Dark Patterns

A dark pattern is a psychological trick which takes advantage of human cognitive biases to achieve a goal. These patterns are often embedded in marketing, games or user interfaces and are carefully crafted to convince users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills. The list of dark patterns is extensive however the most common that are seen in everyday marketing incude:

Online Dark Patterns

• The Decoy Effect - by offering three options instead of one, the anchoring effect can be take advantage of to get the user to buy a higher priced item than they would normally.
• Roach Motel - by making it easy for users to get into a situation (like a subscription) but difficult for them to get out of it the status quo bias can be taken advantage of.
• Bait and Switch - by offering a product or deal and then substituting it with a less favorable one marketeers take advantage of anchoring.
• Privacy Zuckering - by tricking users into publicly sharing more information than they intended to, marketeers take advantage of optimism bias.
• Social Proof Notifications - by displaying notifications implying that others have taken a certain action, even if they haven't takes advantage of the bandwagon effect (aka Groupthink or conformity bias).
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) by creating a false sense of urgency or scarcity to pressure users into making quick decisions. This takes advantage of the loss aversion bias.