Oracle's Dark Pattern with the Ask Toolbar

I just noticed Oracle's use of a dark pattern in the latest Java update:

There is a checkbox to install the Ask Toolbar and to set Ask as the default search provider.

The text next to the checkbox is not clickable. This means that someone who clicks through quickly has 2 chances to install extra crapware on their computer. They are:

1. Not noticing the opted-in state of the checkbox; and
2. Noticing the opted-in state, but quickly clicking the label next to the checkbox then clicking next, not realising that the checkbox is still checked.

Most companies would stop after the first dodgy practice, though one is one too many.

The latter is the one for which I almost fell, but luckily my lack of coordination saved me and I missed the next button.

Anyone else seen some interesting Dark Patterns?

Tyrannosaurus Lex

His judgements are firm, but fair.

OK, that's enough time-wasting. I've really got to get back to this essay now...

Animation: Product Launch

This is unrelated to my previous post, which also happened to contain an animation of mine.

This one is just because I am procrastinating about writing an essay on cybercrime, and I was wondering if there are limits to how much any old mundane product could be over-hyped.

I was told by someone I know that posting comments on my blog isn't working at the moment - It's rare enough that anyone wants to comment, so I don't exactly test the functionality. Tweet to me @dcrafti if you have any problems.

University: Time Well Spent

Here's a flip animation I did in the margins of some lecture notes back in my uni days around a decade ago. I can't remember what subject it was, and I can't be bothered finding the notes, but I think it was introductory telecommunications or something equally compelling.

I'd been meaning to make this into an animated gif to preserve it for future generations, and finally got around to it tonight, when I should be working on an essay about cybercrime.

Well, that's enough procrastination...

Pirate Party Australia - National Congress Election Results

OK, this isn't a normal blog post.

It's the output from a quick and dirty app I wrote, which parses the election result data from the recent Pirate Party Australia National Congress Election. There wasn't a key (that I could be bothered figuring out) to understand the verbose, 2d output from the official results, so I've made my own, extremely verbose, 1d output. It's long, so if you're on the homepage of this site, don't click "read  more" unless you really want to. (that ought to drive traffic).

Anyway, the main thing I noticed was that there are some completely missing pieces of votes for motions (though not candidates). I hope next year there'll be an easier to follow audit trail, as that kind of "small discrepancy", while being understandable for a small (but growing) organisation like Pirate Party Australia, would be totally unacceptable to be used in governmental elections.

The other thing that I noticed, which is likely either a usability issue or people getting bored of such a long form, is the large number of people who filled out the motions but then didn't bother to vote for anyone.

I think the election system has been quite a success, and if it can be improved by having voter-verification support, an audit system that can trace down discrepancies without compromising the secrecy of the ballot, and be handed off to an impartial administrator, then we'll have something to use as a positive example when the inevitable debate around electronic voting comes to Australia.

Finally, a disclaimer: Quick and dirty, as mentioned above, means I have not had anyone verify my program. Ask me for the (begging for refactoring) source code if you're interested, or prove the data wrong with your own program if you'd like. I'm fine with being told if my output is wrong. To see the kind of sceptical nature I have, read about my home-conducted double-blind wine-tasting experiment, in which I identified about 20 procedural issues.

And now, the deluge: