de.cep.tive pat.tern in UX
During the NASSCOM Future Forge event Oct 2024 in Bangalore India, I happen to attend one of the very interesting session organised by “consciouspatterns.in” called — Conscious Design Choices : Small Actions, Big Impact which I was unsure at first will be useful for me or not. This blog is about the session breakdown in detail and how it cleared my opinion about “ethical design patterns” vs “deceptive design patterns”
As Director of Engineering at BHN (Blackhawk Network) I closely work with Product, Design & Engineering and the title of this session provoked me to attend this session with other product & engineering colleagues :)
First Thing First — What is Deceptive Pattern?
This is what the consciouspatterns.in team explained us —
de.cep.tive pat.tern (/dI ‘septiv’ patn/)
“Deceptive patterns are business practices employing elements of digital choice architecture, in particular in online user interfaces, that subvert or impair consumer autonomy, decision-making or choice.”
In simple term — “The word “deceptive” comes from the verb “deceive,” which means to purposely mislead someone into believing something that isn’t true or accurate, especially to benefit oneself. These dishonest UX designs encourage users to make purchases or take actions that they otherwise would not have thought to do. Therefore, the user is tricked into unintentionally performing the online action.”
Origin and Evolution
Harry Brignull first used the term “deceptive pattern” in 2010. It was derived from the idea of “design patterns’’ in user interface design. Since then, deceptive patterns have become increasingly common in digital design.
Research & Analysis
The speakers claim to have done a thorough research & analysis of 50+ apps, 12K+ screens across India & global mobile apps.
There are 12 distinct deceptive patterns classified according to the guidelines published by ASCI and Department of Consumer Affairs
Following blog dives deep into the definition and examples of those 12 deceptive pattern practices from real world mobile apps which we use in day to day basis. Lets start with
Basket Sneaking & Forced Action :
I like the example of you going to a grocery shop and suddenly someone put some snacks or goods which you don’t even want in your cart explaining the term “Basket Sneaking”
Privacy Deception & Interface Interference :
The speakers also request all of us as “users/customers” to keep an eye on the already enabled/checked radio button or checkbox in the apps we use during the download & purchase cycle. Sometimes we unknowlingly accept everything to save time which cost us in future.
Drip Pricing & False Urgency :
I have personally build some features in past where we show Drip Pricing and False Urgency in e-commerce purchase journey while being ignorant of the fact that there is a thin line between ethical and deceptive patterns.
Confirm Shaming & Subscription Trap :
During this slide the speaker focussed on one basic thing — BE HUMBLE !!
Nowadays there are many apps which uses “guilt based” verbose to make people feel ashamed of their decision/action but the ethical design pattern says you can be humble and still make the user to choose what he wants.
For eg. Try to unsubscribe the Premium membership from LinkedIn and see how gently they try to persuade you to continue or if not still respects your decision without using any guilt based verbose.
Trick Question & Disguised Ads :
This is something we all have experienced and the speakers urges us not to use “NOT” before a confirmative sentence which means in programming
!(if result = true)
Try to avoid these kind of Trick questions in your product design also.
Nagging & Bait and Switch :
Nobody wants to be nagged or end up into purchasing something which he/she didn’t want. The speakers quoted — “These tricks might work in short term but once you turn into ethical design patterns it will retain your customers in long term” Ethical design pattern helps you maintain the loyalty and long term relationship with your customers.
At the end of session the speakers asked the audience to look into ethical design patterns and shared a figma url with all the checklist which is useful for anyone who wants an alternative to deceptive patterns.
https://www.figma.com/community/file/1416025856635129460/the-ultimate-ethical-design-checklist
Overall my thanks to consciouspatterns.in team to to this research and arrange the data in most consumable format for all the audience.
Once this medium is LIVE, I will take sometime to share this with my Product, Design & Tech team for sure so that we all take a conscious call during designing any product feature in future. Muchas Gracias.
