Dark Pattern
An interface deliberately designed to steer users toward a choice that serves the business rather than the user.
Dark pattern names an interface designed on purpose to make the user do something they didn't intend — subscribe, overspend, share data — by exploiting the same perceptual and cognitive shortcuts that good design usually serves the user with. The term was coined by UX researcher Harry Brignull in 2010, and its defining feature isn't bad design, it's effective design pointed at the wrong goal: a dark pattern typically works exactly as intended, which is what makes it worse than a mere usability failure.
The catalog is by now well documented and mostly reduces to a handful of moves. "Confirmshaming" guilt-trips the decline option ("No thanks, I don't want to save money"). A "roach motel" makes signing up one click and canceling a multi-step phone call. Drip pricing reveals fees only at the final step, after switching costs have risen. Forced continuity auto-renews a trial without a clear reminder. Most of these exploit Hick's Law and Fitts's Law in reverse — deliberately raising the decision cost or the physical reach cost of the option that serves the user, rather than lowering it.
Regulation has started catching up to the vocabulary: the EU's Digital Services Act and California's privacy law both name deceptive interface design directly rather than leaving it to general consumer-protection statutes, which is a sign the pattern moved from "ethics essay topic" to "compliance risk" in about a decade.
The distinction that matters in practice is intent and asymmetry, not mere persuasion — a well-designed default or a genuinely limited-time discount isn't a dark pattern just because it changes behavior. It becomes one when the interface makes the business-favoring path measurably easier to complete and the user-favoring path measurably harder, especially by hiding, delaying, or obscuring information the user would need to decide well.
See also8
Affordance
A property an object's design communicates about how it can be used, before any instruction is read.
Design & Interface12 connections
Progressive Disclosure
Show only what most users need now, and defer the rest behind an explicit action, instead of exposing everything at once.
Design & Interface17 connections
Accessibility
Designing so that people with disabilities can use a thing, and the standards that make it checkable.
Design & Interface44 connections
Compulsion Loop
The short action-reward-anticipation cycle that manufactures "one more" regardless of what sits at the end of it.
Play & Games15 connections
Call to Action
The button or link that asks a visitor to take the next step, such as signing up or buying, whose wording, prominence, and placement are heavily tested and easily turned manipulative.
Design & Interface9 connections
Toggle Switch
An on-screen control for a single on-or-off setting that takes effect immediately, borrowed from light switches, distinct from checkboxes and radio buttons, and notorious for leaving people unsure which state it is in.
Design & Interface11 connections
Carousel
A panel that rotates through several slides in one spot, popular on home pages as a way to give everyone's content top billing, and notorious for low engagement and accessibility problems.
Design & Interface10 connections
Clickjacking
Tricking a user into clicking something on another site by loading it invisibly in a frame beneath a decoy, and the headers that stop a page from being framed.
Web Platform9 connections
Linked from13
- AB TestingMethod
Comparing two versions of something by randomly showing each to different users and measuring which performs better, a randomized controlled trial for products.
- AffordanceDesign & Interface
A property an object's design communicates about how it can be used, before any instruction is read.
- Call to ActionDesign & Interface
The button or link that asks a visitor to take the next step, such as signing up or buying, whose wording, prominence, and placement are heavily tested and easily turned manipulative.
- ClickjackingWeb Platform
Tricking a user into clicking something on another site by loading it invisibly in a frame beneath a decoy, and the headers that stop a page from being framed.
- Compulsion LoopPlay & Games
The short action-reward-anticipation cycle that manufactures "one more" regardless of what sits at the end of it.
- Empty StateDesign & Interface
What an interface shows when there is nothing to show yet, a screen often designed last that is many people's first impression.
- Layout ShiftWeb Platform
Visible content jumping position after it first appears, usually because something loaded late without reserved space, measured by browsers as Cumulative Layout Shift.
- Modal DialogDesign & Interface
A window that blocks the rest of the interface until it is dealt with, useful for decisions that truly demand attention and overused for almost everything else.
- Progressive DisclosureDesign & Interface
Show only what most users need now, and defer the rest behind an explicit action, instead of exposing everything at once.
- Toggle SwitchDesign & Interface
An on-screen control for a single on-or-off setting that takes effect immediately, borrowed from light switches, distinct from checkboxes and radio buttons, and notorious for leaving people unsure which state it is in.
- Touch Target SizeDesign & Interface
How large a tappable element needs to be for fingers to hit it reliably, roughly 44 to 48 points, and why the visible icon can be smaller than the area that responds.
- Visual HierarchyDesign & Interface
Arranging elements so their visual weight matches their importance, telling the eye where to look first, second, and last.
- WizardDesign & Interface
An interface that guides a person through a complex task as a sequence of simple steps with Next and Back buttons, ideal for rare, unfamiliar tasks like installing software or filing taxes, and frustrating when imposed on experts doing something routine.