Dark Patterns

Project Details

As the number of scams and deceptive tactics on the internet is constantly growing, its important to find a way to combat them. This research project focuses on understanding whether educating users on dark patterns affects their likelihood of falling for them. I went through

As the number of scams and deceptive tactics on the internet is constantly growing, its important to find a way to combat them. This research project focuses on understanding whether educating users on dark patterns affects their likelihood of falling for them. I went through


Duration

4 months

Team

Individual

Role

UX research

The Problem

As the internet has grown and changed over the years, researchers, developers, and marketing teams have employed many tactics to help their organizations profit, at the cost of their users. Since the internet is still fairly new, and constantly evolving, many things are still unknown, and new terminology and definitions are emerging.

Dark patterns, also known as deceptive patterns, is a term that was coined by Harry Brignull in 2010. He defined dark patterns as;


“tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something”. 


Dark patterns have been proven to alter a user's decision making capabilities, as they may choose to do something that doesn't align with their preferences. The issue arises when users are constantly providing data, information, or money to corporations that they normally wouldn't provide. This led to the question:

Do users with a higher level of knowledge on dark patterns interact with them differently?

Research Methods

Participant Profile

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  • Age: 18-25

  • Frequently use the internet in their daily lives

  • Unaware of the term dark patterns, and what they are. 

Step 1: Interview

How familiar are they with dark patterns?


Step 2: Test

Ask them to complete a task on a website riddled with dark patterns. See how many they fall for.


Step 3: Teach

Give the participants a short lesson on dark patterns


Step 4: Test, again.

Ask them to complete a similar task on a similar website with the same dark patterns. See how many they fall for once again

Testing Websites

View the full prototypes here north_east

Results

This research proved that a user's knowledge level on dark patterns had no impact on how they interacted with them. During the first task, where participants had no knowledge of dark patterns, users on average fell for 4 out of the 6 dark patterns present on the site. The average remained the exact same when looking at the results of using the website after participants were educated on dark patterns, with it still being 4 out of 6

These results also noted that the types of dark patterns that users fell for the most were all related to the ad block popups, and the cookies popups. These 2 examples are some of the most commonly found dark patterns on the internet, so you’d think that users may have recognized them by now and no longer fall for them, but it's actually quite the opposite. Users have become accustomed to these pop ups, and seem to do whatever it takes, just to get the easy way out of it.


Based on the results, there were actually more cases of users falling for these dark patterns (preselection and obstruction) after having learned about them than there were before. This can help prove the idea that users may actually be more likely to fall for dark patterns the more they interact with them, either because they've become accustomed to them, or because they simply get frustrated after repeatedly facing them, and decide to give in.


Read the full report here north_east

These results also noted that the types of dark patterns that users fell for the most were all related to the ad block popups, and the cookies popups. These 2 examples are some of the most commonly found dark patterns on the internet, so you’d think that users may have recognized them by now and no longer fall for them, but it's actually quite the opposite. Users have become accustomed to these pop ups, and seem to do whatever it takes, just to get the easy way out of it.


Based on the results, there were actually more cases of users falling for these dark patterns (preselection and obstruction) after having learned about them than there were before. This can help prove the idea that users may actually be more likely to fall for dark patterns the more they interact with them, either because they've become accustomed to them, or because they simply get frustrated after repeatedly facing them, and decide to give in.


View the full prototypes here north_east

These results also noted that the types of dark patterns that users fell for the most were all related to the ad block popups, and the cookies popups. These 2 examples are some of the most commonly found dark patterns on the internet, so you’d think that users may have recognized them by now and no longer fall for them, but it's actually quite the opposite. Users have become accustomed to these pop ups, and seem to do whatever it takes, just to get the easy way out of it.


Based on the results, there were actually more cases of users falling for these dark patterns (preselection and obstruction) after having learned about them than there were before. This can help prove the idea that users may actually be more likely to fall for dark patterns the more they interact with them, either because they've become accustomed to them, or because they simply get frustrated after repeatedly facing them, and decide to give in.


View the full prototypes here north_east

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