Overview

In the field of UX, dark patterns run rampant, as companies seek to increase their user engagement, virality, transactions, and ultimately their bottom line.

Today, we’ll explore this deceptive UX; a disturbing trend that has become more prevalent, what it is, and how you can avoid it when designing experiences.

Deceptive UX practices

What exactly is deceptive UX?

Crucially, deceptive UX occurs when a product or service uses cognitive biases, or misrepresentation, in order to essentially force a user to make a specific choice, or behave in a certain way.

This problem is actually so bad, that there is a site dedicated to cataloguing UX dark patterns, which you can check out below:

Essentially, these dark patterns can range anywhere from implicitly prompting a user to click a button based on it’s styling, all the way to basically outright lying to your user to get them to take action.

To understand these deceptive practices, we need to examine their roots more closely, and get a better idea of the psychological principles that underpin their effectiveness.

The root of deception

At the root of dark patterns and deceptive UX practices, we find ourselves again face to face with user expectations.

Once a user’s expectations have been established, and the promise to the user has been made, a user will reasonably expect that their promised outcomes will follow accordingly if they do what’s asked of them.

This is where the deceptive practices typically come in, and they do so in the form of leveraging bugs that already exist in the human brain, called cognitive biases.

Cognitive biases

Here’s the rub: most people fall prey to at least some, if not all, of these biases on a regular basis.

These biases have been leveraged by marketers and sales people for years, and while they are not bad or evil in and of themselves, they can absolutely be used for unethical purposes.

I would definitely recommend checking out the following list of biases as it can give you valuable insight into how users operate psychologically, and how these principles can influence their expectations, and overall outcomes.

Methods of deception & exploitation

Some of the most effective methods of deception & exploitation happen when a user doesn’t even register that it’s occurring to them.

Examples of these can be:

• Asking intentionally misleading questions on forms
• Putting users into a situation that’s easy to get into but hard to get out of
• Sharing user data in ways that are unexpected
• Intentionally obscuring pricing information or service details
• Changing the outcomes without informing the user
• Embedding hidden costs or obligations into agreements
• Manipulative or deceitful ux copy or verbiage
• Ads that look like part of the workflow

The list goes on but it doesn’t take long generally speaking before you come to a point where something like this has happened to you as part of your experience.

Recently, I stumbled upon a fantastic example of a dark pattern that I wanted to share with you all.

A prime example

The other day, I was asked if I wanted to sign up for Walmart Plus. I was told that there was no order minimum for shipping, and that delivery to my house was part of the service.

For less than $15 a month I could have essentially the entire store delivered right to my front door. For convenience and utility value, that’s pretty hard to beat.

So I decided to sign up, figured it would be no big deal to give it a try and see how it went. I was just about to checkout with my items when I noticed an area down near the bottom of delivery page: “tip.”

Now I know what you’re probably thinking: “well yeah Nick, duh, basically every grocery delivery service has drivers that take tips,” but that’s the problem. This isn’t Instacart, or Doordash, or Uber Eats we’re talking about here. This is a Walmart-backed service that was supposed to include all fees in the membership as long as I met the order minimum, which I did.

(Side-note: the suggested tip was a pretty fair chunk of change).

Transparency is key

You see the problem here?

The user’s expectation was set, and the promise was made, then, right before the user was about to checkout, they were prompted to make a decision that would affect someone else’s life.

Whether or not a driver got a tip for providing service is a large consideration, for some even the difference between pickup up their groceries, having them delivered, eating out vs cooking at home, etc.

To clarify: do I mind tipping? Of course not, when I expect to have to tip, and that’s the crux of this issue.

The crux of the issue

When confronted with a UX problem as such, the user is either forced into a situation they don’t want to be in, or they bail, not getting what they were initially offered or promised.

→ No user should be expected to fork over more cash for a service that is supposed to be included in the monthly fee that they’re paying for it.

I chose the latter and will be picking up my groceries from now on, and here’s why: what this deceptive practice tells me is that they do not pay their delivery drivers enough to make it worth their while on their own, so they have to resort to passing that cost down onto the user as well.

Bringing it all together

So what does this all mean for you?

As a designer, your goal is to make sure that you are consistently helping your users achieve their optimal results. The last thing you want to do is make them feel strong-armed, cajoled, or manipulated.

Some of the best ways to ensure that your users feel respected throughout their journey are:

• Being open, honest, and transparent with users about what they’re getting.
• Outlining fees and charges up-front and sticking to them.
• Not asking users extraneous questions.
• Not sharing user data outside of what is absolutely necessary.
• Allowing users to bow-out or exit of they feel that your product or service just isn’t right for them.

By avoiding dark patterns and deceptive ux practices, you can help to ensure higher-quality user experiences that leave your users feeling great about their decisions, and doing business with you.