up clicking on it most of the time. Am I the only one experiencing this?

  • by legitster on 7/21/23, 8:18 PM

    "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence". I hate "Dark Patterns" because UX is hard and 90% of accusations are complete assumptions of intent.

    Advertisements are almost universally served from a secondary/external source. So when you make a request to load your inbox, the ad may come in a half second or so slower than the native content. In a world where content is loaded in Async that means it may come in slower than your reaction time to read the page and click.

    If you load up your console and look at the network requests, I would bet you a crisp $49 bill that you will not see all of the content loaded at the same time and the ad being delayed intentionally.

  • by aodonnell2536 on 7/21/23, 8:07 PM

    Haven’t experienced it myself, but Google has been doing it with YouTube for years so I wouldn’t put it beneath them

  • by asdman123 on 7/21/23, 8:12 PM

    I have experienced an deterioration in the mobile browser experience. When using Safari on iOS you always get a full page prompt that wants you to switch to the app. The problem is that it is slightly delayed from the rest of the page loading. If you started to scroll, your viewport is now offset vertically, making it impossible to get to the latest message. The JS always forces you down. So now you need to hard reload, wait for the prompt again, skip and only then you are able to access the search and latest message. It maddening.

  • by bingemaker on 7/21/23, 8:12 PM

    In the settings, I have unchecked all the categories (Primary is checked by default). I haven't experiences any such issues.

  • by blondin on 7/21/23, 8:21 PM

    this is bad UI design. not a dark pattern.

    nowadays, i smile away whenever a lazy loading UI gets in my way. and i end up tapping or clicking on it. i never go back to do what i was doing when i was rudely interrupted.

    i have seen it everywhere.

  • by stainablesteel on 7/21/23, 8:25 PM

    this used to happen with google searches

  • by scrum-treats on 7/21/23, 8:10 PM

    Don't know as I try not to use Gmail.