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Every industry has their own bag of tricks. All-you-can-eat restaurants use tricks to make people eat less and even burglars have a specific playbook to screw homeowners.
For companies who do a bulk of their business online, the deceptions are slightly darker and more confusing and infuriating. These deceptions, known as dark patterns, are “features of interface design crafted to trick users into doing things that they might not want to do but which benefit the business in question.”
The most common types of dark patterns are discussed in this video from The Nerdwriter. Dark patterns including a difficult un-subscription process (dubbed “roach motels”), color manipulation tricks (called “disguised ads”), misdirections, spam, and hidden costs to name a few.
Check out the video and count how many you’ve fallen victim to in the last few months. The little speck of dust trick is just downright dirty.
[via Laughing Squid]