Dark UX Patterns, and Why They Suck
Most of us know how frustrating it can be when we’re ‘forced’ to sign up for services we don’t need or want. We’re frequently met with confusing and sometimes even misleading instructions when we attempt to cancel or change recurring payments.
Twelve months ago, I signed up for a $40 Norton antivirus. The process was easy, and it didn’t present any issue. That was until I received an auto-renewal charge of almost $120. The same product, however, is currently sold on promo for $50.
I navigated to attempt to unsubscribe from the service.
Since I can’t sing like Taylor swift, This article is about my breakup with Norton.
I have included a screen from the unsubscribe process.
I was greeted with an answer option box where I was required to state why I wanted to leave the service. This is still relatively normal.
What happened next wasn’t. The action buttons under this should have been “Stay Subscribed” and “Unsubscribe.”
However, I had two options with no button for unsubscribing. The button for “Stay Subscribed” was highly emphasized and suggested. While the button for cancelling was ‘greyed out’ and vanished into the background.
Aside from the visual trickery, they also employed confusing copywriting. Does ‘continue’ mean I continue to unsubscribe, or I continue with my existing plan?
This could easily mislead someone into clicking and choosing to stay subscribed.
This was confusion by design.
If the interface design team spent some time thinking about this, they’d realize that users don’t unsubscribe from services they love. So, saying “We value our customers’ opinions” while camouflaging the unsubscribe button and highlighting the stay subscribed button is deceptive at best and hypocritical at worst. The barely visible unsubscribe button is a dark pattern being adopted by Norton here to manipulate the users into doing things they don’t want to do.
Thinking about it, an antivirus company sells confidence, competence & trust. But tricking the users into unknowingly signing up for expensive services they were trying to unsubscribe from is somewhat antithetical to the brand.
Situations like these are common, with different sites using the same strategy to lure unsuspecting users onto their platform and then tie them down to recurring payments.
This design style belongs to a family of patterns called Dark UX Patterns.
Dark patterns are design features intended to trick users into doing something that they otherwise wouldn’t do. This is done by convincing them they did it of their own volition or that it was all a mistake. It is a form of unethical design that aims to take advantage of the flaws in human psychology — ultimately costing customers money, privacy, time, and more.
In this article, I will be sharing some examples of Dark UX patterns, why they are used, and how they affect relationships with users.
If you want to experience a Dark UX design pattern right now, you can play this game I like, go to a famous news site and find out how many clicks it takes to refuse “free cookies” you are being offered.
Why do Dark Patterns Exist?
These interfaces make the user think that they are getting a bargain or avoiding some inconvenience when, in reality, they are getting a raw deal. Because users do not know that they are being manipulated, they may feel tricked or stupid afterwards and blame themselves for the poor user experience that they just had.
Let us find out why designers, business, and product managers employ these dirty little tricks in their designs.
Some of the reasons for this include:
Financial Pressures:
The business world is harsh. Even in leading technology companies, management is often pressured by the need to increase revenue and profit. And in some cases, the need to increase profits and revenue can make people do things they usually wouldn’t do, such as manipulate users for financial gains.
When users cannot unsubscribe, the company continues to make money off these users through recurring costs. This is common with subscription-based platforms.
This might provide financial gains, but when a user eventually succeeds in unsubscribing, there is every possibility that the user will never use the service again and also discourage others from using it.
Vanity Metrics: With more users in the system, the company displays a false image of current users and engagement on the services they provide.
They want to say stuff like “fastest-growing.”
More Data: It’s common knowledge now that data is gold. Data is a massive reason companies employ dark patterns. Disguising information to get past a user’s privacy allows organizations access to more information than the user wants to share. In 2015 LinkedIn paid a class action lawsuit settlement of $13million for the dishonest way it collected contact emails to help “expand your professional network.” I bet you got one of those automated invites.
Here are some popular examples of Dark Patterns in UX
Misdirection with color:
It is the easiest way to misdirect users. By greying the likely button like “No, thanks,” designers highlight buttons like “pay, allow or upgrade.”
In dark patterns, colors like green, red, and often used to guide users to act contrary to their thoughts.
Confirmshaming:
The words and pictures are used to make users feel guilty about their attempt to take action. These words shame the user while opting-out.
Intrusive advertisements are used to encourage and nudge customers into a decision. This is done by replacing the user’s actual choice option with phrases or sentences meant to shame them into a decision.
Double negative language:
The language used is a trick for a user to decide. This language makes it confusing for the user to check or uncheck the checkbox.
Checkboxes disguised as radio buttons:
In some cases where multiple options are available, checkboxes are disguised as radio buttons, making the alternatives seem mutually exclusive.
Hidden Costs:
The user goes through multiple steps before seeing the actual cost of an item. Some additional fees are appended to the original price at the end of the workflow.
Tricky Questions:
Framing tricky questions that appear to ask a simple question but intend to have a totally different meaning.
Forced continuity:
The user signs up for a trial period of a particular site with their bank card details linked for recurrent payment after the trial period must have elapsed. The user does not receive a message when the trial period ends, or companies charge the customer’s card before the trial period expires. These sites also make it difficult to cancel subscriptions by ensuring the process needed to carry it out remains tedious.
Sneak into the basket:
While attempting to purchase, the site adds items to your basket without your consent.
Another popular example of this design pattern is used in app installations where users find out that they have actually installed several applications instead of the single app they tried to install.
Disguised Advertisements:
Imagine a user visits a streaming site, and at the bottom left corner, an ad pops up showing “Download Video Here” or “Watch in HD Here.”
Sadly, this ad takes the user to a whole other site, survey link, or something irrelevant.
Why Are Dark UX Patterns Useless?
Relationships built on deception and trickery tend not to last long. Trust and loyalty are probably the most important things you should be trying to inspire in your audience if you’re trying to build a brand. Let’s take a look at why they’re not a good choice.
Poor NPS:
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple way to gauge customer loyalty. The NPS tracks the percentage of customers who are willing to promote your business to others. Using dark patterns in UX directly affects the NPS as people will be less likely to promote or recommend your products to others.
High Churn:
A high churn rate means that your marketing efforts and resources will acquire customers and not keep them. Dark patterns in UX will ruin the customer experience, making your customers choose your competitor instead of you if you continue with wicked little schemes.
Brand Image suffers:
Using dark UX patterns to trick users into doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do can seriously hurt your brand’s reputation. Dark patterns can be hard to resist because they’re subtle. However, using these harmful practices to increase your conversion rate can destroy your brands’ image and might even earn you a spot in the dark UX Hall of Shame.
How can companies stop Dark Design Patterns?
Introduce strict design practice standards.
Insert empathy into the design and uphold user interest.
Choose user experience over the number of subscribers or visitors.
Derive inspiration from UX designs that follow ethical design guidelines and processes.
Carry out extensive research for users to find out about their expectations.
When tempted, what should you do?
As the digital world is exploding and more and more people become familiar with technology, there is a need for a good user experience. This means that you, as a designer, need to make sure the interface is easy to use, understandable and gives the user what they asked for.
If you’re tempted to use these little UX tricks that are intended to trick customers into spending money or making it nearly impossible for them to unsubscribe. Then realize that you’re only valuing short-term profits over long-term gains and ruining your brand’s image for some measly leads and conversions. Let the users do as they please by creating meaningful interaction without any roadblocks in the way.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou.
