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Plate PRIN·011 · PrincipleGrid B2 · Rev. 2026-08-14

Deceptive Patterns

Interfaces engineered to make users act against their own interest, now regulated in several jurisdictions.

PrincipleCraft conventionIntermediate

Definition

Harry Brignull's term, originally dark patterns and now more commonly deceptive patterns, for interface designs that trick users into decisions they did not intend. The category has moved from a critique to a regulated compliance concern.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

On this plate
  1. 1Definition
  2. 2Recognised types
  3. 3Tests for a design under suspicion
  4. 4Three tests for a design under suspicion
  5. 5In practice
  6. 6Local chart
  7. 7Sources
  8. 8Continue from here

Reach for this when

  • Designing consent, subscription, checkout or cancellation.
  • Reviewing growth experiments for ethical and legal risk.
  • Auditing an existing product.
  • Reviewing a growth or retention proposal that improves a metric by making something harder.

Common mistakes

  • Assuming a common industry practice is legal.
  • Optimising a conversion metric without checking how it was obtained.
  • Treating this as an ethics discussion rather than a compliance requirement.

Recognised types

PatternWhat it does
Roach motelEasy to enter, hard to leave. Common in subscription cancellation.
ConfirmshamingFrames declining in language designed to shame.
Sneak into basketAdds items or extras the user did not select.
Hidden costsReveals fees only at the final step.
MisdirectionUses visual weight to steer towards the option the business prefers.
Forced continuityCharges silently at the end of a trial with no reminder.
Privacy ZuckeringUses complexity to obtain data sharing the user did not intend.
Trick wordingUses double negatives or ambiguous labels on consent controls.
Fake urgencyCounters and timers that are not measuring anything real.

Tests for a design under suspicion

  1. 1.Would you explain this design to the user out loud, in plain words, and expect them to be fine with it?
  2. 2.Is declining as easy as accepting, in the same number of steps and with the same visual weight?
  3. 3.Would the user make the same choice if all information were presented at the first step?
  4. 4.Does any number on screen correspond to something real?
  5. 5.Can the user reverse the decision as easily as they made it?

Three tests for a design under suspicion

  1. 1

    The symmetry test

    Is leaving as easy as joining, and is declining as easy as accepting? Asymmetry is the most reliable single signal.

  2. 2

    The disclosure test

    Would the reader be comfortable if the mechanism were explained to them in plain words afterwards?

  3. 3

    The interest test

    Who does this design serve when the reader's interest and the business interest diverge? Every deceptive pattern answers this the same way.

In practice

  1. i.

    Cancellation symmetry

    Subscriptions

    If signing up takes two clicks, cancelling should take about two. Several jurisdictions now require this symmetry explicitly for consumer subscriptions.

  2. ii.

    Total cost shown early

    Ecommerce and travel

    Showing the full price including fees at the first opportunity is now required in a growing number of markets, and it reduces abandonment at the final step regardless.

  3. iii.

    The unsubscribe that took six screens

    Asymmetry

    Signing up took an email address and one click. Cancelling required a phone call during office hours. Nothing in the cancellation flow was untrue, and the asymmetry was the whole design.

Local chart

PRIN·011 · Region I · Grid B2

This entry and the entries it is stated to connect with. Each line is labelled with what the connection means.

Anchoring BiasBIAS·001 · WHY THIS WORKSAuthority BiasBIAS·006 · WHY THIS WORKSDecoy EffectBIAS·012 · WHY THIS WORKSDefault EffectBIAS·004 · WHY THIS WORKSEndowment EffectBIAS·007 · WHY THIS WORKSFraming EffectBIAS·003 · WHY THIS WORKSLoss AversionBIAS·002 · WHY THIS WORKSSunk Cost FallacyBIAS·014 · WHY THIS WORKSProduct ThinkingMOD·002 · WHY THIS WORKSSocial ProofPSY·006 · WHY THIS WORKSCheckboxCMP·005 · APPLIED THROUGHPayments and CheckoutPAT·024 · APPLIED THROUGH

Sources

Where a source establishes something narrower than the popular reading of it, the note says so.

  1. [1]

    Deceptive Patterns

    H. Brignull

    The original taxonomy, maintained and updated.

  2. [2]

    Digital Services Act, Article 25

    European Union, 2022

    Prohibits online interfaces that deceive or manipulate users.

  3. [3]

    Bringing Dark Patterns to Light

    US Federal Trade Commission staff report, 2022

Continue from here

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Applies when you are designing

A Checkout

Why this works

The reasoning this entry rests on.

Applied through

Where this shows up as a concrete interface decision.

Commonly confused with

Close enough to be mixed up, different enough to matter.

  • Permission RequestsWRT·014 · UX writing

    A pre-prompt that informs is good practice. The same pattern that refuses to accept a decline is not.

Practical example

A worked decision where this was the deciding factor.

Check your work

Review passes that test whether this was done properly.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.

Related concept

Connected closely enough to change how you apply this.