Delta makes upgrading to first class or higher look like a mandatory option.
Trick question using a double negative might maker the user share information they didn’t want to
User must select “More info” to be able to opt out of sharing information and email spam.
The site designs the check boxes to appear as radio buttons so the user is more inclined to select only one.
Unless the user reads the fine print, they may unwillingly sign up for email notifications and more.
Instead of the usual blank stories section, Facebook includes “ghost stories” of your friends that haven’t posted a story in a while when there are no stories available. When the user clicks on it it tells the user that your friend hasn’t posted to their story in a while.
Amazon doesn’t actually show the real average in their star ratings on products, they use machine learning to calculate the ratings while taking into account certain factors.
When a driver tries to stop for the day, the Uber app prompts them to continue in order to achieve an arbitrary “goal” for the day. It even goes so far as to highlight the “keep driving” option to make selecting it easier.
Spotify offers an opt-in private mode, but requires the user to re-up every 6 hours.
Tries to get the user to subscribe to their mailing list by making the user click on a shameful option if they do not wish to. What if the user already subscribes to this service?
Tries to get the user to subscribe to their mailing list by making the user click on a shameful option if they do not wish to. What if the user already subscribes to this service?
The site tries to get users to get a demo, but the alternate option appears to be disabled. It also only links to monster.com, which is a job finding site. So if users don’t want to use their service, they can find a job on monster.com instead.
Esquire attempts to make users feel bad about their decision by making them click a button that says “I don’t read” instead of the usual “No, thanks” button
Instead of letting users simply deactivate their account, Facebook shows users some of their friends that “would miss them” and also tries to convince the user to stay offering a counter-argument to whatever reason they select.
Report Garden tries to get the user to subscribe to their mailing list by making the user click on a shameful option if they do not wish to. What if the user already subscribes to this service?
Popular Mechanics tries to get users to subscribe to their email list by making them click on a shameful response if they don’t want to. What is users are already subscribed?
Pyrex tries to get the user to subscribe to their mailing list by making the user click on a shameful option if they do not wish to. What if the user already subscribes to this service?
The site uses shaming to convince users that they would be better off using their service. The site tries to make the user feel bad for choosing an option the site deems “bad”. What if the user already uses the service? They would still have to click the shameful response.
The site tries to get users to use the site more by making the experience better for those with more popularity or experience. Possible dark pattern aimed towards casual users.
There is no option to select no, there are only options to “try now” or “later.”
The site uses a fake countdown timer that only loops when it reaches zero to pressure the user into buying.
The “Unsubscribe here” link is hidden as white text on a white background.
Yahoo uses confusing options when trying to unsubscribe from their newsletter.
Dribble shows a likely fake animation of tickets for concerts selling out quickly, to panic users into buying a ticket as soon as possible, while simultaneously warning them that “less than 1% of tickets left” and that some amount of users are currently viewing the event
This 2017 article by @DannyJeremiah is still highly relevant. "Southern Rail has a UX Problem" - on the 'dark patterns' and deception in ticket vending machine design.
Twitter gives a “time out” to users that have been deemed “abusive” or “bullies”. The time out doesn’t disable their account, it only makes their posts limited to be seen by their followers during the time limit.
The instructions for the user to unsubscribe are very unclear because there is only a “back” and a “cancel” button available. How is a user able to proceed with unsubscribing?
When setting up java, the preselected “recommended” option actually changed the user’s default search engine to yahoo, which the user might not want. It also changes your homepage to yahoo.com.
Once the user selects “annual” from an initial drop down box, the drop down box disappears and the user’s choice is solidified and cannot be changed unless the user goes back.
OSX warns its user that disk space is almost full and that they should optimize their storage space. When the user chooses to optimize storage, it pushes the use of iCloud on the user.
When the user tries to delete the app, Uber warns that while the app will delete all data on the phone, it will keep data in the cloud. This is vague, but concerning if the user values their online privacy.
Twitter wanted users to discover their new feature “discover”, so they put it in the location where notifications usually is, so that people would naturally click on the old spot due to muscle memory and discover the new feature.
Salesforce requires users to consent to a privacy statement before they can successfully unsubscribe from their newsletter. The privacy statement gives consent to sell the user’s information to other countries.
Java hides the option to suppress sponsor ads deep in their menu under the advanced section at the very bottom. It seems that they were trying to hide this feature so that users wouldn’t be able to find it easily and disable it.
Sling makes it difficult to unsubscribe from their newsletter and makes the user go through 5 pages of “Are you sure?”s and dark patterns like misdirection of buttons.
This site shames the user into staying on the site by presenting the user with a sad, crying cartoon that wants the user to stay.
The site attempts to evoke empathy in the user for the sad phone that doesn’t want them to leave. Some users may be susceptible to this emotional appeal while others may not be.
"One particular moment that fueled all this criticism was when Microsoft changed the behavior of the X button in the Get Windows 10 app, as clicking this button no longer canceled the upgrade, but ignored the setting and prepared the install in the background."
The room is advertised as an $86.43 room. This entices users into using the site to purchase a hotel; however, the final price after taxes and fees of $132.34 (higher than the hotel cost) is $218.77! The site should not advertise for $86 if the total is 250% of that!
The game occasionally gives players levels that are impossible to complete in order to urge them to buy powerups or extra lives. If the player doesn’t purchase anything from the game, it will slowly decrease the difficulty in order to retain playability.
There's a red exclamation mark indicating something is wrong with my Notification Settings. The copy [...] implies that Facebook Messenger isn't allowed to use iOS' notification system. [...] But the iOS notifications setting screen [...] show that Facebook Messenger does have access to the iOS notifications system - I just don't have it set up the way Facebook wants me to."
"LeadClick was an internet advertising company, and its key customer was LeanSpa, an internet retailer that sold weight-loss and colon-cleanse products. [...] Many of the advertisements it placed purported to be online news articles but they were in fact ads for LeanSpa’s products. [...] The Second Circuit thought it was self-evident that these techniques were unlawfully deceptive" (Summary from Luguri & Strahilevitz, 2019)
Urbanairship makes it easy to resubscribe to a mailing list you've just unsubscribed to.
The Windows icon should bring you to the Windows update menu and let you select updates. Instead it takes you to the Windows update menu and you have to hit check for updates. This never used to be the case you used to be able to just select which updates are going to install.
Attempts every trick in the book to keep user from unsubscribing, from manipulinks to offering a discount if they stay. End result is a 100-click unsubscribe process.
The user must go to the FAQ to find out how to cancel an account, which requires calling the Boston Globe by phone.
When a user creates an account on Boston Globe, the email subscription checkboxes are already checked, and the “Price Today” is not the price paid in the future. To find the future price, the user must go to the FAQ section of the website
On any page, there is a non-removable banner that claims the user can subscribe for only 99 cents per week, but if you follow the process to subscribe, the user finds out that this price only lasts for 4 weeks
Stamps.com makes it difficult to close an account on their site by requiring the user to call a phone number during business hours to do so. They also hide this information on their site in the FAQs section to make it difficult to find out how to cancel the service.
The similarity of the colour and location of the 'start' and 'buy more moves' buttons means that as users develop muscle memory in response to constantly restarting the game, they may accidentally click on the option to buy more moves when they run out.
Unsubscribe link is buried in a paragraph of small text, and leads to an unpictured landing page that requires the user to re-enter their Email address to unsubscribe instead of pausing the subscription for 30 days.
"A case in which the F.T.C. secured a settlement of upwards of $73 million after alleging both deceptive and unfair practices. [...] the F.T.C. asserted that the defendants’ skin-care companies were using a host of dark patterns" (Summary from Luguri & Strahilevitz, 2019)
When users say “no” to multiple people in a row, they are more likely to say “no” when they mean to say “yes”. Tinder takes advantage of this by making the user pay to undo their mistake.
If you’ve ever signed up, or even known anyone who has signed up, for LinkedIn, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of dozens of follow-up emails, inviting you to “expand your professional network.” These messages are virtually impossible to opt-out of.
On their signup page, Doostang defaults to the basic Premium plan in an attempt to get users to accidentally sign up for their premium service. A more ethical design would simply default to no selection so the user can decide what they want to select for themselves.
Repeatedly asks user for permission to use location data, only allowing “don’t show me again” to be selected if permission is given, pestering the user until they give permission.
Tuneup tries something sneaky (gray text is clickable)
When giving anything other than a five-star rating, the user is given a compulsory prompt to message the developers which dissuades users from bothering to rate anything less than five stars, if they rate anything at all.
The game pressues users to invite friends, not because the game is fun, but because certain features/goals are useless/unaccessible without online friends also playing, in what the paper in this list calls a “Social Pyramid Scheme”.
A detailed analysis of Linkedin's deceptive practices, relating to the Perkins v. Linkedin Corp. lawsuit.
The full case text of Perkins v. Linkedin Corp. This is the class action lawsuit in which Linkedin was required to pay roughly $13 million due to their use of various dark patterns, including "Friend Spam".
Sports Direct sneaks an item into the customers cart when they go to checkout. To remove it, the user must click “back to bag”, where the sneaked-in item will appear – even though it didn’t before.
The site makes it appear that the answer to the question is behind a paywall, but it is really at the bottom of the page, which is accessible without paying. The website is trying to trick users into paying for a subscription.
The first set of tick boxes corresponds to means through which the user does not want to receive information, while the second set corresponds to means through which they do wish to receive information. A user could easily be tricked into signing up for a service they don’t want.
An early article written about Dark Patterns in 2013.
Opting in to marketing emails is in the terms and conditions, the user doesn’t have a choice
The radio button for a free next directory is already checked, but if the user doesn’t read the fine print they will unknowingly consent to a credit check and having a credit account opened, which sends brochures 4x a year at a cost of £3.75 each.
The user can unknowingly sign up for a membership to the site when they purchase something unless they read the fine print in the terms and conditions
A presentation by Harry Brignull on Dark Patterns. Includes examples from Apple, Post-office.co.uk, Royal Mail, Santander, Quora, Twitter, The Ladders, JustFab, Next.co.uk and M&S.
This is an ad designed to look like a download button for the software that site visitors are trying to access.
The download site wupload tries to get users to buy “premium” download speeds, and also includes links to a “Make money” ad scheme.
When an update is available, the user is unable to shutdown or restart their operating system without updating.
The original presentation that started it all -
In this old clip from 2006, a consumer attempts to persuade an AOL customer services rep to allow them to cancel their account. The rep makes it very difficult.
The text on this voting ballot from 1938 reads asks a question for which the voter is presented with a large circle labelled “Yes”, and a smaller “No”.
The circle size discrepancy is a dark pattern, as is the joining of two very separate questions into one answer in the ballot text.