What Are Deceptive Or Dark Patterns And How To Avoid Them?

Deceptive patterns are UX methods that trick users into doing something or buying something they wouldn't otherwise have done or bought. These can include a range of visual, interactive, audio, or motion elements added to e-commerce sites, ads, and other marketing content.

• Deceptive patterns are ethically wrong and not a good business practice. Once users notice that they're being purposely deceived, they can lose respect and trust for a company's brand. They might even publicly complain and take their business elsewhere. 
• Using deceptive patterns to trick people into using a product, subscribing to a service, or sharing personal information is an easy way for companies to earn more cash. But these practices are unethical.
• Well, empathizing with users is about understanding their product needs and solving their problems. Deceptive patterns do the opposite of that. They create a bad user experience. As a UX designer, you might feel pressure to use these unethical practices. But always remember, good UX benefits both the user and the business, not one or the other.
• Deceptive patterns trick users into unintentionally completing an action online.
• Although the term “dark patterns” is often used in the industry, at Google and at other places, designers often use the phrase “deceptive patterns” to avoid referring to something problematic as “dark” and potentially “bad.”
• Instead, the word “deceptive” focuses on the tactic itself that tricks users into doing or buying something they wouldn’t have otherwise done or bought. 
• Being clear and honest with your users will strengthen their trust in your brand and product.

Deceptive Patterns

• Roach motel (trap door): is designed to make it very easy for a user to get into an unwanted situation and very hard for them to get out of it. The deceptive pattern of trap door is a predatory strategy that creates a situation that makes it nearly impossible for a user to get out of. When a user signs up for a subscription that is difficult to cancel. Imagine if you had to print a form, sign it, and send it in by mail in order to cancel a subscription. To avoid the trap door in your work, make it simple for users to make decisions, and clearly give users the information they need without complicating the process.
• Force continuity is the practice of charging a user for membership without a warning or reminder. A user clicks a box on an app thinking they’re getting a free trial with no strings attached, only to find out later that their credit card was charged, and there’s no easy way to cancel the membership. As a UX designer, be upfront and transparent with users. Notify users before their free trial ends and before they are charged. Make it easy for users to cancel their membership. Don’t make users search for the steps to cancel. Provide a link to take users through the cancellation process. Make sure the visual elements in your designs, like buttons, are labelled clearly.
• Sneak into the basket.  Have you gone to purchase something online but when you got to the checkout page, extra things had been added to your cart? A user has to remove an item from their cart if they don't want to buy it, which is an extra step that could be easily missed. When an extra item is added to a user’s shopping cart while checking out, or an extra plan or service is preselected as “add to my cart” during the checkout process. An easy way to avoid this deceptive pattern in your designs is to make sure no boxes are preselected that add item to a user’s cart. There should not be any surprises about what the user is expecting to purchase. 
• Hidden costs are similar to sneak-into-basket, except there are extra charges in your cart instead of extra products. Hidden or unexpected charges in the user’s cart that are not revealed until the end of the checkout process. When a user thinks that they’re paying a specific amount for a product or service, but at the end of checkout, they find out there are additional fees. Apps and websites add these hidden costs hoping that users will be too tired to find another site with cheaper products and unwilling to go through the entire checkout process again elsewhere. In your own designs, be sure to give users all pricing related information upfront. A good way to avoid hidden costs is to make a calculator available during shopping where the user can calculate extra costs, like shipping and taxes, before checking out. 
• Confirmshaming, which is when users are made to feel guilty when they opt out of something. Makes users feel bad and guilts them into taking action.
•  Urgency. They convince you that you need to purchase an item before you run out of time or miss today's amazing price.
• Scarcity. A website makes you very aware of the limited number of items in stock. 
• Bait and switch: A user wants to take an action that results in a specific outcome, but ends up with an unplanned result. An example of bait and switch is asking a user for their email address, then using that information for a purpose they didn’t agree to. To avoid this in your designs, always be upfront with users about why you need their information, and be clear about what the user will get in return.
• Disguised ads: Ads hidden in the page and made to look as if they were a part of the regular content or navigation. Have you ever clicked what appeared to be a download button, but it was actually an ad that had popped up instead? This is an example of a disguised ad because you unintentionally clicked on the ad instead of the download you wanted.
• Friend spam: When a product asks for access to a user’s social media account or contacts, seemingly to help users find friends on the app, but then uses that information to spam the user’s contacts with messages that appear to be from the user. You may have encountered a social media app that made it difficult to use part of their service unless you allowed the app to access your contacts from your phone’s address book. To avoid friend spam, if you’re going to ask a user for access to their contacts, make sure they know why you’re asking for it and make it easy for them to opt-out. 
• Misdirection: Trying to confuse the user so they’re unsure of which choice to make. Misdirection often comes into play when wording is confusing and unclear. For example, imagine a newsletter that asks a user in a pop up “Are you sure you want to unsubscribe?” and then the text on the button says “No, cancel me.” It’s hard to know what this button means! A good way to avoid this deceptive pattern in your own work is to make the header’s popup match the action on the button. For example, the header might say “Do you want to unsubscribe?” and the button would say “Yes” or “Unsubscribe.” As a rule of thumb, allow users to answer the questions they’re being asked directly, and don’t mix response categories. 
• Price comparison prevention: Making it intentionally difficult to compare prices so the user can’t make the best decision for themselves. When a company offers various subscription plans and the services for each are bundled, making it difficult to discern the individual costs of each item. The solution to this deceptive pattern is to make sure that pricing is upfront and clear. Users should be able to tell if it’s a better deal to purchase services separately or as part of the bundle. 

When notifications pop up on your computer or phone throughout the day, you get a dose of dopamine, which is a natural chemical in the brain that's released when something pleasurable happens. That makes us feel good or intrigued.

• Sometimes a jingle or a short sound accompanies a notification, or the red flag might wave or use motion to grab your attention. The addition of sound and motion further enhances that dopamine effect. 
• Another physical effect of deceptive patterns is when you don't get any notifications, you can feel anxious. You might even be able to imagine a time when you refreshed your phone or computer waiting for a new notification.

This battle over users’ attention is referred to as the attention economy:

• Who believed that there are limits on what humans can think about and do at one time. Many scientists believe that humans aren’t very good multitaskers; technology should help users, not distract them. The more distracted a person is, the less likely they are to complete a task well.
• The clash between attention and distraction is why UX designers need to consider how the products they design will affect a person’s behaviour.
• A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
• In your role as a UX designer, it’s important that technology improves the lives of your users and doesn’t harm them. Designers need to make sure they don’t design their products in a way that encourages addictive behaviours that could negatively affect users’ lives.
• How interacting with technology may cause depression or anxiety for some. For example, a user may feel sad when they don’t hear or see new notifications on their phone, or they may experience the fear of missing out (also known as FOMO) if they don’t continually refresh their social media feed or check their messages. Even seemingly small details, like the colours used and the volume of notifications, can be distracting to users or cause them to feel anxious.