Dark Patterns
Designers make tough decisions every day. One of the most challenging is achieving a balance between marketing goals and user needs. Increasing a company’s reach and profits is a common reason why brands use dark patterns.
What are dark patterns?
Dark patterns are techniques, usually related to interface design, that are used to manipulate users into doing things they do not want to do.
These are often employed to generate profit, increase time spent on a website, or subscribe to paid services.
The term Dark Patterns was first coined by London-based UX designer Harry Brignull in August 2010. He defined it as:
A user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into things like purchasing insurance when buying or subscribing to recurring bills.
There are 12 types of dark patterns:
- Tricky questions
- Sneak into basket
- Roach motel
- Privacy zuckering
- Price comparison prevention
- Misdirection
- Hidden costs
- Bait and switch
- Confirmshaming
- Disguised ads
- Forced continuity
- Friend spam
Now let’s discuss each in more details.
Trick questions
This is a common situation in the case of pop-up windows with confirmations. While filling out a form, the user tries to quickly respond to a question, skimming the sentence without delving into its meaning. After all, he is not reading, but scanning the content. Only upon careful re-reading can one understand what it’s about.
For example, the Sky order page has an opt-in/opt-out checkbox that is not set by default. But the offer says: “Sky may contact you about products and services you may like if you do not click to opt out”. This sentence intentionally confuses and tries to deceive users into subscribing to the mailing list.
Also, a series of checkboxes can be displayed, and the first will mean “opt out”, and the second — “agree”.
Sneak into basket
Sneak into Basket is a technique used to deceptively make users add a product to the cart without their explicit consent or knowledge. The pattern is often used by e-commerce websites or apps to increase sales and revenue.
Here are a few examples of the Sneak into Basket pattern:
The website automatically adds an additional item. This strategy is rarely used by computer users today as they find it easier to see when an extra item appears in the cart. But this pattern is used more often on mobile devices because mobile users have a smaller screen and are sometimes distracted, they can easily miss the extra item and find the extra charge only after placing the order. The website deceitfully makes the user add an additional item manually. Sometimes this happens when the website pre-selects an option that adds an item. Previously, Sports Direct automatically added a Value Magazine and a “free” mug to all its online orders for an additional £1.
Roach motel
Roach Motel is a pattern that facilitates user entry into the system but complicates their exit from it.
It is often used in situations when a site requires providing personal information or taking some action, such as registering for a service or agreeing to terms. Once the user has performed the actions, it becomes difficult for him to cancel the service if needed.
Here are a few examples of Roach Motel:
- Subscription services. Some subscription services make it easy for users to sign up for a free trial but make it difficult to cancel the subscription or find the cancel button.
- Registration forms. Some websites or apps require users to provide personal information or create an account before accessing content or services, but it is difficult for users to delete their account or remove their personal information from the system.
- Confirmation messages. Some confirmation messages, such as those used during online shopping, can give the impression that the user has no choice but to continue with the purchase, making it hard for them to cancel or decline the transaction. An example of this pattern is taken from https://www.deceptive.design.
Here you can see how a plane ticket company tries to sign you up for Rolling Stone magazine. Kind of odd, isn’t it? After all, I would not expect this information here nor would I pay attention to the checkbox to decline the “offer”.
When you finally realize that you’ve purchased a subscription, the only way to cancel it is to download a form, print it, fill it out by hand and mail it to them. 👍🏻
Privacy zuckering
A technique that forces users to share more personal information than they intended to. The term is derived from Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who was criticized for creating a system that prioritizes the collection and monetization of user data over user privacy.
Price comparison prevention
The Price Comparison Prevention pattern got its name from how it works — it prevents the comparison of prices on similar products, services, offers, or packages, because there is no uniformity in the units that can be compared to make an informed decision about the price and price-quality ratio.
Such a pattern can be seen everywhere where offers and services are sold in a package. For example, telecommunications websites, some e-commerce sites, and web hosting sites.
Let’s consider Vodafone: a user can easily get confused when choosing the tariff plan that best meets their needs. If you look only at the basic information, you can see that there is no uniformity between the term of the plan and the proposed data, even if the talk time is unlimited, as in most cases. To further confuse users, most companies also offer streaming platform subscriptions (in this case Disney + Hotstar) bundled with plans, making comparison with others based solely on one parameter virtually impossible.
Misdirection
This pattern is designed when a company doesn’t want you to notice something, or they want you to go a certain way.
A good example of deliberate misdirection is Ryanair’s design. When buying a ticket, users are prompted to choose their country of residence and this question is mandatory, so most users logically choose their country of residence. However, the question is actually related to purchasing travel insurance. But if you look closely at the drop-down list, you can see the option “Travel insurance is not necessary”. Users who are not aware of this will be tricked into buying travel insurance, which is not actually mandatory.
Hidden costs
The Hidden Costs model is a deceptive pricing tactic used to make products or services cheaper than they actually are, omitting or hiding certain costs that users may incur. This can include charges for additional features or services, taxes, delivery costs, or other payments that are not included in the advertised price. This is done to attract users.
I think you’ve often encountered this when booking accommodation on Booking or some other similar service. At first, you saw a very attractive price and when making a payment it almost doubled due to taxes, commissions, and fees, which were not previously mentioned anywhere.
And this is an angry comment on this from one of the users.
Bait and switch
A pattern that involves enticing customers with a cheap or attractive offer, then switching to a more expensive or less desirable product or service when the customer has already made a purchase.
I’ll explain this with the example of updating Windows 10. Normally, when we click X in the upper right corner of the update pop-up window, the window closes without any further action. In the Windows 10 dialog box, this action led to the initialization of the update.
Confirmshaming
Confirmshaming is a marketing tactic that uses manipulative language to prompt users to take certain actions, such as subscribing to a mailing list or making a purchase, making them feel guilty or ashamed if they choose not to do so.
The pattern usually involves a pop-up or dialog box offering the user two options: to confirm a certain action or to reject it. If the user decides to decline, the pop-up may use phrasing that implies that the user is making a negative or socially unacceptable choice, for example, “No, I don’t want to save money” or “No, I don’t care about the environment”.
Here are a few examples:
n my opinion, companies should focus on creating value for users and providing clear and honest information about products or services. They should also respect the user’s right to make their own choice and avoid using expressions that try to provoke feelings of guilt or shame them into taking a certain action.
Disguised ads
A type of pattern that can be found while searching for a movie online, scrolling mobile apps, or using an e-book reading app.
Hidden advertising, also known as native advertising, is advertising that blends with the content of the website or social media platform. These ads often mimic the appearance and style of surrounding content, as ad banners appear as the rest of the content or navigation — buttons, sliders, registration, etc.
The goal of disguised advertising is to confuse users and get them to click on the ad, as well as to generate revenue for advertisers.
This happens when companies promote their products using their own site. One of the most common forms of disguised advertising is the download button located in the download section of the website. By clicking on the button, the user will not receive the corresponding software, but will be redirected to a completely different place.
In the past, I often came across hidden ads in search of free software and usually after clicking on “download” my computer was populated with strange browsers that I had no intention of installing. The real download button was usually at the end of the page and wasn’t noticeable at all.
Here’s an example of one of those sites.
Government authorities in some countries require such labeling, and non-compliance can result in fines or lawsuits.
Forced continuity
This is a practice where a company requires a user to continue paying for a product or service on a regular basis, often without their explicit consent or knowledge. This can happen when a free trial or promotional offer automatically turns into a paid subscription. Or when a user, registered in a program without being informed, receives a notification of a money deduction from his card.
Imagine a situation. You need to do an animation for a university project. You found a great Gif creation service and decided to subscribe to the trial version. To do this, you need to enter card details. No problem, it’s a “free trial”, what could go wrong?
Everything is ready, you handed in the project and happily forgot about the subscription, and after some time you received a message about the deduction of a significant amount from your card. Why? You didn’t receive any notifications in advance.
This type of pattern is usually considered deceptive and unethical practice, as it may result in a user being charged for products or services they didn’t intend to purchase or didn’t realize they were signing up for. In some cases, it may be difficult or impossible for users to cancel these payments, leading to disappointment and bad user experience.
Audible offers a free trial month. But after it ends, it doesn’t ask users if they want to continue.
It’s important for users to carefully read the terms of any offers or subscriptions they’re considering and to be wary of any offers that seem too good to be true or that require personal information or payment details up front.
Friend spam
The Friend Spam template, also known as friend request spam, is a spam distribution tactic used on social media platforms. Under this scheme, spammers create fake accounts or use compromised accounts to send friend requests to a large number of users, often in a short period of time.
The aim of the friend spam pattern is to quickly build a large network of friends or followers, which can then be used to spread spam, fraud, or harmful links to a wider audience. This tactic is particularly effective on social media platforms relying on user-generated content and largely on social proof, such as likes and followers.
Let’s look at an example of Linkedin, which we use so often. The company was sued for using this pattern. They tricked users into importing their address books and spamming their friends.
After completing the basic profile information, LinkedIn offers you to “Start by adding an email address”. There is an explanation of what this button actually does, but the text is written in a light gray font below the “Continue” button, so most people don’t pay attention to it. This is undoubtedly a dark pattern. In fact, it’s even deception. This page is not designed to add your mailing address, but to attach an address book.
They implemented a feature to invite all contacts from the address book who have not yet registered on LinkedIn with one button.
And the inscription “Add to Network” actually means “Send 688 letters”.
After this, LinkedIn was ordered to pay users $13 million in compensation.
Social media platforms also use ways to detect and prevent friend spam, such as restrictions on the number of friend requests that can be sent over a certain period of time, and algorithms that detect and flag suspicious account activity.
Conclusion
Dark patterns in UX design erode user trust, so it’s important for designers to consider ways to prevent their use. Here are a few possible solutions:
Design Transparency
One of the best ways to prevent dark patterns is to increase design transparency. This includes clearly and concisely informing users about the actions they are performing, what data is being collected, and how it will be used.
Promoting Ethical Design
Ethical design prioritizes the needs and values of users, taking into account broader social and ethical considerations. Designers should strive to create interfaces that promote ethical behavior and avoid using methods that might be perceived as manipulative or exploitative.