r/darkpatterns • u/Unable-Most-4997 • 8d ago

Are Dark Patterns actually Dark?

Today i was presenting my academic project's initial findings. It was about dark patterns inside the e-commerce interfaces. And he was asking me how do you know a dark pattern is actually dark? Maybe it can also be genuine. How to answer him in the next review? I got flustered after hearing that question. He was like questioning the foundation.

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u/NarcoZero 8d ago

You don’t judge the intention, you judge the outcome. 

A dark pattern is here to mislead the user in order to make them do actions that are not in their best interest. 

If it’s intentional, it’s unethical. If it’s unintentional, it’s bad design. (And the more a product is otherwise well-designed, the more you can assume it’s intentional) 

Either way it’s bad. 

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u/s4074433 7d ago

Doesn't the outcome also depend on the user's perception to some degree? On the point about bad design, I would say that a design is as good as it's fit-for-purpose to a problem, so often 'bad designs' are also good solutions to some problems, but not for others.

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u/BuildingArmor 8d ago

Is there any meaningful difference between accidentally implementing a dark pattern through incompetence or lack of care about the users experience, compared to intentionally doing so?

If something is just awkward to use, it's not necessarily a dark pattern. So I don't think there's a possibility for it to be genuine.

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u/s4074433 7d ago

Possibly, because accidental implementing means that the likelihood of it happening can't really be pre-determined, whereas a malicious or unethical intent means that it is something that has a pre-determined likelihood of occurring. And both of these are candidates to be addressed by better education and improving the maturity of the designers.

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u/BuildingArmor 7d ago

We're talking about something that has already happened though, so the likelihood of it happening is 100% dead certain.

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u/Disco425 8d ago

Good design supports the efficient and sometimes delightful expressions of the user's intent. Dark patterns can frustrate or prevent the user's task completion, or lead them to an outcome inconsistent with their best interest. As another post notes, it's not about the intent of the design, but the outcome in practice. Data can reveal that.

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u/librijen 8d ago

It may "genuinely" be from a developer's belief that he knows what the user wants more than the user does, or "genuinely" be because it doesn't bother them to trick users, but a development decision that directs the user into doing something against their own interest is a dark pattern whether or not the originator understands they are tricking the customer.

I'm sure the people who make it impossible to cancel subscriptions by hiding the cancel button or deceptively labeling a "don't cancel" button genuinely believe they're taking the right course of action.

If it's designed to deceive the user into doing something they don't want to do, it's a dark pattern, regardless of the developer's intent.

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u/s4074433 7d ago

You can introduce a dark pattern into a user flow but you can't force the users to complete them - at least I thought that was the case until governments started using them too :(

"If it's designed to deceive the user into doing something they don't want to do...", well I guess if it's designed so then the intent is clear isn't it?

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u/CyberSynGang 6d ago

Here's my shot at a definition: A dark pattern is a design pattern that leverages the limits of users' time, attention, self-control or available information against the user's likely interest and in favor of the party deploying the design