Dark patterns

Example

Hiding the cancel button, sneaking items into the cart, showing a countdown that never ends.

Why it works

Using the effects in this course against users instead of for them produces dark patterns. A crawl of about 11,000 shopping sites found 1,818 instances on roughly 11% of them.

On the web

Every pattern on this site lists when it backfires. Before shipping, ask whether users would still agree if they later learned everything. Make canceling, declining, and changing as easy as signing up.

Sources

1. Found 1,818 dark-pattern instances of 15 types on 1,254 of about 11,000 shopping sites (about 11.1%).

   Mathur, A., Acar, G., Friedman, M. J., Lucherini, E., Mayer, J., Chetty, M., & Narayanan, A. (2019). Dark patterns at scale: Findings from a crawl of 11K shopping websites. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW), Article 81. Open source

2. The author who coined "dark patterns" in 2010 maintains a catalog of types and cases.

   Brignull, H. Deceptive Patterns (formerly darkpatterns.org). Open source

3. Prohibits online platforms from designing interfaces that deceive or manipulate users or impair their free and informed decisions.

   Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), Article 25. Open source

4. A September 2022 staff report describing common dark patterns and recommendations for businesses.

   Federal Trade Commission (2022). Bringing Dark Patterns to Light. Staff report. Open source

5. Japan’s amendment effective June 2022 requires the final confirmation screen of online sales to show quantity, price, and payment terms, and bans misleading displays there.

   消費者庁. 令和3年特定商取引法・預託法等改正. Open source

Connect with the classics

These links are editorial readings, not research findings. Check the original meaning on each classics page.