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Persuasion plays a big role in our interaction with the world and the people around us. We persuade our friends to watch our favorite movie with us and are persuaded to elect a new president. Some manipulations are transparent. Others are well-thought-out psychological hidden tricks to make easy money. With the rise of technology, methods of manipulation and persuasion are commonly used. From advertisements to get you to buy products to being kept in the dark about what the company promises you, these methods of manipulation are known as dark patterns.

What are dark patterns?

Dark patterns are persuasive techniques used by companies to trick people into buying and signing up for things.

The term dark pattern was coined by Harry Brignull, a cognitive scientist.[1] He describes dark patterns as, “A user interface that has been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things. they are not mistakes. They are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interest in mind.”[2]

Why do companies use dark patterns?

The Internet is a business platform. Websites are designed to capture your attention. To stay competitive, companies must have offers that set them apart, like the end-cap items at the grocery store.[3]

Intentional product placement forces customers to view more expensive merchandise on their way to grab their everyday purchases. Online websites have similar methods of forcing users to see attractive products.

Dark patterns come in many different styles, all with the same intention of keeping the misleading strategy somewhat hidden. Sometimes, dark patterns can be illegal. Brignull says, “Many designers, and possibly even most, hate using dark patterns in their work, but they are forced to implement them by managers. These managers only care about one or two individual metrics, not the experience of the site or brand as a whole. So, a manager who is tasked with increasing the number of people who sign up for a company’s newsletter might order a website designer to use a dark pattern to capture email addresses, because it’s an easy short-term solution that doesn’t require any effort.”[4]

Types of Dark Patterns from Dr. Brignull’s website, darkpatters.org. 

Bait & Switch

The bait and switch technique refers to the act of advertising a ‘too good to be true’ price that is not stocked. By grabbing the customer’s attention, the chances of purchasing an alternatively higher-priced item go up.

Disguised Ad

Disguised ads are advertisements designed to appear like the content the user was searching for, so they’ll mistakenly click on them. They are typically presented to people during informational searches.

Forced Continuity

The forced continuity dark pattern is used when a company offers a free trial period. The company holds the customer responsible for unsubscribing from the free trial period, otherwise charging them for their subscription.

Obstruction

Obstruction refers to the strategy of making a particular task more difficult than it needs to be. The intent is to frustrate or confuse the customer so they give up before completing the task. A common obstruction is hiding the unsubscribe link or instructions, so the customer gives up and keeps on paying their monthly subscription cost.

Friend Spam

Friend Spam refers to the devious act of asking for access to your social media friends list and then spamming them with ads. The user agrees because they’re rushing through the signup process or under the impression that your friend list will be used for a desirable outcome, like finding more friends. LinkedIn was sued for $13 million in 2015 for using this dark pattern.

Hidden Costs

Hidden costs typically appear in the last step of the checkout process when the company asks for additional and unexpected charges, like delivery or shipping charges. Because the customer has already invested enthusiasm and time in the purchase, they are less likely to bail on the transition at the end of the process.

Price Comparison Prevention

This dark pattern is in play when the retailer makes it hard for the user to compare the prices of an item with another item to prevent them from making an informed buying decision.

Privacy Zuckering

Privacy Zuckering occurs when the customer is tricked into publicly sharing more information about themselves than they intended. This dark pattern was named after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg because, in the company’s early years of development, Facebook made it difficult for users to control their privacy settings and easy to overshare by mistake.

Today, ‘privacy zuckering’ works more deviously, using data brokers to collect personal information that they sell to other companies.[8] These techniques were described in Facebook’s lengthy ‘terms and conditions.’ But most users won’t read them because of the overly burdensome legalese.[9]

Roach Motel

This dark pattern technique makes it easy for you to get into a certain situation but hard for you to get out of it.

An example is if a customer wants to delete their profile or content on social media but is punished with unwanted consequences if they do so (like requiring you to lose all of your photos or contacts as a penalty for deletion).

Sneak into the Basket

Sneak into the basket happens when the customer attempts to purchase something, but somewhere during their purchasing journey, an additional item appears in their basket.

Trick Question

A trick question compels you to answer thinking one thing but, if read carefully, it asks for another thing entirely.

Fear of Missing Out

This dark pattern technique is made to look like the item you’re thinking of purchasing is in high demand, pressuring you to make the decision quickly.[10]

Examples include a reminder of the number of people looking also at the specific item. The marketing technique of scarcity will alert you, “Only 3 left!” Booking hotel rooms, airplane flights, and merchandise on Amazon use this persuasive tactic to trigger your urgency and thus increase sales.

Nagging/Forced Action

A popup appears that requires action before you can move forward with your online task.

Sneaking

Sneaking refers to hiding, disguising, or delaying relevant information to force uninformed decisions.

Intentional Misdirection

Intentional misdirection is a persuasive technique that offers a promise for a free or inexpensive item, only to eventually inform you that the free item doesn’t apply to you after all, and you must purchase a different solution.

An example of this type of dark pattern is that was used by the company Turbo Tax. In this instance, Turbo Tax offered people the option to file their taxes online for free. But once in the sales funnel, customers discovered that the free option only applied to people needing to file a simple W-2 form (which is a small minority of taxpayers). Once customers purchased the paid option that applied to them, they would discover the extra $60 to $200 charges for any forms that deal with loans and mortgages.[5] That moves what looks like a free service to an unexpected paid service.

Our GKIS favorite podcast Reply All covered dark patterns in episode #144. They reported that Turbo Taxes’ second option, known as Turbo Tax-Free File/Freedom, was not advertised and the link could not be found anywhere on their website. Further, Turbo Tax-Free File was only free for people whose adjusted gross annual income was $66,000 or less.[6] When the producers searched online for TurboTax Freefile/Freedom, Google offered two options, an orange button asking if you qualify or a blue button saying “start for free.” Most people would choose the option of the blue button that offers free tax filing. But choosing the blue button takes you back to Turbo Tax-Free, where only simple forms are free. Finding TurboTax Free File was only accessible through a link from IRS.gov.[7]

How to Avoid Being Victimized by Dark Patterns

In Dr. Bennett’s book Screen Time in the Mean Time she writes, “Due to screen technology, this generation of children are more marketed to than any other children in history. Why? Because there’s BIG money in child and teen products. If you can’t see the product, you are the product.” GetKidsInternetSafe courses help parents and kids be educated consumers.

Thanks to Andrew Weissmann for his research and help with writing this article.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Photo Credits

Free photo 4993523 © Elliot Westacott – Dreamstime.com

Flickr- by Tony DeCruz

Flickr- by Robert3000

Gratisography- Promotion by Adobe

Flickr- by Tom Magliery

Morguefile- by Getty Images

Works Cited

[1] Theverge.com Dark Patterns: inside the interfaces designed to trick you By Harry Brignull

[2] 90percentofeverything.com by Harry Brignull

[3] Nerdwriter-youtube

[4] Fastcompany.com Why Dark Patterns Won’t Go Away ByJohn Brownlee

[5] Gimlet Replyall #144 dark patterns

[6] Irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free

[7] Gimlet Replyall #144 dark patterns

[8] Npr.org Firms are Buying, Sharing your online info. What can you do about it? By: Brian Naylor

[9] Darkpatterns.org Privacy Zuckering By Harry Brignull

[10] Infimum.co Dark Patterns Designs That Pull Evil Tricks on Our Brains By Ana Valjak