9 January 2017

Dark Patterns

Dark Patterns linger on the web as a tell tale signs of user deception and trickery. Often unnoticed by the user through the interface where they are purposely and intentionally made to confuse. They set on a gamut of actions which are unauthorized by the user. The darkpatterns.org provides further details on examples of deliberately confusing and deceptive user interfaces. There are also shady patterns which push boundaries for user desires but are not deliberately deceptive in practice. They may be construed as misdirections with unclear language which tend to trick a user into doing things that they would otherwise not intentionally do. Many companies are aware of such practices but slither within the boundaries of safe zones. And often signs of such deceptions linger in the use of language, the misdirections, as well as when there are too many things happening on the site. Some ads are also deliberately deceptive which use behavior targeting, follow user's web history, and search patterns.