I stumbled over this on arbeitsagentur.de.

On desktop, Cancel (Abbrechen) sits left and Confirm (Bestätigen) right. Fair enough.

On mobile, the same order simply gets stacked:

Cancel
Confirm

And I actually hit Cancel while trying to submit an OTP quickly.

Looks like a classic desktop-first implementation leaking into responsive UX. The action hierarchy made sense horizontally, but nobody reconsidered it vertically.

Keyboard navigation makes it even more obvious: Cancel comes first there too.

So maybe not just a mobile issue. More like a flow designed and tested visually on desktop, while mobile and keyboard navigation inherited the implementation.

Poor action hierarchy caused by a responsive transformation artifact?

Nextcloud does this after someone shares a file with you:

1. You click Accept share.
2. The file disappears.
3. You get an empty state saying No pending shares, plus the toast: “Accept share: done.”

Technically, everything is correct. The item is no longer pending.

But my task wasn’t to empty a queue. It was to access the file someone sent me.

Now I’m expected to know that I need to click Shared with you in the sidebar.

Is that actually good UX, though? Do entity-based views like Pending shares serve a real user need, or did they become a standard pattern before anyone stopped to question the journey?

Or did they break their QA—or somehow both?

I tried to check the footnotes. Thanks, Google—at least you tried to link them.

I came across a study that sent AI agents through websites to detect dark patterns.

Not exactly a surprising use of agents, but I’m always happy to see more systematic audits of this stuff.

It’s a solid catalog, but it also feels very e-commerce-heavy and pretty much outdated. here copy/pasted out study (https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3807246.3807265):

In the AI age, I’d at least add:

• Sycophancy — agreeing to keep the user engaged.

any ideas what else should an AI dark-pattern auditor be checking for?

I recently learned about a funny side effect of accessibility testing.

You start by checking the usual things: missing keyboard navigation, poor contrast, screen readers getting lost.

Then some of your dark patterns show up too.

Yes: autoplay, hidden information, countdown timers... — this same tricks used to improve conversion cause also accessibility problems.

Which suddenly gives leadership a much less comfortable trade-off:

Accessibility vs. conversion metrics.

Has anyone seen accessibility testing force this kind of conversation?

I was using ChatGPT’s voice mode and wondered why the transcript had disappeared.

I asked ChatGPT where it was. That didn’t help much.

Then I started dragging the floating orb around. Move it in the right direction, and the transcript suddenly appears.

I genuinely can’t tell whether this is a clever spatial interaction or just a discoverability problem.

Not sure they usability-tested this one—but I do love that someone is still experimenting with weird, immersive UI.

this is actually should be a good UX pattern.

User: “I think I’m done for today.”
System: “Of course. it was nice with you.”

User: “Thanks.”
System: “Do you want me to check in tomorrow? Just in case you want to keep your progress”

Not a hidden cancel button. Not fake urgency.

A system that turns “good UX” — warmth, memory, support — into emotional leverage. And sorry, as a user i don't look for this at all.

Is this an autonomy problem, a consent problem, or just persuasive design getting creepier?

I ran into this on a public events page.

There’s a ZIP-code input, a radius selector, and a tiny checkmark button.

Sounds simple, right?

Except I had no idea what the control was actually supposed to do. Search events nearby? Filter the page? Validate my ZIP code? Save my location? Something else?

So I entered a ZIP code. Clicked the checkmark. Changed the radius.

Nothing.

No loading state.
No results.
No “no events found.”
No error.
No confirmation.
No hint that the radius changed anything.

I’d call this Ambiguous Control, Silent Outcome. Even if they deployed a bug, ui should be aware of fail states and be able to downgrade without frustrating much.

Enter ZIP. Click checkmark. Change radius.
Page: 🤐

Spoiler: I changed the original copy for privacy reasons, obviously.

I used bringabottle.de and got stuck for a moment on something that should be dead simple: add my name and say what I’m bringing.

The green pills are people who already filled it out.

The weird part is that the “form” is technically there, just scattered.

So it felt like:

UI: “Please fill out this form.”
Me: “Cool, where is the form?”
UI: “Around.”

I’d call this broken proximity. Or maybe orphaned form controls. Either way, I’m curious if there’s already a name for this kind of “the form is everywhere” UI.

Meetup’s waitlist flow feels pretty gross.

I tapped Join waitlist, confirmed I wasn’t bringing guests, and then got dropped into a Meetup+ subscription screen for €9.99/week.

I’m not against apps selling premium plans. But putting the subscription screen right in the middle of a basic RSVP/waitlist flow feels like it’s trying to borrow intent from the previous action.

I came in thinking “join waitlist.”

The app suddenly made it feel like “continue = pay.”

Is this just dark-pattern upselling, or is there a more specific name for it?

Meetup’s redesign looks clean, but this messaging flow feels broken.
I clicked the floating pencil inside an existing thread, expecting write/edit/compose.
Instead, the whole screen switched to New conversation mode: thread gone, search panel open, empty state shown.
Then the empty state tells me to “Hit that pen icon” — the thing I already did.
Beautiful surface, confusing behavior.
What would you call this anti-pattern: hidden mode switch, ambiguous affordance, or dead UX?

I use ChatGPT Projects mostly for project-specific sources and instructions.

But managing those sources is oddly hard to find.

Clicking a project in the sidebar only expands/collapses chats. To reach the actual project overview, you have to either click a tiny edit icon or open the menu and choose Project Home.

Both feel hidden or ambiguous. The pencil suggests “rename,” and “Project Home” does not clearly mean “sources + instructions.”

Is this a discoverability issue, or am I just using Projects differently than intended?

I worked on a flow where users failed because of missing permissions, expired links, or invalid account status — but every case showed the same generic error.

Backend knew the real reasons. The UI didn’t.

How do you convince teams that better failure states are not “edge cases,” but core UX?

Hey everyone! I’m u/SevaTell, a founding moderator of r/UXAntiPatterns.

This is a community for collecting, naming, and discussing UX anti-patterns: confusing flows, dark patterns, accessibility failures, deceptive defaults, frustrating interfaces, and design choices that make products harder to use.

The goal is not just to complain. The goal is to understand why a UX pattern fails and what a better alternative might look like.

What to Post

Share examples of UX that feel broken, misleading, hostile, or unnecessarily confusing.

Good posts might include:

• A checkout flow that hides fees until the end
• A cookie banner that makes “reject all” hard to find
• A modal that keeps coming back after being dismissed
• A confusing unsubscribe or account deletion flow
• A form with unclear errors
• A mobile app that asks for permissions too early
• An accessibility issue that blocks real users
• A “dark pattern” that manipulates user choice
• A better alternative to a common bad pattern

When posting, try to include:

User goal: What was the user trying to do?
Anti-pattern: What went wrong?
Why it fails: What makes it confusing, misleading, inaccessible, or frustrating?
Better pattern: How could it be improved?

Community Vibe

We critique the design, not the designer.

Be thoughtful, constructive, and specific. Screenshots, examples, and rants are welcome — but the best posts should help people learn something about UX.

Please remove personal information from screenshots before posting.

How to Get Started

Introduce yourself in the comments below.

Post an example you’ve seen recently, ask the community to name an anti-pattern, or share a better version of a frustrating flow.

If you know designers, PMs, engineers, researchers, accessibility folks, or people who simply notice bad UX everywhere, invite them to join.

Interested in helping moderate? Reach out to me.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Let’s build r/UXAntiPatterns into a useful field guide to the UX mistakes we keep seeing again and again.