[achikin]

That's a bit biased. "Easy 2/18" insists that "Invite friends..." is the default button and should be blue, while "Skip" button should be white which makes look like it's not a button at all, so a user does not realize that he can skip the useless spamming "Invite" step. I think it's a bad design.

[Xelbair]

Yeah, that one was blatantly biased. It is a dark pattern trying to dissuade user from clicking that button - which honestly is just a bad design.

Some of them are genuenly good - the alignment ones for example, but others are open to interpretation where you have to pick the most 'in' option.

[achikin]

Yes, mostly they are fun. For some of the exercises I couldn't tell what is wrong but somehow one option looked better than the other.

[Viker]

Dark patterns are still patterns!

They key is consistency. Please leave your morals at the door.

[ken]

The tutorial simply says to pick the one that's "more correct". There's nothing that indicates consistency should be valued more highly than ethics -- or any other possible ordering of design priorities.

[atoav]

I have been a designer for 10+ years, when you ask me “which is more correct” I’d always go for the option where skip is also a blue button.

Good design is not just consistent patterns, but also clear communications. This is the design equivalent of fraudulent small print in a contract. This is saying to the user: you have two options, but one is rather silly, don’t go for it.

In that regard: weighting and sorting options by how often they are used is good design (because it reduces the communicative friction in everyday life).

Making the (from a privacy standpoint) better option seem like no real alternative option is increasing the friction for some and manipulating others into not choosing at all. Like a car that warns you about steering right while it praises you for steering left, although both should be equal options.

Bad design, because it is bad communication.

[Viker]

Yes. Again all true. But as a product designer your job is usually to make the product in the most cost efficient way for the company, not the user. So implementing design in a way that is also part of the product strategy is good design!

The same way IKEA stores are designed to keep you furthest away from the exits. Designing that in a good way is much harder than simply designing a system where the user has to make educated guesses.

[Spivak]

The thing that is wrong in the design in having two calls to action. The fact that it's user hostile is a separate issue. You could make the skip button look more like a button but you should still deemphasize all but one action.

[shele]

Evil design is bad design.