Dark Design patterns used by the Trump election defense fund

Or how to milk as much money as you can out of your supporters

After reading various accusations that Donald Trump refusing to concede is just a gambit to keep donation money rolling in, I took a look at the vehicle for donations. The Trump campaign is using deceptive and misleading user interface designs to milk more donations out of supporters, and arguably outright steal money.

For those that don’t know — a dark pattern, or dark UX, is an interface that has been designed to trick you into doing something you didn’t necessarily mean to.

I highlighted 5 patterns I found:

1. Blocking Popup
2. 1000% Match
3. Misleading Checkboxes
4. Fine Print
5. Exit Intent Popup

1. Blocking Popup

I’m not a fan of popups anywhere unless they are shown from a direct user action, but this one is extra special. There’s no close button or obvious way to get out of this without clicking through. You can click the grayed out area but it’s not clear enough.

This might not be enough to trick younger audiences (who tend to search harder to achieve goals in interfaces) but look specifically designed to trick an older audience who might think you have to click on this.

2. 1000% Match

The language here is obviously sales-y and nothing out of the ordinary except for one part — “Contribute now for a 1000%-Match”. Match from who? What is this? This also appears on the donation page with “increase your impact by 1000%”.

That’s a wild percentage even for something that looks fake. If someone donates $100 and you are matching $1000, what do you need them for?

When asked about this, Tim Murtaugh, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign said it was “a common fund-raising approach“. On the site, the match isn’t explained any further and isn’t in any of the fine print, so likely doesn’t exist.

This is dark because there was a conscious decision to include this language solely to convince you to contribute and isn’t backed by an actual match. It has a similar vein to the fake “15 people are looking at this item right now” text in product pages.

3. Misleading Checkboxes

Scrolling down on the donation page, we get to what I consider the worst most misleading pattern on the website.

There are two checkboxes in between your donation select that are designed not to be read. By default, if someone donates $100, you have $100 withdrawn today, $100 2 days from now, and $100 weekly moving forward. I‘m impressed at both how bold and how despicable this is.

There are a few ways these are designed so that enough people don’t notice the checkboxes:

• They look like standard “accept terms and conditions” checkboxes.
• They are checked on by default.
• The unimportant misleading text is much longer and bolder.
• The important text is smaller and hidden beside the bold text.

All of this adds up to try and sign you up to double your donation, and then also make a weekly recurring donation.

4. Fine Print

The fine print originally showed that 50% of every donation (up to a maximum of $2,800) went to paying off debt, instead of what you think you are donating to. After being widely reported on, the fine print has been updated to remove that part, replaced with a “Save America” fund, which could also just be paying off debt.

The dark pattern I noticed here regards the “contribution rules”. This is essentially what you “declare” when you donate, and is important information to know upfront.

There are a few ways this is designed to be hidden away:

• Placement after all of the other fine print at the very bottom of the page.
• Using a smaller font size that is well below accessibility standards.
• Using a lighter font color of #A1A4A8 which fails web accessibility contrast tests.

All of this added together makes it hard to read in the best of circumstances, and is intentionally designed to be missed.

5. Exit Intent Popup

And the most annoying for last, the classic exit intent popup. An overlay that appears right as you are about to leave the website. Similar to the entrance popup, these are dark because you are specifically interrupting the intended user action. Unfortunately, these still exist because they work.

This one does include an X-to-close button in the top right, but it doesn’t matter much here because it is so poorly contrasted it is hard to see and if you do hit “X” in this case, you land back on the page you were trying to leave.

Special Mention

The type of language used across the board is a combination of an extreme sense of urgency and general misdirection. This is common theme across these patterns and could be considered a dark pattern itself, alongside the use of stark visuals.

Sanity Check

Let’s also compare to Joe Biden’s as a sanity check. There was an interstitial page, but no popups. More straightforward language, no checkboxes, and contribution rules in plain view underneath the continue button. The fine print is not great, but clearly goes mostly to the DNC, and partially to the “Biden for President Recount Account”.

Out of the total funds donated to the Trump campaign, 45% is from donations under $200. These are small time donors that are being ripped off using a series of intentionally designed dark patterns. It speaks volumes to the level of disrespect that this campaign has for their own supporters.