Dark Patterns, or a Risky UX Practice
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2025 8:53 am
Media, mass or social, have been with us for many, many years and have become our everyday life. Let he who can say that he has nothing to do with them cast the first stone. Technological progress means that the media are also developing strongly - who would have thought 20 years ago that the Internet would become as widespread as it is today. Unfortunately, due to the development of technology and media, their commercialization is also progressing, especially in recent years. Newspapers have more and more advertising sections, television is increasingly extending the advertising time and discreetly trying to smuggle product placement into its programs. The Internet, on the other hand, has developed the most of all mass media, with a whole host of fields specializing in creating, marketing and managing advertisements. As a rule, these are open and fully legible advertisements, consisting of a simple offer of one's products/services for a specified amount. Unfortunately, in addition to such clear activities, "sneaky" methods of persuading the recipient to perform the action planned by the sender have also developed. Dark Patterns - although at first glance this term may simply be associated with a dark texture or a certain pattern, this term refers to the previously mentioned bad behaviors, and its meaning is derived more from the psychological approach of "Dark Patterns (behaviors)".
Contents
Bait and Switch
Phishing in exchange for a free service/product (Forced Disclosure)
Maze to the exit (Roach Motel)
Forced Extension (Forced Countinuity)
Friend Spam
Misdirection
Adding to Cart (Sneak into Basket)
Arousing negative emotions (Confirmshaming)
Disguised advertisements
Trick questions
Dark Patterns are behaviors on the internet that are intended to manipulate the recipient into converting in a planned manner. Often, the use of such patterns is controversial and has a psychological impact on the internet user, but more on that in a moment. To assess the impact of such techniques on users, it is recommended to regularly conduct a UX audit .
When talking about dark patterns, one thing cannot be said against them - that they are ineffective. I am sure that each of us has been fooled by them at least once and has contributed to the realization of someone's goal on the web. So let's take a look at what types of such behaviors can be distinguished:
Bait and Switch
Bait and Switch
This scheme consists in implementing an unusual and non-intuitive interface for the recipient . A user who has certain habits and customs regarding, for example, a given application, often performs actions automatically. For example, every Windows user knows that all windows are closed by clicking the characteristic "X" in the upper right corner. Microsoft took germany telemarketing data advantage of this fact when Windows 10 was released. Users of the then most popular version of the system (win7) received many messages informing about a possible free update to the win10 version. However, when it turned out that they were not willing to do so, Microsoft sent users the following notification:
Most people, upon receiving such a notification, reflexively clicked "X" in a gesture of refusing the offer. However, they did not notice that the message was not "If you want, you can update the system", but "If you want, you can postpone or cancel the update, otherwise we will do it immediately.", so after closing the window, the system began downloading the update. On the one hand, this caused a lot of criticism towards the company, on the other - it fulfilled its task perfectly .
Phishing in exchange for a free service/product (Forced Disclosure)
Forced Disclosure
This situation occurs when a user enters a given phrase in a search engine, let's take "how to cook rice properly" as an example. They are immediately presented with exactly the results they expected - a PDF file with precise cooking instructions. After entering the page, we see a message like this:
The unsuspecting recipient enters their data thinking that it is just a formality and the company probably only needs this data for statistics. The average user does not know that when they entered the website and reflexively accepted cookies on the website, they also agreed to "sell their data", which by the way, they have just now given them. As a result, new offers from companies they did not know before start coming to their mailbox. In this way, the company made money on the user and their data, and the recipient himself was left with a lot of new spam and, let's hope, at least tasty rice!
Maze to the exit (Roach Motel)
Roach Motel
Let's think from the company's perspective - we've acquired a user who has set up an account on our portal, great! What's next? We need to keep them, but how?... There are companies that at this point have not focused on favorable conditions for the user, not on developing the portal or maintaining positive relations with users. They decided to take the path of least resistance and... very cleverly hid the option to delete an account. My favorite example of such a move is the global brand - Amazon . Let's think about how you can delete your account on their website:
Step 1: Probably, to delete an account, we need to go to the “Account&Lists” tab - quite logical for now.
Unfair UX Practices - AmazonSource: own
Step 2: After expanding the tab, we go to the “Your Account” Panel - still understandable.
Unfair UX Practices - AmazonSource: own
Step 3: Naturally, we will review all the buttons in the “Your Account” tab - after all, this is specifically about deleting your account.
Contents
Bait and Switch
Phishing in exchange for a free service/product (Forced Disclosure)
Maze to the exit (Roach Motel)
Forced Extension (Forced Countinuity)
Friend Spam
Misdirection
Adding to Cart (Sneak into Basket)
Arousing negative emotions (Confirmshaming)
Disguised advertisements
Trick questions
Dark Patterns are behaviors on the internet that are intended to manipulate the recipient into converting in a planned manner. Often, the use of such patterns is controversial and has a psychological impact on the internet user, but more on that in a moment. To assess the impact of such techniques on users, it is recommended to regularly conduct a UX audit .
When talking about dark patterns, one thing cannot be said against them - that they are ineffective. I am sure that each of us has been fooled by them at least once and has contributed to the realization of someone's goal on the web. So let's take a look at what types of such behaviors can be distinguished:
Bait and Switch
Bait and Switch
This scheme consists in implementing an unusual and non-intuitive interface for the recipient . A user who has certain habits and customs regarding, for example, a given application, often performs actions automatically. For example, every Windows user knows that all windows are closed by clicking the characteristic "X" in the upper right corner. Microsoft took germany telemarketing data advantage of this fact when Windows 10 was released. Users of the then most popular version of the system (win7) received many messages informing about a possible free update to the win10 version. However, when it turned out that they were not willing to do so, Microsoft sent users the following notification:
Most people, upon receiving such a notification, reflexively clicked "X" in a gesture of refusing the offer. However, they did not notice that the message was not "If you want, you can update the system", but "If you want, you can postpone or cancel the update, otherwise we will do it immediately.", so after closing the window, the system began downloading the update. On the one hand, this caused a lot of criticism towards the company, on the other - it fulfilled its task perfectly .
Phishing in exchange for a free service/product (Forced Disclosure)
Forced Disclosure
This situation occurs when a user enters a given phrase in a search engine, let's take "how to cook rice properly" as an example. They are immediately presented with exactly the results they expected - a PDF file with precise cooking instructions. After entering the page, we see a message like this:
The unsuspecting recipient enters their data thinking that it is just a formality and the company probably only needs this data for statistics. The average user does not know that when they entered the website and reflexively accepted cookies on the website, they also agreed to "sell their data", which by the way, they have just now given them. As a result, new offers from companies they did not know before start coming to their mailbox. In this way, the company made money on the user and their data, and the recipient himself was left with a lot of new spam and, let's hope, at least tasty rice!
Maze to the exit (Roach Motel)
Roach Motel
Let's think from the company's perspective - we've acquired a user who has set up an account on our portal, great! What's next? We need to keep them, but how?... There are companies that at this point have not focused on favorable conditions for the user, not on developing the portal or maintaining positive relations with users. They decided to take the path of least resistance and... very cleverly hid the option to delete an account. My favorite example of such a move is the global brand - Amazon . Let's think about how you can delete your account on their website:
Step 1: Probably, to delete an account, we need to go to the “Account&Lists” tab - quite logical for now.
Unfair UX Practices - AmazonSource: own
Step 2: After expanding the tab, we go to the “Your Account” Panel - still understandable.
Unfair UX Practices - AmazonSource: own
Step 3: Naturally, we will review all the buttons in the “Your Account” tab - after all, this is specifically about deleting your account.