Deceptive web designs (also known as dark patterns)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the jargon phrase applied to a concept is not obvious. The Wikipedia page for Dark Pattern says:

 

“A dark pattern (also known as a ‘deceptive design pattern’) is a user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. User experience designer Harry Brignull coined the neologism on July 28, 2010 with the registration of darkpatterns dot org, a ‘pattern library with the specific goal of naming and shaming deceptive user interfaces.’ “

 

Mr. Brignull later renamed his web site Deceptive Design.

 

There is a detailed discussion of this nasty marketing topic in an article by Arvind Narayanan et al on pages 42 to 47 of the September 2020 issue of the Communications of the ACM titled Dark patterns: past, present and future. There is another description in an article by Sara Morrison at Vox on April 1, 2021 titled Dark patterns, the tricks websites use to make you say yes, explained. And on September 15, 2022 the U. S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a press release titled FTC Report Shows Rise in Sophisticated Dark Patterns Designed to Trick and Trap Consumers, and a link to their 48-page staff report titled Bringing Dark Patterns to Light.

 

You also can find a pair of excellent brief articles by Kelly Leblanc at Information Today. One on November 16, 2021 is titled The Magic of Dark Patterns: Can We Evade Their Trickery? Another with a summary on December 1, 2022 is titled Dark Patterns Deep Dive. The latter article actually comes from a series of four others which unfortunately are not out on the web. I found them at EBSCOhost. Those article titles and dates are:

 

Dark Patterns Deep Dive: The Roach Motel - April 2022

 

Dark Patterns Deep Dive: Misdirection and Forced Continuity – July/August 2022

 

Dark Patterns Deep Dive: Confirshaming – October 2022

 

Dark Patterns Deep Dive: Bait and Switch – November 2022

 

Dark Patterns Deep Dive: with a section on Bait and Switch and Disguised Ads – December 2022

 

My graphic is modified from this cartoon at Wikimedia Commons and a devil at Openclipart.