Some examples include Turbotax hiding and redirecting consumers away from the legally mandated option to file taxes for free toward their paid services (Elliott & Kiel, Reference Elliott and Kiel2019) and Uber implementing ‘dark nudges’ to prod drivers to work harder and longer (Scheiber, Reference Scheiber2017), just to name a few.Ĭoined by Brignull ( Reference Brignull2010), dark patterns are subtle design features embedded in websites that prey on human psychology to steer consumers into making decisions that, if fully informed or under optimal conditions, they might not make. Beyond online shopping, dark patterns have been implemented in other situations. Sounds familiar? This limited-quantity scarcity messages and others like these (e.g., countdown timer, confirmshaming, hidden subscriptions, etc.) are common ‘dark patterns’ found on online retail stores, generally with the goal to induce impulse buying. Buy now!’ Almost instantly, you feel this impulse to buy the shoes immediately, dreading that if you take the time to responsibly consider whether you really need the shoes or could even afford it, you run the risk of the shoes selling out. However, once you found it on a shopping website, you were confronted with: ‘Low supply. You go online to check this pair of shoes out. You have a particular pair in mind that you are interested in, but not yet convinced that you really need or want it. We then end by discussing the policy implications of our results.Ĭonsider this scenario: You would like to buy a new pair of shoes. However, within-subject results indicate that all interventions significantly reduce purchase impulsivity pre- versus post-intervention, indicating that any intervention is better than none when it comes to combating dark patterns. Between-subject analysis shows that not all interventions are equally effective, with uneven impact across dark patterns. The second experiment tests the effectiveness of three behaviorally informed interventions on four different dark patterns also in a hypothetical online shopping scenario, but this time offering multiple products instead of a single product. Results show that, indeed, dark patterns increase the purchase impulsivity across all dark patterns, relative to the control. The first experiment tests the effectiveness of different dark patterns within a hypothetical single product online shopping context. To that end, we conducted two experiments. Yet, there is little research on the effectiveness of dark patterns, and even lesser studies on testing interventions that can help mitigate their influence on consumers. Dark patterns – design interfaces or features that subtly manipulate people in making suboptimal decisions – are ubiquitous especially in e-commerce websites.
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