What are Deceptive Patterns in UX?

Designs that force a user to act against their better judgment are known as deceptive patterns. They are frequently used on the internet since they are highly successful at increasing conversions. But it’s against the law and unethical to use them. As a result, the consumer is duped into completing the online assignment without meaning to. Dark Patterns is another term for deceptive UX design.

Deceptive Patterns in UX

What is a Deceptive Pattern?

The word “deceptive” comes from the verb “deceive,” which means to purposely mislead someone into believing something that isn’t true or accurate, especially to benefit oneself. These dishonest UX designs encourage users to make purchases or take actions that they otherwise would not have thought to do. Therefore, the user is tricked into unintentionally performing the online action. Financial loss, loss of privacy, and legal control are some of the harms caused to the users due to deceptive patterns. This practice is made even more concerning by the fact that deceptive patterns are more likely to succeed with vulnerable users, such as time-constrained users or users with lower literacy and lower digital literacy levels.

Origin and Evolution

Harry Brignull first used the term “deceptive pattern” in 2010. It was derived from the idea of “design patterns” in user interface design. Since then, deceptive patterns have become increasingly common in digital design.

The widespread phenomena which contribute to the pervasiveness of false patterns are:

A/B testing and focus on driving conversions:

• The use of misleading design patterns has expanded as a result of the growing popularity of A/B and multivariate testing for conversion optimisation.

Plagiarism in design:

• Numerous businesses copy the designs of their rivals. Although this approach has aided in the establishment and standardisation of design patterns, it has also led to the spread and seeming legitimacy of deceptive design patterns.

Types of Deceptive Patterns

Comparison Prevention:

• When features and pricing are integrated in a complicated way or because important information is hidden, it is difficult for the user to compare items.

Visual Interference:

• The content is hidden, obscured, or concealed on the website, contrary to the user’s expectation that it will be provided in a clear and predictable manner.

Misdirection:

• To divert the user’s attention from other things, the dark pattern employs misdirection.

Sneak into a basket:

• This unscrupulous tactic places an additional item in the user’s virtual shopping cart, which they then have to take out of there in order to avoid being charged for it.

Trick questions:

• This dark pattern takes advantage of people’s comfort level with website skimming and form-filling by fooling them into providing answers to questions they wouldn’t have intended to.

Hidden costs:

• Hidden costs happen when a customer is charged extra fees or other costs on top of the order price in the final stage of any online checkout process.

Preventing price comparisons:

• While most websites allow users to compare prices, others could employ a dark pattern by hiding or inadequately explaining their pricing information.

Examples of Deceptive Designs

While it is hard to discuss every type of deceptive pattern in one article, some notable instances are as follows:

Obstruction:

• Making it harder for customers to select options that are non-beneficial to the business, like raising the cost of interactions or hiding relevant information.

Visual or wording tricks:

• Using well-established design patterns or cognitive biases to mislead users.

Nagging:

• It is the practice of persistently urging people to accept offers they have rejected.

Emotionally manipulative designs:

• Designs that manipulate users’ emotions by instilling feelings of guilt, fear or humiliation.

Sneaking or preselection:

• Choosing alternatives or automatically adding unnecessary items to a user’s cart without getting their permission.

Most Common Deceptive Design Patterns

• Forced continuity: Hulu and Netflix are two popular streaming services that frequently use forced continuity. When a user’s free trial period expires, these companies automatically charge their credit card, compelling the user to keep using the site.
• Friend spam: This is when a person is granted access to a social media account or the ability to locate new friends in exchange for providing their email address or consent to access the platform. But as soon as the product gains access, it begins to bombard the contact with messages that appear to be from the user.
• Disguised ads: They are frequently seen on websites and they look similar to the content on the rest of the side. It increases the likelihood that users will click on it as a result.
• Bait and switch: This dishonest pattern happens when a user follows a path expecting one thing to happen, but something else happens in its place. This is illustrated in the Windows example from 2016. The users encountered a bait and switch when they clicked the ‘X’ button, which initiated the Windows 10 update rather than closing a pop-up window as was supposed to happen.
• Confirm Shaming: It is a dark pattern that aims to force the user to take action by making the alternative seem like a very bad option. For example, a business may decide to provide a discount on the user’s first order in return for the user’s email address.
• Roach motel: Roach motel is a dark pattern wherein the user is forced to complete an action that offers great convenience, such as creating an account.

Avoiding Deceptive Patterns

Being aware of deceptive designs will help you, as a responsible UX designer, avoid falling for them. When you see these dark patterns in action, being aware of them will make it easier for you to spot them and provide a strong remedy. To ensure ethical design, we should carefully review the designs and adopt a user-centered methodology. Since it’s important to be truthful and open with the clients, it is unethical to use a deceitful pattern and should be avoided. Acquiring devoted customers necessitates strengthening their faith in the company by transparent, sincere communication in addition to implementing UX design principles correctly.

Conclusion

Since deceptive patterns are commonplace and ubiquitous, it is essential for designers to be able to see them so that they can be avoided. It seems that all of these “deceptive patterns” are ways of fooling individuals into doing things they may not want to, even though the phrase itself lacks a generally acknowledged meaning. Recognizing the trends in deceptive UX design is one of the first steps towards avoiding it.