Have you ever wondered why you can’t seem to easily or quickly unsubscribe from receiving emails from a company? I have wondered this. It takes you longer than expected or there are no more buttons to click on that will make sure you aren’t contacted or pestered again.

You may have been tricked by a company using a dark pattern. Misdirection, sneaking, urgency, scarcity, social proof, obstruction and forced action are all techniques that companies use to manipulate a user. The term originally coined by the author explains in his book how companies exploit and manipulate their customers to do something they didn’t know or want to do.

I recently read a book titled Deceptive Patterns exposing the tricks that tech companies use to control you by Harry Brignull.

The book is split into 6 parts where you are taken on a journey into how companies use dark patterns within their digital services and products.  Each part covers detailed examples of dark patterns that were used and are still used today by companies.

Most examples did not surprise me and got me thinking of the times I have seen companies deceive users  including me, under the guise of customer loyalty and trust to retain them to generate revenue.  One example is when a company used a particular strategy to manipulate me. The company, a small online business that I frequently used since 2013, was affected by the UK Royal Mail postal strike back in 2022. I was in the process of ordering some products when I received a marketing email from them. The company had decided to send me a marketing email persuading me to buy Christmas gifts and not to worry as they won’t post anything out using Royal Mail but another postal carrier, Fedex because it was fast and reliable. They were also going to give me a free upgrade when I did. Sounds like a good deal right? We all like free stuff.

However, the marketing email had highlighted, emphasised the words don’t worry in bold text and underlined the word won’t in the sentence that read we won’t send it by Royal Mail. This didn’t sit right with me. Why emphasise these words? Rather than approach this with empathy and gain understanding from your loyal customer base like letting them know your parcels might not be received in time, emotive language was used thoughout this email. What I did next was cancel my order I had in the shopping card and unsubscribed so fast from receiving marketing material after being a regular customer for 9 years. I simply stopped shopping there.

This example shows how to exploit customers using comprehension and emotional vulnerabilities by putting fear in me. Explicitly telling me that Royal Mail is slow and not reliable and I should get my products really fast by Fedex especially during Christmas time. Big bold statements that are not accurate can be misleading and are ones opinion. How do we actually know Fedex is fast and reliable? This view is based on one's own experience and may not be true for other people.

These along with many other exploitative strategies are quite common. This book desects each one in depth how and why these patterns are used. Not only are designers like me interested in understanding why companies use dark patterns so we can maybe avoid using them to fulfil a design brief, but legal professionals are too as it supports their legal cases with companies for using them. The concept and usage of dark patterns is an area of interest for researchers too. This book includes a plethora of research conducted exploring deceptive patterns which I found really interesting. It’s good to know that there are others that question and explore the ethics in designing digital products. 

Do you remember the time when tech companies decided not to trick you? Neither do I.