Imagine a Scenario

Your bathroom light bulb burns out. No big deal—you’ll just head on down to the local hardware store. Good ol’ Johnny’s House of Bulbs has more light bulbs than you can shake a stick at.

But as luck would have it, you get back home to realize that you bought the wrong light bulb. Bummer.

Still, no biggie. You put on your determined face and march right back in there to get the bulb you really need. But when you get back to the shop, things seem a bit weird—something’s different. Good ol’ Johnny says he can’t sell you light bulbs anymore. Not only that, now he’s saying that you need to buy either a lamp or a screwdriver before you can even leave the store.

You try to explain that you just want to exchange the bulb you bought, but then he passes you on to someone else who pressures you so much you end up buying the damn screwdriver just so he’ll shut the hell up and let you leave! Hmph!

So, does that experience sound familiar? No. No it does not. That’s because no one would ever tolerate that kind of service and a store like that wouldn’t last a day.

AND YET...

For various reasons there exist myriad online services—we’re talking websites, apps, etc.—that think treating their customers like this is a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. Well folks, I’m here to tell you, in no uncertain terms, it is not.

My guess is that these dishonest practices developed and came to be regarded as acceptable due to the internet being in its infancy. Even now, a significant percentage of the online customer base is, shall we say, less than tech-savvy. But times are changing.

We need to raise awareness of these dark practices, call out companies that use them, and put an end to this madness once and for all. Who’s with me?!

The Dark Side Clouds Everything

So what are Dark UX Patterns exactly? We’re not talking about sloppy UX or ugly layouts that are hard for the user to understand; that’s just bad design.

Dark UX is more sinister. We’re talking about tricks built into the design of digital products whose aim is to make users buy or sign up for things they didn’t intend to. It’s duping customers out of there time and/or money. Think of them as micro-scams.

There are countless Dark UX methods: making a cancellation button hard to find, adding extra items to a shopping cart, an X to close a window that really opens a popup.

This list goes on and I’m sure you’ve experienced countless examples.

Fighting Back

When it comes to resisting Dark UX, it’s a do or do not situation—there is no try. As product writers and designers, our core objective is to create positive and seamless experiences for the user. If you need to use such tactics to increase engagements and conversions, it’s a good sign that something is wrong with the design or even the product itself.

According to Flavia Lamenza, we shouldn’t even be calling it ‘Dark UX’ because it’s really just A**hole Design.

UX writers are not bad people, but too often we’re pressured by our companies to use these tactics. We must remember that our job is to defend the user, not trick them. As users become savvier and less tolerant of this trickery, dark UX will start to do companies more harm than good and hurt their revenue in the long run.

So don’t be tempted by the dark side of UX—resistance is not futile. Wait. Wrong show.

Coming up next week we’re going to talk about confirmations and how to create a magical moment with your user. Stay tuned!

P.S. This week’s issue has several Star Wars references hidden in the text (‘sorry’ or ‘you’re welcome’ depending on how you feel about that). Can you find them all?

Yuval Keshtcher
UX Writing Hub
Microcopy & UX Writing