Dark patterns are design elements that deliberately obscure, mislead, coerce and/or deceive website visitors into making unintended and possibly harmful choices.
Dark patterns can be foundin many kinds of sitesand are usedby several kinds of organizations. They take the form of deceptively labeled buttons, choices that are difficult to undo, and graphical elements like color and shading that direct users’ attention to or away from certain options.
Dark patterns in subscriptions are a common example of these kinds of design choices, given the ubiquity of online subscriptions and free trials for all kinds of products and services. This kind of dark pattern might make it difficult for a user to unsubscribe, or it might automatically convert a free trial into a paid subscription.
To demonstrate how common these kinds of design practices are, and to illustrate the various harms they can cause, designer and public interest technologistStephanie NguyenandIlaunched the zineI, Obscura. The zine publishes case studies of different dark patterns and what can and should be done to protect users from these practices. I, Obscura was launched with help from student authors Ryan Tan, Kaylee Doty, and Kally Zheng, and in collaboration with theStanford University Digital Civil Society Laband theUCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.
Why dark patterns matter
Calling all Scaleup founders! Join the Soonicorn Summit on November 28 in Amsterdam.
Meet with the leaders of Picnic, Miro, Carbon Equity and more during this exclusive event dedicated to Scaleup Founders!
The inability to unsubscribe from service results in a specific monetary harm: It makes people spend money they didn’t intend to. But dark patterns can cause other kinds of harm, as well.
These can take the form of emotional manipulation, like when a site places a countdown clock on an offer to accelerate a customer’s decision-making, even though time has no bearing on the sale or the use of the product or service. Or the harm could be the loss of privacy, as when an app forces users to turn off data collection in two different settings instead of making privacy settings easy to find.
Apower imbalanceexists between users and organizations, which makes it nearly impossible for individuals to always protect themselves from deceptive design practices. We created I, Obscura to help educate web users about the possibilities.
Consumer protection is important, as well. TheFederal Trade Commissionand state attorneys general have enforced consumer protection regulations against organizations that use deceptive design practices, especially those with apps thattarget children. It is important for policymakers to prohibit the use of dark patterns and to require organizations to make interactions as transparent and simple as possible.
Article byJasmine McNealy, Assistant Professor of Telecommunication,University of Florida
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
