Top all-time · #10134
Dan Lockton
Personal blog · architectures.danlockton.co.ukdesignculture
Dan Lockton's personal blog at architectures.danlockton.co.uk covers design and culture. Since 2009, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 9 times, most often “Learning from game design: Gambits for influencing user behaviour”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-10-16, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Dan Lockton's Design With Intent blog for behavioural design ideas, such as placebo elevator door-close buttons and game design gambits for influencing user behaviour.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Learning from game design: Gambits for influencing user behaviour2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-03-25
- Placebo buttons, false affordances and habit-forming2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-11-22
What Hacker News says?
Here's a page with images and some description ( http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/28/a-vein-atte... )
Comment linking /2006/10/28/a-vein-attempt/
on “Maybe buses should be free”Submitted Learning from game design: Gambits for influencing user behaviour as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIsn't the interface there for "Fireman mode?" In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) From: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_... See also Design With Intent: http://arc…
Comment linking /2008/10/01/placebo-buttons-false-affordances-and-habit-forming/
on “Placebo buttons: 'door-close' buttons, others, don't do anything”Submitted Placebo buttons, false affordances and habit-forming as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHi, I'm also new to this, but I found the following useful (apologies for the weird formatting): Books Web design Steve Krugman - Don't Make Me Think (and the sequel) Presenting information Edward Tuftes - http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi Highly useful books about presenting statistics and information visually Websites Personally, I find Smashing Magazine good for articles that give you a lot of examples…
Comment linking /2010/04/10/design-with-intent-toolkit-1-0-now-online/
on “Ask HN: I want to learn graphics design. Where should I go?”Submitted The fight back: loyalty card subversion ('06) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBehavioural game design is a/the topic you should be checking out. I linked to a couple of good articles in a post here: http://www.lonegunman.co.uk/2010/03/19/behavioural-game-desi... Design with Intent's "Learning from game design: 11 gambits for influencing user behaviour" post is worthwhile: http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2010/03/22/learning-fr...
Comment linking /2010/03/22/learning-from-game-design-11-gambits-for-influencing-user-behaviour/
on “Ask HN: Learning game psychology”Submitted Persuasion for peace as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Architectures of Control as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
