What are Dark Patterns? Examples of Deceptive Design in UX
If you work in tech, you’ve likely heard of dark patterns. If you haven’t, you have almost certainly encountered them; maybe you’ve even unknowingly designed one.
A dark pattern is an intentional design choice that manipulates or misleads users. Businesses use them to boost key business metrics, like revenue or user growth. And they almost always come at the expense of the user.
Table Of Contents
- What are “Dark Patterns”?
- Common Types and Examples of Dark Patterns
- The Rise of Deceptive Design Tactics
- Today: Normalization of Dark Pattern in UX Design
- Persuasive Design or Manipulation? Navigating the Ethics of Dark Patterns
- How Can We Address Dark Patterns?
- Final Thoughts: Moving Beyond Dark Patterns
So how did we get to a place where designers, likely well-meaning, were building interfaces with the intention to mislead us? That made us purchase something we didn’t need (or even want)? That made us give up on canceling a subscription because it took so long to find the “cancel account” option?
These are questions we were curious about – not only to deepen our own understanding, but also to inform our own ethical design standards. In this article, we attempt to answer these questions: explore what dark patterns are, why they work, why businesses use them, and most importantly, how we as designers and developers can create better, more honest user experiences.
What are “Dark Patterns”?
Also called “deceptive designs,” dark patterns are deliberate design choices that ultimately steer users to act against their own best interests. These tactics benefit businesses by helping them increase some metric of interest to shareholders or investors.
Dark patterns work, in large part, by preying on our cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and above all, weaknesses in our decision-making processes. They exploit feelings like social guilt, fear of missing out (FOMO), and commitment bias. In the same way that slot machines capitalize on the rush we get from unpredictability, dark patterns are not simple gimmicks; they’re an orchestrated play on our minds.