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Spotting dark patterns: Learn from a petty UX analysis of an “unsubscribe” link
Newbie to pro. Improve and rethink your evaluations. How I learned to identify dark patterns and dark copy with this William Sonoma email newsletter.
I swear this is not a shady hit piece. No, seriously, let me make my case. As a well-meaning UX newbie starting out with evaluations, it is easy to mistake fuzzy descriptions, weird placement and unintuitive logic as mistakes. I would know. There is a hard paradigm shift when you realize those “mistakes” are on purpose. Looking back at old work, a lot of the violations I listed that went ignored were dark patterns. I wasn’t in on the secret. Being aware of deception can save time and clue you in on a potential company culture. I challenge you to rethink your framework.
Here is the offending footer.
Two things were apparent as I hurried to unsubscribe from the “It’s National Ice Cream Day! 🍦” newsletter:
- I have too much free time to analyze a spammy newsletter.
- William Sonoma loves dark patterns for design and UX copy.
What is the definition of a dark pattern?
Dark patterns are “tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something,” according to Darkpatterns.org.
In this case, unsubscribing.
William Sonoma wants to exhaust you so, you stay subscribed. Some would argue that these are examples of strategic design rather than dark patterns. However, how strategic can we design before we prioritize profit over the user? If these strategies are not dark patterns, can we as designers admit these strategies have darker influences? Not to mention, California banned them March. 15, 2021.
Now that we’ve covered that, let’s assess William Sonoma.
