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What are dark patterns?
How does user-centered design practice fail to protect against the creation of dark patterns?

Ineffective User Experience metrics (WP 2)
Harmful user needs

How could we learn from dark patterns and use manipulation for good? (WP 1)

Bright Patterns: Towards More Ethical User Experience Design

Hauke Sandhaus, Information Science PhD Student

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What are dark patterns*?

*We use this term to connect our efforts to prior scholarship and legal statute, recognizing that other terms, notably “deceptive design” or “manipulative user interface design,” are also used but do not yet encapsulate the broad remit of practices or concepts from academic or regulatory perspectives. We acknowledge that the ACM Diversity and Inclusion Council now includes the term “dark patterns” on a list of problematic terms (https://www.acm.org/diversity-inclusion/words-matter).

Images: from Narayanan, A. et al. 2020. Dark Patterns: Past, Present, and Future: The evolution of tricky user interfaces. ACM Queueing Systems. 18, 2 (May 2020), 67–92.

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Conti, G. and Sobiesk, E. 2010. Malicious interface design: exploiting the user. Proceedings of the 19th international conference on World wide web (New York, NY, USA, Apr. 2010).

Mathur, A. et al. 2021. What makes a dark pattern... Dark? Proceedings of the 2021 CHI (New York, NY, USA, May 2021).

Harry Brignull, Marc Miquel, Jeremy Rosenberg, and James Offer. 2015. Dark Patterns - User Interfaces Designed to Trick People. http://darkpatterns.org/

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to.

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How does user-centered design practice fail to protect against the creation of dark patterns?

User Experience Metrics that are blind to Ethical Issues

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Image: https://www.perdoo.com/resources/okr-vs-kpi/

https://mooncamp.com/okr/

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Image: Sandhaus

User Experience as Legitimacy Trap: 2019. Paul Dourish. https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2019/user-experience-as-legitimacy-trap. Accessed: 2022-12-15.

Fig: Common metrics in interface design

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User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) as a UX performance indicator

Attractiveness

Pragmatic Quality

Hedonic Quality

Efficiency

Perspicuity

Dependability

Stimulation

Novelty

Hinderks, A. et al. 2019. Developing a UX KPI based on the user experience questionnaire. Computer Standards & Interfaces. 65, (Jan. 2019)

Schrepp, M. et al. 2017. Construction of a Benchmark for the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ). International Journal of Interactive Multimedia and Artificial Intelligence. 4, 4 (2017)

Schrepp, M. et al. 2017. Design and evaluation of a short version of the user experience questionnaire (UEQ-S). International journal of interactive multimedia and artificial intelligence. 4, 6 (2017)

UX designers craft all user interface aspects, balancing qualitative insights with quantitative UX metrics for holistic evaluation. Our focus is on the UEQ's role in identifying unethical user experience. The UEQ, through 26 items spanning six scales, evaluates a product's hedonic and pragmatic qualities, including efficiency and innovation, to gauge overall user experience and impression. It is intended to measure ALL aspects of user experience. The ISO norm 9241 specifically includes harms as part of user experience.

User experience (UX) designers are responsible for designing all aspects of user interfaces [23]. Although UX

design inherently carries qualitative value, the success of designs and design departments is typically benchmarked

and evaluated through quantitative UX measurements [36 ]. These measurements aim to holistically assess UX

and distill design into key performance indicators [12, 32]. In our study we chose to look at how the UEQ if used as a performance measurement quantifies unethical designs. �

The UEQ is designed to rapidly assess users’ subjective perceptions of product features and their immediate effects, using 26 items across six scales to capture a broad view of

user experience [17 ]. These scales assess both hedonic qualities—Stimulation and Novelty, which focus on engagement and innovation—and pragmatic qualities—Efficiency, Perspicuity, and Dependability, which relate to task accomplishment. Attractiveness evaluates the overall product impression, synthesizing insights from both hedonic and pragmatic dimensions [31].

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Attractiveness

Pragmatic Quality

Hedonic Quality

Efficiency

Perspicuity

Dependability

Stimulation

Novelty

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Methodology: Adapting the User Experience Questionnaire by Referring to Known Dark Patterns in Social Media as a Baseline of Unethical User Interface Design

Monge Roffarello, A. and De Russis, L. 2022. Towards understanding the dark patterns that steal our attention. CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts (New York, NY, USA, Apr. 2022).

Mildner, T. et al. 2023. About engaging and governing strategies: A thematic analysis of dark patterns in social networking services. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY, USA, Apr. 2023).

Guidelines 03/2022 on deceptive design patterns in social media platform interfaces: how to recognise and avoid them: 2022. https://www.edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/our-documents/guidelines/guidelines-032022-deceptive-design-patterns-social-media_en. Accessed: 2024-03-20.

1. Roffarello et al. (CHI 2022)

2. EDPB (2022)

3. Mildner et al. (CHI 2023)

15 DPs

&

UEQ

While looking for a way to measure how users perceive unethical designs. We were puzzled to find that no measurement tool for assessing unethical design is established. Therfore: we created a taxonomy of dark patterns based on work by::��This taxonomy resulted in 15 dark patterns in social media that academics and legislator agree upon. ,�We used those DPs to self evaluate and hypothesise how participants might perceive them using the adjective pairs proposed by the full UEQ. Based on this and a few iterations we ended up with and adapted UEQ, which still represents all items from the Short version of the UEQ -expanded by items for assessing manipulative aspects of DPs as highlighted here.

[SHORTEN: To advance standardized tools for measuring unethical user experience, we base our work on a set of user

interfaces identified as unethical. These interfaces were selected from a literature review of academic dark pattern

taxonomies. We integrated findings from two peer-reviewed papers [20, 21] and a report by the European Data

Protection Board [ 7 ], resulting in a list of 15 dark patterns mapped to six distinct strategies. For each dark pattern,

we created an image or video mockup in a minimalistic social media app design. These patterns are re-creations

of examples from the literature, when available.

We reviewed the 26 adjective pairs of the UEQ to determine their applicability in evaluating the 15

dark pattern instances we had identified. Subsequently, we took the complete UEQ and assessed which items

might elicit strong opinions from participants—specifically, which items might be rated as either -3 or +3. These

two steps resulted in two lists of UEQ items, which were then merged. In this process, we found the Novelty scale

to be unnecessary for evaluating users’ perceptions of dark patterns. Given that the resulting list was too lengthy

for practical use, we favored items from the short version of the UEQ (UEQ-S) and omitted additional items from

the same UEQ categories.

Upon re-evaluating our questionnaire, we identified a lack of items addressing users’ perceived manipulation and

the techniques implied by dark patterns. To explore these aspects without directly inquiring about manipulation

and perceived ethics, we adhered to the UEQ’s structure of adjective pairs. Leveraging the Product Reaction Words

from the Microsoft Desirability Toolkit, we revisited the 15 dark pattern mock-ups to pinpoint descriptive gaps.

Consequently, we introduced four new items with both positive and negative adjectives: pressuring / suggesting,

non-addictive / addictive, covert / transparent, and deceptive / benevolent. These introduced four items are treated

as distinct scales in the calculations but are collectively labeled as Manipulation in the box plots. Thus, our

final questionnaire comprises 14 items, with 10 of them combined into 5 two-item scales and 4 newly added

stand-alone items. Four scales—Perspicuity, Efficiency, Dependability, and Stimulation—fully represent the UEQ-S.

The Attractiveness scale is a two-item scale utilizing adjectives from the original UEQ’s Attractiveness scale.]

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Sneaking (Bad Default)

Mockups: Doris Rhomberg. These stimuli, including video and all UEQ visualizations, are available at https://osf.io/nw2tj/?view_only=9f62bbab141841808118ca6339802bc4

Expectation Result Mismatch (Sneaking)

False Hierarchy (Interface Interference)

Forced Access (Forced Action)

Overcomplicated Process (Obstruction)

Toying With Emotion (Interface Interference)

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We employed exploratory data analysis to determine whether and how (1) user experience questionnaires can indicate unethical design, and (2) our proposed extension is necessary for such identification.

Finding 1: An UEQ aggregate score does not effectively indicate unethical interface design

We employed exploratory data analysis to determine whether and how (1) user experience questionnaires can

indicate unethical design, and (2) our proposed extension is necessary for such identification. We refrained from

conducting any confirmatory data analyses.

We arranged the 15 dark pattern user experience visualizations on a digital whiteboard and visually clustered them to identify characteristics in the user perceptions.

A simple heuristic suggested by Schrepp et al. was used to interpret the quantified user experience from Likert scale data

ranging from -3 to +3 as positive (≥1), neutral (between -1 and 1), or negative (≤-1).

Preliminary Finding 1:�Applying the

heuristics as described in subsection 3.4, from the 15 survey patterns only the dark pattern of Nagging resulted in an overall negative user experience, as defined by the UEQ.

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Finding 2&3: Subscale measures from the original UEQ and newly proposed measures show a relationship with unethical design

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Finding 4: Evaluations demonstrate consistency within groups of unethical design strategies

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How does user-centered design practice fail to protect against the creation of dark patterns?

Harmful user needs

User Experience Metrics that are blind to Ethical Issues

So our conclusion from this study is that The reason why aggregated UEQ scores do not consistently indicate unethical design is because dark patterns

do not always represent poor design; rather, they often incorporate sophisticated design elements. These user

experience qualities can outweigh other overlooked factors, such as in the evaluation of gamification, or with

the pattern pull to refresh, which was evaluated as ’addictive’ and with high perspicuity.

The current use of aggregated "catch-all" scales may, in

fact, do more harm than good if they obscure harmful designs. We advise against using low-dimensional metrics

as a method, especially within companies, as they do not prevent the creation of unethical designs.

This preliminary work shows a strong need and also possibility for new tools to measure ethical user experience.

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https://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-need-statements/

In effect, we design for anything that users want.

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https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/maslow-s-hierarchy-of-needs

https://www.progressfocused.com/2020/11/4-differences-between-maslows-pyramid.html

https://hbr.org/2014/11/what-maslows-hierarchy-wont-tell-you-about-motivation

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Example: Juul: User-centered design can lead to harmful products

“Classmates at Stanford's design school discovered in their research, that many smokers love the ritual and the social elements of having a cigarette, but hate the fact that doing so often bothers people and is known to be unhealthy.”

“The Model One maintains the allure of smoking: fire, glow, heat, sound and comes in several flavors--like “kick ass mint,” “cafe noir,” “blue tea,” and others”

Stanford grads hope to change smoking forever: 2010. https://www.cnet.com/culture/stanford-grads-hope-to-change-smoking-forever/. Accessed: 2024-03-19.

Vice Made Nice? 2012. https://stanfordmag.org/contents/vice-made-nice. Accessed: 2024-03-19.

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User-centered design can lead to harmful products - even if done in accordance with user needs

Image: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/user-needs#:~:text=User%20needs%20refer%20to%20users,aesthetics%2C%20accessibility%20and%20emotional%20satisfaction.

The Social Smoker

they appreciate the ritual and social elements of smoking, but are concerned about the health risks and the inconvenience it causes to others.

have a more convenient and appealing smoking experience

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User Needs

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https://uxdesign.cc/using-jira-as-a-research-repository-pros-cons-and-how-to-eb112936c1e8

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/the-kano-model-a-tool-to-prioritize-the-users-wants-and-desires

https://www.reqview.com/blog/jira-integration/�https://maze.co/blog/user-research-repository/

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https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/strategy-15955

https://autodesignmagazine.com/en/2017/05/volkswagen-design-mobilita-del-futuro-al-future-center-europe/

https://www.pcwelt.de/article/1199243/onepod-vw-zeigt-autonomes-e-auto-fuer-die-stadt.html

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User-centered design process of new E platform, incorporating all group customers user needs

A lot of my motivation and fascination with the topic of dark patterns, manipulative design and unethical design in general stems from process insights I gained while working at the volkswagen groups electrification and digitalization strategy. �VW and all brands under its umbrella historically are car manufacturer who produce little code themselves. As scale challenges became ever more evident, DIess started a consolidation of all software expertise in a new software entity called cariad, together with group strategy, many consultancies, suppliers and experts from all groups we set out to design the new electronic architecture for all group customers user needs with an user centered design process.

While working with incredibly talented User experience designers I quickly noticed how hard it is to guide user centered development towards societally beneficial business models, and software designs - when the business objective is to sell as many cars as possible.

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Want to cite

Dourish, P. et al. 2004. Reflective HCI. CHI ’04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY, USA, Apr. 2004).

Sengers, P. et al. 2005. Reflective design. Proceedings of the 4th decennial conference on Critical computing: between sense and sensibility (New York, NY, USA, Aug. 2005), 49–58.

Nyström, T. and Stibe, A. 2020. When Persuasive Technology Gets Dark? Information Systems (2020), 331–345.

Sunstein, C.R. 2014. Why Nudge?: The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism. Yale University Press.

Winner, L. 01 1985. Do Artifacts Have Politics? 26–38.

Nissenbaum, H. From Pre-emption to Circumvention: If Technology Regulates, Why Do We Need Regulation (and vice versa?).

Susser, D. et al. 2019. Technology, Autonomy, and Manipulation.

Different types of influence

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How could we learn from dark patterns and use manipulation for good?

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Norman, D.A. 1983. Design principles for human-computer interfaces. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’83 (New York, New York, USA, 1983).

Cox, A.L. et al. 2016. Design Frictions for Mindful Interactions: The Case for Microboundaries. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New York, NY, USA, May 2016).

Berdichevsky, D. and Neuenschwander, E. 1999. Toward an ethics of persuasive technology. Communications of the ACM. 42, 5 (May 1999), 51–58. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/301353.301410.

Fogg, B.J. 2003. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do. (2003), 1–282. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-55860-643-2.X5000-8.

Lee, J. et al. 2017. Characteristics of revolving door use as a countermeasure to the stack effect in buildings. Journal of Asian architecture and building engineering. 16, 2 (May 2017), 417–424. DOI:https://doi.org/10.3130/jaabe.16.417.

Design for Society: 1997. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo3536585.html. Accessed: 2024-03-20.

Norman, D.A. 2023. Design for a Better World: Meaningful, sustainable, humanity centered. MIT Press.

Persuasive design‎ ‎

Design friction‎ ‎

Usable design ‎

Design for society ‎

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Latour, B. 10 ’ ’Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few.
Verbeek, P.-P. Materializing Morality: Design Ethics and Technological Mediation.
Ju, W. and Leifer, L. The Design of Implicit Interactions Making Interactive Objects Less Obnoxious.

“Early this morning, I was in a bad mood and decided to break a law and start my car without buckling my seat belt. My car usually does not want to start before I buckle the belt. It first flashes a red light ‘‘ FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT!,’’ then an alarm sounds; so high-pitched, so relentless, so repetitive, that I cannot stand it. After ten seconds, I swear and put on the belt. This time, I stood the alarm for twenty seconds and then gave in. My mood had worsened quite a bit, but I was at peace with the law—at least with that law. I wished to break it, but I could not. Where is the morality? In me, a human driver, dominated by the mindless power of an artifact? Or in the artifact forcing me, a mindless human, to obey the law that I freely accepted when I get my driver’s license?”

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Motivation to look into bright patterns: �Old and new threats to autonomy

Some threats to individual autonomy are external, many are within us.

While some threats just deprive autonomy, many harm individuals' well-being.

‘Gray’ Patterns can cause significant harm too.

https://uxdesign.cc/exploring-gray-patterns-how-can-we-tell-if-design-is-truly-good-643e0a4b7be9

https://uxdesign.cc/gray-patterns-in-ux-where-do-we-draw-the-line-between-helpful-vs-harmful-design-ced7fbaa8ad5

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Algorithmic risks of social media

Profiling

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Algorithmic risks of social media

Doomscrolling

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Algorithmic risks of social media

Stuck in patterns

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- Dark Patterns

Deceptive user interface design functionality that prioritizes business’ objectives over users’ well-being and goals.

Gray et al. 2018 The Dark (Patterns) Side of UX Design

https://darkpatterns.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern

Which brings me back to the definition of dark patterns -

�[Shorten and bring up only as a reminder: As likely all of you know, dark patterns in UI design exploit users and undermine their well-being and autonomy.

that are described in the literature with a few different definitions: for examples wikipedia calles user interfaces that have been carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with their purchase or signing up for recurring bills" dark patterns.

Haryy brignull describes them as ‘tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to.

In some academic literature they have been defined as instances where designers use their knowledge of human behavior and the desires of end users to implement deceptive functionality that is not in the user’s best interest.]

Gray importantly has expanded the definition of dark patterns to any designs where designers abuse their knowledge to favour business stakeholders.

The definition we favour describes them as deceptive user interface design functionality that prioritizes business’ objectives over users’ well-being and goals.

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Motivations to design dark patterns

Motivations to design bright patterns

Moving from attention economy to ethical design https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20231208IPR15767/new-eu-rules-needed-to-address-digital-addiction

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- Bright Patterns

Benevolent user interface design functionality that prioritizes users’ well-being and goals over their desires and business’ objectives.

Sandhaus 2023 Promoting Bright Patterns, CHI '23 Workshop: Designing Technology and Policy Simultaneously

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BRIGHTPATTERNS .org

A front page to define Bright Patterns and publish the first collection with examples of their use in digital ecosystems

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Old Design Tensions

To what degree is paternalism acceptable?
How can we avoid assuming user's goals, whom to involve in decision-making?

Thaler, R.H. and Sunstein, C.R. 2003. Libertarian Paternalism. American Economic Review. 93, 2 (Apr. 2003)

Floridi, L. 2016. Tolerant paternalism: Pro-ethical design as a resolution of the dilemma of toleration. Science and engineering ethics. 22, 6 (Dec. 2016)

Delgado, F. et al. 2021. Stakeholder Participation in AI: Beyond “Add Diverse Stakeholders and Stir.” arXiv [cs.AI].

Khadilkar, P. and Jagtap, S. 2021. Can design be non-paternalistic? Conceptualizing paternalism in the design profession. She Ji The Journal of Design Economics and Innovation. 7, 4 (Dec. 2021)

https://www.lorentzcenter.nl/fair-patterns-for-online-interfaces.html

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Final thoughts

Image: Vape Battery by Azam Ishaq, Netflix Binge by Becca O'Shea, Fake News by Anatolii Babii from Noun Project (CC BY 3.0)