Dark patterns offline

Imagine that you went to barbershop. Thirty minutes later you walk back home, everything is just fine, you like the new hair cut. Suddenly your phone is ringing. It’s your barber and he wants to tell you about new amazing chairs in their shop. He says that now you are subscribed to this calls, but you can unsuscribe if you want. How that happened? Well, there was a ten page contract on the wall and you didn’t notice a small asteriks linking to a grey text saying that you gonna get the subscription when you pay for the haircut.

Em… That’s weird. You say that you want to unsuscribe. The barber says “Alright” and hangs up.

The next day your phone is ringing. That’s your barber calling to tell you about their amazing promotions. “Wait a minute… I unsuscribed yesterday, didn’t I?” - “Yes you did, but that was our company news subscrition. This one is for promotions”. If you don’t want to receive this calls anymore you should go to the shop and unsuscribe manually from all calls.

This story looks weird. Today. But something like this happens in real life. For example I couldn’t make my previous fitness center to stop calling me. They keep calling me few times a year even after I asked them to stop doing that. The bank kept calling be offering some credits and sending me emails of course.

Why do they do that? Because calling to your ex-clients increases your profit!

Profit orientation leads to dark patterns

I was watching some redux tutorial today and website said that i should sign up to keep watching it. Okay. Ten minutes later I get their spam. Why they do that? Because it works. People view their website, buy services, even though many of other people hate getting this emails. I just wanted to watch videos.

And the same happens with 90% of websites. I signup, then I wait for their first spam email, click “unsuscribe” and hope they won’t send me anything again. Previously websites asked you if you want to receive their newsmail. There was a checkbox during registration and you could check it off. But turns out that too many people check it off, so they would rather force you to get their emails and offer to unsuscribe later.

And of course the “unsuscribe” link will be small and in grey color on the grey background. It should be hard to notice, or too many people will click it.

This is called Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People.

Dark Patterns are wrong

Whenever you use a dark pattern, whenever you hide the “unsuscribe” link, or hide checkbox from user, or make it checked by default, when you automaticaly add your super-insurance-option-for-just-$9.99 you are using dark pattern. You are forcing user to get something that he wouldn’t want if he had a choice. You’re tricking people to get some extra money. It is legal, but not ethical.

We should not tolerate dark patterns. If you’re selling something try to find an ethical way to increase your sales. Something that is ethical.

I want to stop thinking of how not to get tricked when I buy something. I don’t want to look for thoose hidden checkboxes, grey text and asteriks. I want to trust companies which services I use. Not to fight against their tricks. Don’t be evil indeed!