Dark pattern

Web pop-up with dark patterns:
  • Fake urgency
  • Offer of dubious value
  • Fake social proof
  • Obscure opt-out with confirm-shaming
  • Hard-to-click preselected checkbox with trick wording

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".[1][2][3] User experience designer Harry Brignull coined the neologism on 28 July 2010 with the registration of darkpatterns.org, a "pattern library with the specific goal of naming and shaming deceptive user interfaces".[4][5][6] In 2023 he released the book Deceptive Patterns.[7]

In 2021 the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Consumer Reports created a tip line to collect information about dark patterns from the public.[8]

  1. ^ Campbell-Dollaghan, Kelsey (21 December 2016). "The Year Dark Patterns Won". CO.DESIGN. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  2. ^ Singer, Natasha (14 May 2016). "When Websites Won't Take No For An Answer". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  3. ^ Nield, David (4 April 2017). "Dark Patterns: The Ways Websites Trick Us Into Giving Up Our Privacy". Gizmodo. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  4. ^ Brignull, Harry (1 November 2011). "Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design". A List Apart. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  5. ^ Grauer, Yael (28 July 2016). "Dark Patterns Are Designed to Trick You, and They're All Over the Web". Ars Technica. Retrieved 29 May 2017.
  6. ^ Fussell, Sidney, The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet, The Atlantic, 2 August 2019
  7. ^ "Deceptive Patterns". www.deceptive.design. Retrieved 19 May 2024.
  8. ^ Release, Press (19 May 2021). "Coalition Launches 'Dark Patterns' Tip Line to Expose Deceptive Technology Design". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.