Legal design » Deceptive patterns

Sebastian Greger This is a living document
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Often referred to as “dark patterns”, deceptive patterns are manipulative design solutions that aim to motivate users to actions that are against their intention and often their personal benefit. Commonly dismissed as unethical among designers, they have a legal relevance as well.

About the name

There is a good reason to not call them “dark” to promote breaking the connotation of dark/black with negative:

Deceptive dark patterns adactio.com

The phrase “dark pattern” is …problematic. We really don’t need to be associating darkness with negativity any more than we already do in our language and culture.

…but even from a most practical perspective this not-self-explanatory term is not very comprehensible for those outside a certain bubble:

“Dark patterns“ is a kind of lofty term that isn’t all that clear for those outside the tech bubble. We should call them “manipulative patterns“ to better describe the purposeful *intent* behind them in a way anyone can understand.

— Quinn Keast (@quinnkeast) January 29, 2021

I have chosen to use the term “deceptive patterns” wherever possible and only use “dark patterns” when quoting the work of others.

Good explainers to start from

“I, Obscura,” a dark pattern zine launched from Stanford and UCLA pacscenter.stanford.edu
Bookmark: ““I, Obscura,” a dark pattern zine launched from Stanford and UCLA”
Scholars at Stanford and UCLA assembled this zine (on Issuu.com or as a 45MB PDF) on deceptive patterns, primarily to make them more tangible to non-techy people. […]

More in-depth analysis

Design

The dark side of UX Design darkpatterns.uxp2.com
Bookmark: “The dark side of UX Design”
With its byline “Practitioner-identified examples of stakeholder values superseding user values”, this practice-based […]

Legal definitions

Guidelines on the protection of the online consumer | ACM.nl acm.nl

The Dutch DPA has a very workable definition of “deceptive”.

Academic research

What Makes a Dark Pattern… Dark? Design Attributes, Normative Considerations, and Measurement Methods arxiv.org
Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence arxiv.org

From unethical to illegal

With an increasing volume of GDPR-related court rulings, there is also a growing body of case law stating how deceptive patterns violate the law:

The end of dark patterns in “cookie walls”: German court bans deceptive designs | Spirit Legal - JDSupra jdsupra.com

At the same time, there is a lack of specific statements in the applicable laws. While deceptive patterns obviously violate the spirit and the foundations of laws, they are rarely explicitly mentioned as something outlawed:

Dark Patterns in Personal Data Collection: Definition, Taxonomy and Lawfulness papers.ssrn.com

More from my bookmarks

Those pop-up 'I agree' boxes aren't just annoying – they're potentially dangerous theconversation.com

I'm Sebastian, Sociologist and Interaction Designer aiming to bring toge­ther social science and design for inclusive, privacy-focused, and sustainable "human-first" digital strategies. This is my "digital garden" with carefully curated resources. For a more stream-like outlet, see my journal.

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