Dark Patterns: User Interfaces Designed to Trick People

A dark pattern is a user interface carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. In this 2010 talk, Harry Brignull, an independent UX consultant who curates Darkpatterns.org, a site dedicated to understanding deceptive interfaces, explains how they differ from ordinary bad design.

Usually when we think of bad design, we picture a creator who was sloppy or lazy but had no ill intent. That kind of bad design is known as a UI anti-pattern. Dark patterns are different: they are not mistakes. They are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind.

Harry argues that designers, founders, UX and UI professionals and other creators need to take a stance against dark patterns. The same psychological principles appear in the UI-Patterns.com persuasive pattern library, where the difference lies in whether they are used in the user’s interest.