We don’t notice it, but it happens more and more often: we connect to a site and it is as if we were being swallowed by a black hole, as if an unknown force were taking control of our actions, causing us to make choices that we would not have made and to say “yes” even if we did not want to.
We find ourselves buying things that we would have given up on, a renew subscriptions that we would have liked to let expire, to grant consent to the processing of our personal data. And to carry out many other actions that have in common the manipulation of our will in the experience of using the site or the service we are using. The result is that it gets hampered and conditioned our decision-making process and our freedom of choice is restricted.
What dark patterns are and how they work
These tricks to make us always say “yes” are known as dark patterns, unfair techniques devised by app and site designers that lead us to unwitting choices or wrong deductions. Gimmicks implemented with different mechanisms: layout and interfaces studied with design solutions and marketing choices deceptive, “crafty” positioning of buttons, check boxes, drop-down menus, ambiguous questions, huge and reassuring texts if we have to buy something and instead tiny and alarming if we want to return it.
This design is disorienting, draws our attention to one thing to distract it from another, through pages and pages and pages of text where really “the devil is hiding in the details”.
When we realize that we have been deceived by one of these dark paths, it is usually too late to back down, but we must not give up: consumer protection associations and authorities have become increasingly aware of this phenomenon and are acting with determination to combat it.
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What to do if you are a victim of these tricks
If we have stumbled upon a dark pattern, the first thing to do is to report to the site, app or service manager that you have discovered it: whether it was the purchase of a product or a subscription, the issuance of a consent or the provision of our data, “we ask that you disregard the choice we made and did not want to make – is the advice of Guido Scorza, who works for the Guarantor for the protection of personal data – In many cases, if the site or app manager has really used a dark pattern, he will prefer to give us what we ask and avoid other problems ”.
If that wasn’t enough a make the site owner retrace his steps, we must distinguish between two cases:
However, according to Scorza, to see our rights recognized “the laws that exist are sufficient. In particular, the Consumer Code for unfair commercial practices and the European GDPR Regulation for privacy violations. It is a question of respecting them and enforcing them when they are violated ”.
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What risks and what a site manager can do
A company discovered to make use of dark patterns, “in addition to having to dismantle them – explained Scorza – risks important fines, proportionate to turnover“. Beyond this, those who use these tricks should ask themselves what they are missing: many reports and studies have long suggested that companies that favor trust and transparency towards customers obtain greater loyalty and, in the long run, greater profits.
In short, adapt to what is prescribed by the GDPR regarding privacy is not only an obligation for those responsible for the processing of personal data: the approach to a philosophy of transparency in design, implemented from the earliest stages of the design, is also an opportunity to customer loyalty for site and app managers. Who can make mistakes even in good faith, because it is not always easy to establish the boundary between dark patterns and legitimate marketing strategies: to help them, there is a site that allows you to find out what they are the most common types of dark patterns.
The right direction for the future
We are now digital citizens. And we ask certainties from the authorities who must defend our privacy and the limitation of our freedoms for marketing purposes. This is what dark patterns do, which the authorities may not call by this name, but which are nevertheless committed to fighting: “As the Guarantor for the Protection of Personal Data – is Scorza’s reassurance – we will continue to monitor because consumers, in front of to every choice in terms of privacy, they are truly free and so that interfaces and graphic solutions are not used to coercive this freedom “.
The point is that transparency, simplicity, immediacy and neutrality of the interfaces rhymes with freedom e confidence: “This is the right direction – is the conclusion of Scorza – The less people trust the digital dimension, the more we all get lost on the path towards the future”.
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