The Dark Patterns Side of UX Design

Authors: Colin M. Gray, Yubo Kou, Bryan Battles, Joseph Hoggatt, Austin L. Toombs
Year: 2018

The Dark Patterns Side of UX Design

Summary

This paper examines "dark patterns" in UX design as ethically dubious interface strategies that replace user value with shareholder value. Using a practice-led corpus of 118 practitioner-identified artifacts, the authors analyze how deceptive, manipulative, or overly persuasive design practices appear in everyday products. They rework Brignull's taxonomy into five strategic categories: nagging, obstruction, sneaking, interface interference, and forced action. The paper argues that dark patterns expose gaps between academic ethics work and UX practice, and calls for stronger ethical vocabulary, pedagogy, and practitioner responsibility in HCI and UX design.

Important Keywords

  • Dark patterns: interface strategies that benefit stakeholders by misleading, coercing, or manipulating users against their interests.
  • UX ethics: ethical concern with how user experience practices affect user autonomy, trust, and value.
  • Design responsibility: the practitioner's obligation to recognize and resist harmful interface strategies.
  • Design character: the moral quality revealed by repeated design choices and professional habits.
  • User value: benefit or meaning delivered to users through a design.
  • Shareholder value: business value for owners or firms, which dark patterns may prioritize over user value.
  • Persuasive design: design intended to influence user behavior, which can become ethically problematic when it removes meaningful choice.
  • Value-sensitive design: a design approach that explicitly considers human values in technical choices.
  • Practice-led research: research grounded in artifacts and examples identified by practitioners.
  • Critical HCI: HCI work that critiques assumptions and power relations in technology design.
  • Manipulative design: design that steers users through pressure, concealment, or asymmetrical knowledge.

  • Deceptive interfaces: interfaces that misrepresent choices, consequences, or system behavior.

  • Manipulative script: interface pattern that intentionally channels user action against user interest.

  • Interface interference: visual or interaction design that makes some choices harder or less visible.
  • User autonomy: user's ability to make informed and voluntary choices.
  • Consent shaping: design choices that influence whether consent is meaningful or coerced.

Important Concepts

  • Dark patterns: interfaces carefully crafted to trick users into actions that are not in their interests.
  • Five strategy categories: nagging, obstruction, sneaking, interface interference, and forced action.
  • User value vs. shareholder value: dark patterns are framed as design decisions that privilege organizational outcomes over users' goals or informed choice.
  • Practice-led ethics: the paper treats practitioner examples and discourse as a way to connect everyday UX work with academic HCI ethics.
  • Designer responsibility: designers must consider intent, harmful outcomes, vulnerable users, and organizational pressure rather than relying only on static ethics codes.
  • Design character: ethical practice is tied to designers' values and judgment, not just formal compliance or accepted professional behavior.

  • Pedagogy and future work: the authors call for more explicit ethics education in HCI/UX and more applied, pragmatist approaches to ethics in practice.

  • Dark patterns can be understood as manipulative UX scripts that steer users toward actions benefiting the service at the user's expense.

  • Visual hierarchy, colour, defaults, friction, ambiguity, and interface interference can be used ethically or manipulatively.
  • Dark patterns connect to technological mediation because interfaces shape users' perception of available choices and likely actions.
  • Ethical analysis should ask who benefits, what is hidden, how consent is shaped, and whether the design respects user autonomy.

Examples

  • Instagram notification prompts are described as nagging because users can choose "Not Now" or "OK" but cannot permanently dismiss the prompt.
  • Stamps.com is cited as obstruction because closing an account requires calling during business hours and the cancellation information is hidden in FAQs.
  • Salesforce.com is described as sneaking and forced action when users must agree to a privacy statement allowing information transfer in order to unsubscribe from a newsletter.
  • SportsDirect.com is cited for sneaking an unwanted item into a shopping cart that can only be removed by leaving checkout.
  • Windows 10 updates are described as forced action because users cannot shut down or restart without updating when an update is available.
  • Candy Crush Saga is cited as gamification where difficult or impossible levels urge users to buy powerups or extra lives.