Yesterday while watching YouTube, I saw a video titled How Dark Patterns Trick You Online on recommended. I thought it was about designing user interface and how dark background patterns showcase contents on top of it and may be the underlying science behind it. I got amazed on how relatable the content of the video was to my personal experience.
I started searching google about it. Harry Brignull - an independent UX consultant from UK first coined the term Dark Patterns to represent unethical user experience design. He also created a Darkpatterns.org to create awareness and shame the bad practitioners.
In that website he showed many types of Dark Patterns evil designer used to manipulate user to increase profitability.
Bait and Switch
Users are mislead to think their action will do something they are accustomed or they want but in reality it does entirely opposite. One popular example was Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade pop-up. If user clicked 'x' to close, it started downloading Windows 10 in the background.
Forced Continuity
Charging users' credit or debit card after ending of free trail without notifying the user. Here are some examples.
Ads in Disguise
In my opinion this is most prevalent and most seen dark pattern design. You want to down load something and on the confirmation page there are many download buttons with one "very small" but "real" download button. Their main goal is tricking users into clicking on those ads. You can see these on almost every pirated content download websites.
Friend Spam
Tricking users to link social media profiles, giving permission to access their friend lists or contacts just to bombard them with unwanted email/sms to signup on the service. LinkedIn did this, many Facebook apps did this. I was a victim of spam from many unpopular social media sites and job search websites because my friend(s) singed up giving away my contact information.
Hidden Costs
You saw something on sell, add it to cart, while checking out you found out price is not same as advertised or to get it at advertised price you have to purchase some other expensive item. Or there is a handling fee, or unusually high shipping charge. Some sellers on Aliexpress.com is culprit of the last. Here is another example.
Misdirection
Purposefully designing website or mobile app to focus user attention on one thing in order to distract user attention from another. Darkpatterns.org explained it elaborately here.
Preventing Price Comparison
Preventing users from making an informed decision by making it hard to know real price or showing price as a packaged item or showing price per item but users have to purchase packaged. Once again I've seen sellers on Alexpress.com doing this.
Privacy Zuckering
This name came from Facebook CEO which trick users to share more and more private information about them. IMO Busy.org is doing the same.
Roach Motel
Designing website or app to be very user friendly to sign up but very hard to delete account or unsubscribe from the service. Many newsletter services do it by blending unsubscribe link with the email background, or making unsubscribe a 3 steps process.
Sneak into Basket
Another most used tricks by many famous companies is adding products based on recommendation directly into user's cart. Some user do not notice and end up paying for it. I have seen Godaddy.com, Register.com doing this.
Here is the video which lead to this post.
So, what of these sneaky tricks you have fallen for or seen most often?
Image Credit: Pixabay.com
what a very timely article! I just dealt with some of these things this morning. First off.... I HATE all of the practices that you listed - they infuriate me to no end! But i was just charged close to $200 by GoDaddy for a web domain that I didn't authorize them to sign up to . Luckily it was easy to have them remove the charges - but still - no warning until after it already happened and they raised prices - also with no forewarning - these truly are Dark Practices and I wish they would not be allowed to operate like that . It just makes me more suspicious of anything online anymore.
Once I was charged $35 by Yahoo Domains for a domain I transfered away to another registrar. I also got my money back but what a failure for such a big company. I always check cart before ordering anything from Godaddy. For domains I am impressed with namesilo.com. If you want you can try them out.
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