Dark Patterns

Tell students that when platforms use design features interface to nudge us to do things we might not want to do—or to not do things that we do want to do—these are called dark patterns.

Have students navigate to the student chapter Dark Patterns and go through the interactive Course Presentation. Ask students how each of the examples illustrates each category:

• Obstruction: the option to accept data collection (“Accept and continue”) is a single step, while “Manage data settings” sounds like a lot of work.
• Obfuscation: “Select all” is big, green, and easy to find. As well, there is no easy “Reject All” button.
• Pressure: this warns you about bad things that will happen if you turn off customization, using exclamation marks to make its point, and makes the button to do so red.