Talk:Price Comparison Prevention

From Dark Patterns

Direct Line not on Price Comparison Websites.

I don't work for DirectLine, but I do work in the design team of an insurance company, so don't take this as a defence of DirectLine's UX design. I can't see how DirectLine choosing not to appear on price comparison sites can be considered in any way clandestine.

What is not being considered in this scenario is that price comparison websites, like MoneySupermarket, are a controlling force who command high cuts from each sale made and impose there own agendas on price results. Of course it's technically possibly for MoneySupermarket to include prices from DirectLine, but they have chosen not to strip their product away to fit MoneySupermarket's criteria and sell directly to customers. This in no way prevents users from getting quotes from DirectLine and comparing them to their current insurer, or others in the market.

Providing insurance is much more than getting it as cheap as possible. It's about quality of service and customer care. DirectLine are much admired in the insurance trade for openly moving against the price orientated comparison sites and I think it's only a matter of time before all the major insurers move away from them.

In my opinion the real Dark Patterns are around insurance price comparison site's results. You don't have to look very far to see that the insurance brands consistently coming top on certain comparison sites are the ones owned by the comparison sites themselves.

-- Martynreding (talk | contribs), 2010-12-28 20:48:22

Papa Johns

I would also have to disagree with the statement that an employee at a brick and motar store would notify a user (customer) about specials and deals, or that there aren't dark patterns lurking in those interactiions. Many employees will do this, for instance an El Pollo Loco cashier informed me that buying the $5 combo was a better deal than buying a pollo bowl and a drink separately, but basically that was just having me pay 25 cents more and getting a side of tortillas (normally around 50 cents). Instead of informing me that it was 25 cents off some tortillas, she merely said "it was a better deal". This would have been a better deal if I actually wanted tortillas in the first place, otherwise I was duped into paying 25 cents more for something I did not want.

I have also had employees conveniently fail to mention specials to me (you know that little sign next to the window when you walk in the place) and recommend the "best" dish when in fact it turns out to be the more expensive dish (higher the bill, higher the tip, same amount of work).

And in the case of Papa Johns, I do not feel they are being malicious but are guilty of bad programming, as specials should be automatically applied when applicable. However in your example, if it was Tuesday, the offer would be completely useless to me and I would have wished I ordered my pizza a day sooner. I do believe their offers should show immediately when opening the app when it is time sensitive (as in the case of the deal working only on Monday if it were in face Monday). I'm not sure if it's a dark pattern, but it does seem like their UI designer did a poor job.

-- Madebypaul (talk | contribs), 2011-11-23 09:10:31