S1 Ep5 The Lurking of Dark Patterns

[Music] Dark patterns are the reason why you buy something, enemy, or credit. You feel tricked and you feel annoyed. And you decide that you'll never use that brand again. That's not you being dramatic. That's your brain reacting to pure manipulation. Today we're unpacking the lurking cost of dark patterns. Why they work in the moment, why they can destroy trust, loyalty and even put businesses at legal risk. If you run a website, a checkout or a subscription, this matters. Welcome to ThinkShift, the podcast where neuroscience meets business. [Music] Hi Leanne, good to see you again. Hey, hey, thanks. It's good to see you in this new studio. No, no, no. I know. I know. It's fantastic. It's really good. Yeah. So. I love the lights. It's fantastic. It's like the branding of our lights. Those of you that are watching, you can see the lights as you were listening. The pink and purple and blue like our Nura's design branding. They look awesome. Yeah. It's fantastic. So let's go straight into dark patterns and talk about the bit of the science behind it. So. Been dying to do this. 100%. This is a lot, you and I. Yeah. So dark patterns work because they exploit shortcuts. They reduce thinking time and they reduce perceived choice. So we're going to talk about science behind it. So first of all, what makes something a manipulation and not persuasion? Right. Firstly, manipulation is unethical. So we'll just start with that. But also it's when you do not have control over your decision. So you can be guided in a certain way. And that's what persuasion is or influence. But when you are forced or without your consent or knowledge or. You're in your subconscious when you are actually forced and you've got no control over. I said over a decision or you're totally coerced. That's manipulation. And often, unfortunately, manipulation ends up with a poor result rather than the intended good result. Yeah. So that's the main thing. Unfortunately, though, we see it a lot in sales and marketing. Oh, we do. And it's brand-damaging to the point where it gets exposed. It becomes a viral issue. And suddenly a business is having to backtrack and go, "Oh my God, what have we done? Let's change this quickly." Yeah. Damage. Damage. Damage is done. Yeah, that's exactly right. So why do dark patterns work in the moment? Yeah. So they do work, unfortunately, but they do because we operate very quickly. So you've heard me talk about Daniel Kahneman. I've actually got the book on the desk. It's a book right there. Around dual process theory. So thinking fast and slow is his famous book, One Noble Prize for the Work on dual process theory, where we've got system one and system two thinking. Very fast way of thinking, which is 95% of the way we operate. And then system two thinking, which is slow. Which is only 5%. So the brain is busy. It's chocolate block full of things to do. I say it works at a million miles an hour. It actually works at 11 million bits per second. And there's a lot that it needs to do. So it will take a shortcut. So if there is something that is the path of least resistance and we make quick decisions, and there's something that allows us to make quick decisions, we do it. But often it's a manipulative tact. It's not in our best interest, but it's easy for us to do. What happens when someone realizes they've been pushed? They get cranky. Yes, they absolutely do. They get on social media. They have. They hang about it. Yeah. Well, you're filled deceived. Right, there goes the trust. Revitational risk for you as an individual and also a company. It is very hard to get that trust back. But also people start looking into other things. What else is there? What else does this business do that's making me feel a bit of the ICC? Am I going to associate myself with them? No. Am I going to refer them? No. Am I going to do business or buy from them? Absolutely not. And so we go into a protection mechanism. Once we realize what's happened, we go hell no. Hell no. I mean, think of a situation you've been in where you've just gone, "Well, no matter how good that product is, I am not going there because of how that decision made me feel." That's right. Yeah. You know, dark patterns are categorized into three areas, mild, moderate and severe. And we're going to go through that. Yeah, we're going to go through that. And why are people more sensitive to this now, though? Like the rise of the dark pattern behavior, I guess, has come up from the shadows and now why are people suddenly talking about it? Yeah, we. And it's interesting because even the term dark patterns and we've all deceptive pattern and again, we've got a book on that as well. 2010, believe it or not, all the way back then, was when we started identifying that there were these manipulative tactics, but it didn't really come to fruition or have an explanation or a definition until around 2018, 19. And then obviously, economics became more of a mainstream discipline as well to get an understanding of what actually happens. And obviously, that's where all my work is. And your work in the design of it as well. And so we didn't really know about it. We knew something wasn't right. Something felt off, but we didn't actually know why. And so now we're made aware. There's regulatory bodies that are around as well. Consumable law. We've got reports that have come out like the OECD report, which is the European report on dark patterns or deceptive patterns that was published in 2022. There's a lot more information around it. The severity of it, I don't think, has actually hit the surface yet. People know that it's around, that they're being manipulated. They're starting to understand why, but not getting the full grasp of it. Yep. So it's almost like at the cost of a conversion, trusty roads immediately. 100%. And also, I mean, we were talking about things that have happened to us. And you know-- I mean, you have me too. I mean, there's certain-- And this is that the purpose of things shift, too. He's getting people to shift the way they think and the way that they look at things and the perspective. And if we can give you some tools, or bad, good as well, to identify certain things, you know what not to do and you know what to look out for. But dark patterns are actually right in front of you. They are happening a lot more than you realize. And often laugh them off, just, you know, we go, "Oh, that's just a company being the company." But it's actually quite serious. It's manipulation. So I've got a really good example of this. And there's a big design firm actually that has software. And I'm not going to name them, of course. But on there, when you're trying to unsubscribe from their service, you have to jump through several hoops. And when you finally get to the final page, it says, "How about we give you your same subscription, but a 60% off." And you're like, "Okay, wow, all right. Suddenly you are met with a choice. By and large, I will stick with that." And I'm guessing a lot of our listeners would too. And just go, "Okay, well, that's a pretty good discount. All right, I'll stay. I'll think about it later." It forces you to change the decision and is suddenly put on the back burner because of that behavior. And it's one of those things where, and it gets publicized now quite a bit. I said on LinkedIn, it's being talked about. It's for the, again, for the cost of conversion, it's brand damaging. The trust has now gone out the window because you are manipulating your customers. I have a good one as well. And one, in particular, it's a media company. I've subscribed to for newspapers. Do you think I could unsubscribe? There was actually no button or no option to cancel subscription. The only option was to ring. You couldn't even email. You couldn't do anything. You actually had to pick up a phone. Now, people are thinking, "What's wrong with that?" There's nothing wrong with that. Most people wouldn't do it. Remember I talked about dual-process theory. We want to act very quickly. We go, "Oh, I've got to pick up the phone. I'm really busy. I've got to do this. This is all too hard." I just leave the subscription. That's what they're wanting to do. Of course, they don't come across a lian that goes, "Hell no. I'm actually picking up the phone and I'm going to ring." When I did ring, and they were surprised that I wanted to cancel. When I said, "That's interesting because this is exactly what the phone call is." This is the number. The cancel number? You called me to ring the cell phone. Yes. And there was a guy saying, "Oh, you're going to care why?" And then they offered other things. But, again, making it, you know, putting obstacles. Having you jump through, if you make a decision, a very reasonable decision that a human would make, and you want to cancel it, you should be able to. You shouldn't have to do cartwheels and handstands and back flips just to be able to do it. And this is happening more and more. Let's now talk about what to look at for as a consumer. You don't need to be paranoid, particularly you just need a checklist. And so we're going to go through some of those things. So some of the most common duck patentels, and you can chime in here, of course. So cancelation, it is harder than sign up. And I just spoke about that one before with the software company. Difficult to unsubscribe at any point in the process. Did you want to? Yeah, we'll add to that. So when we're talking about before about unsubscribing, one thing that I've noticed that happens is very cheeky. So cheeky Clint is that you know, when you get your newsletters and by law, obviously, and this is, you know, global regulation that you have to be able to unsubscribe. What I've seen is that they've actually changed the font color or made it the smart one. Almost white. Almost white. Like, today, actually. What did you? Yep. Where it's like, where is this thing? So of course, what happens? Again, going back to dual process theory, system one, you know, Daniel Kahneman says, we are looking for a path of least resistance and we're thinking quickly. How long are we willing to invest our very precious time in looking for this unsubscribe button? What happens? We actually don't. I'll do it next time. That's something with, that I've noticed that's been happening more and more is it's hiding it in a way. It's there. So they're compliant, but they're, but that's a dark pattern. It is. And that's not a molded dark pattern. That is what's called a moderate dark pattern. Order it. Okay. Interesting. Some of the other ones are pre-ticked add-ons. Oh, wow. So opting out instead of opting in. Yeah. But that's horrific. Can't stand that. I can't eat that. And this came actually last week. A purchase of a charmed bracelet. Actually, I've got some really nice charms and I wanted to put it on some of these charms on a bracelet. And next thing I know, I've got this pre-ticked insurance protection or delivery protection, which was very expensive. Not only could you not un-tick it. So it was all, it was, by default, it was ticked. You couldn't actually, like, look like it was in the shape so that the design, the UI was in a shape of like a toggle where you think you could toggle it off. Every time I tried to click on a two toggle it off, it wouldn't. Then I noticed, underneath at the very bottom of the page, was a sentence that said, click here if you don't want protection insurance. Yeah, checking. So I couldn't have been. I really broke my mouse, clicking that, right? And the thing is, and again, it's not about, so what's happened is that the whole experience of me buying this exciting piece of joy to put my really lovely charms on that were all gifts has now become, it's not nice. It's actually not nice experience. It's a really bad taste in the mouse. You know, we talk about Pkin rule. We're not talking about the detail of Pkin rule in this episode, which we will at a later episode, but we talk about how you fill the end of a purchase or of a customer interaction. And I was fuming. So the whole thing felt fake. I really liked the bracelet. Had I not liked it as much, I probably would have actually not bought it. Yeah. So we'll talk about Pkin rule in the episode around the lasting impression after a sale or an interaction with a client or what not, how critical that is for return customers and returning business. So what should consumers do when they see dark patterns? What is the next step? Let's talk about that. So other than yelling and screaming, breaking your mouse. Or saying, that's what I heard on ThinkShift, right? Is it going to be a little clint and literally and sitting on your shoulders going? This is what we're telling you. We're telling you to be really careful. The first thing is you've got to hold these people accountable. So the A triple C is obviously a regular Australian regulatory organization that you can report these things to. Now, I'm not saying that you need to really nearly just report these things, but without documentation and without reporting these things can't be done because the Australian government is actually updating their rules and regulations around dark patterns. And one of the things that Clint and I do in Euro design and what we do is look at audits and look at company profiles, company collateral, the information that they provide to the public and whether it actually does contain dark patterns or can be misconstrued or manipulated in any way. And we, at our service that we offer around that, making sure that you're compliant. And that is going to become more and more important and imperative. So, the first year service NSW actually sent out, so for those in NSW in other states or other places around the world, service NSW were talking to business owners and people that have registered their businesses within Australia, especially in NSW. And there was a memo on an email that went out to everyone identifying a dark pattern. And just look out for these kinds of behaviours, look out for these things that you can't do. And if you see these, report them. So it's done in a catch on government authorities looking to do things about it and they have to. Again, the mild things, okay, the moderate, they're not good, but the severe are totally unacceptable. Yeah, it's all about protecting consumers. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Before we continue, don't forget to like and subscribe to ThinkShift so you don't miss out on any of the upcoming episodes. Okay, so next we're going to talk about the levels that you mentioned earlier, dark patterns and how to spot them. Right. So, not all dark patterns look the same. Correct. Some are subtle, some are aggressive. So let's have a look at what some of those subtle ones are. So some of the mild dark patterns that we're talking about would be almost like certain nudges. They're acceptable. They use, would use something like the isolation effect bias where they, something would stand out in particular if you're looking at a different subscription model and they've got one of the offers is or one of the levels of, of offer or tears is a different color or stands out. That's also a really good way to nudge someone to a particular option if it's right for them. Again, it's not right for them, but you are directing someone to that particular option that is a mild dark pattern. Right. Things that are pre-selected but might only be very small as in a dollar here, a dollar there, something that often I see also is donating a dollar. So it is a mild dark pattern where the default is selected. You've got to remove the select to donate a dollar from your purchase to a charity. Very, very naughty, but it is mild. It's what's up. It's one dollar. You know, you should have done it, no, but it's going to a good place and they do generally will list the charity it's going to. But still, I didn't choose that. Yes. But is it hurting anyone? No. That's mild. Okay. What about moderate? So moderate is when we have fees, things that weren't clear and all of a sudden we've got a price or we've checked out, and we're not talking about shipping, but there might be an admin fee or there might be a processing fee or there might be all these other additional fees that you weren't expecting. Well, that needed to be set out in a much clearer way and that is much more of a moderate diet pattern. That's not mild because the impact and the intent is more serious. Having lots of different options and we're going to in another episode talk about choice paradox, but making it so confusing that you just choose again, the path of least resistance and you just go with one that you may not or with a choice or an option that is actually not suitable for you. But because it's so confusing and it's so hard to delineate between the different tiers or levels, you just go, "Oh, I'll just go with that." That's also mild because you could actually be paying more than you intended also terms like the tenure of subscription monthly, weekly, yearly, sometimes you get the default is in something that you don't intend. Can I opt out? No, no, because you opted in for 12 months. So they have much more of an impact and a much more financial impact, transactional impact, they're moderate. You have an interesting one and I'm not sure whether it's even classified as a dark pattern, but you tell me where it sits on the spectrum. When subscribing, most subscription services will have a yearly monthly toggle for policy. And most, if not 99% of them are always told to annual. So when you arrive at that subscription table, you go, "Wow, that's really cheap each month." It's actually cheap because you're being charged annually and divided into monthly payments. And then when you toggle over to monthly, if you can find the toggle in the first place, which sometimes you can't find it, which I'd say is a dark pattern in itself, the price doubles in some instances. Is that classified as a dark pattern? So there's two areas, one, moderate one, very, very mild. So the one where, let's just say, mostly I've had experience with would be mild if it doesn't even classify, it's more of an actual ethical nudge, is where it is default to the monthly that's based on 12 months, but it is very easy to toggle back to the month and it states with a yearly subscription use save 30%. And often what I do like is that it will have the monthly subscription number and then crossed out to what the yearly monthly would be if you subscribe. So it's very clear you've got a call to action that is obvious. You're going to save money if you go yearly, although it was just toggled default to yearly. That's okay. That's okay. It's when it's defaulted to yearly and it's very hard to find the button or it's another button somewhere else to toggle off. Or you've got to subscribe for a year and then unsubscribe, which I've seen before where you got to subscribe and then unsubscribe and they put you on a monthly platform or monthly subscription. They don't specify that there is a difference in pricing and it's very, very hard to reduce back to what it would make to make a choice. So it's very hard to choose, month, or choose yearly. So that yes, and that would be a moderate diet pattern. OK. I often see sometimes, and we're going to name names again, tables that make it very hard to use a free plan. Or in fact, actually, the big G is guilty of this sometimes. And that is downgrading a subscription. So going, I don't know long I need this. I want to downgrade to the free plan or what, not just until I decide what to do with it. And that step is very difficult to find. If at all. If at all. Or if it allows you to without having to email customer service or all these sort of stuff, that's severe. So we're talking about that now. That's actually severe because you have no choice. It has taken that choice away from you. And you have to go through a lot of actions and a lot of loops and an increase in cognitive load as well. So there's a lot of things that you need to do cognitively to get to the outcome that you want. And there's a financial impact. Yes. OK. So severe traps and force paths. What are some of the others? Having to jump through lots of loops and hoops to cancel. Also, if you need support. So just trying to contact email often. If you are more in the e-commerce space, I see this and clothing. But it's probably biased because I do a little bit of shopping because I do a lot of fashion. Is where the return policy or the exchange policy is very clear. Yet you've got to go through all this portal to be able to return. Now it's OK. If you've got a portal and then you put your order number in fair enough, your email, yep, calls it up. You decide what you want to return or exchange whatever it is. Often there's a reason why that's good. That's good information for the company to have. Blah blah blah blah blah. They give you an RMA number and sometimes a return address and off you go. But I've experienced this where it's set to me, why did you want to return it? And I say, oh, I chose the wrong size. What size did you choose? This. Why did you choose that? Well, actually, I made a mistake. What do you-- what size do you want? I want medium. Why do you need this size? I couldn't believe it. I was justifying-- am I justifying my body shape here? I actually-- and the reason why I actually made the boo boo in the first place was because of a moderate diet pattern. Because the default was to a certain size that I didn't see-- But they had in stock. --because they had in stock. And I didn't actually-- it was very hard to see that you could try. I thought it was a one size. This particular item was on size, but it wasn't. It was small, medium, large. And normally they do this particular brand, and this particular item is often one size. So I didn't realize that there was a choice. And it wasn't clear. And I look for these things, right? This one I'll do for a little bit. And then when I went back onto the website, so oh, the small was highlighted. And that's why it happened. I just went through without realizing. So it's actually a severe diet pattern. Trying to then return it. What did I do? Can I just keep it? Is it worth it? It's-- I have an-- then they wanted pictures for proof. It was absolute nightmaid at the moment. I actually pulled out. I pulled away. And still sitting there. And I'm trying to decide what to do because it's just a headache. So severe, severe dark patterns. They called it a load through the roots. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And here I am talking about it. And I have also obviously named this particular brand to friends and family and the frustrations and the stuff. Brand damaging. Not about the product. The product is great and the quality and all that. So they've done themselves a disservice because they're actually a really good brand and they have liquid stuff. But you have to follow these things through. It's again, like you said earlier, you might get the conversion, but at what cost? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Another thing I find is that it can be very difficult to remove cart items if at all. Sometimes you'll have where is the trash can or the minus one or the-- and that probably won't lead to a conversion because you just get frustrated and leave. So it's more about how does a business identify that and correct that behavior. I'm assuming that is a mild dark pattern. It would be mild. You've got to have a trash can. Yeah. It's just more annoying than the user. It's going to cost you business. You've got to cost you business because sometimes you put the wrong size in. Yeah. In system one thinking, we're very, very fast. One thing about system one thinking is highly aeropron. Yes. So we make boo-boos and we're allowed to make mistakes. We are not perfect without a made mistakes, but make it easy for us to amend the mistakes. So with those three levels, mild, moderate, severe, we talked about-- we talked about specifically when to report to HRC. At what level do you say was it severe only is worth reporting and anything else is going on? I just tell the business, tell support, and move on. But severe is the one worth reporting, would you say? Yeah, I would say mild. There can be a little bit of annoyances, but often working your favor. Yeah, moderate, again, a bit more annoying. I'd probably bleep and I have in the past either left a message or written an email, depending on what is. But in terms of regulatory reporting and getting it as part of a report and, again, not naming and shaming because you don't want to do that. And unfortunately, if you do get an atripple, so you would need to-- Bad, but if it's a severe, dark patent, it needs to be regulated and monitored. And the other thing is just-- I always like-- and you do too-- we like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But unfortunately, there's a lot of people that do this on purpose. If they didn't, there wouldn't be a thing called dark patents. Yeah. And there wouldn't be books about it. There wouldn't be regulatory requirements. There wouldn't be an OECD report that was published. We wouldn't be doing the work that we do. So unfortunately, there are people that very well know what they're doing and are doing at deliberate-- Yeah. To avoid complaint, complaint, complaint, complaint for businesses, the last thing you want to do is create our bunch of noise for every foreseeable, possible dark patent. You say, even in severe cases, it's worth reaching out to those businesses first. Bring it to their attention and engage their response. Absolutely. But where do you go anywhere else? 100%. 100%. Yeah. Look, they might not even realize. I mean, if it's severe, they generally do. But if enough people say, look, this wasn't right, they might change it. They might change the UX. They may change the options. Some people are a little bit-- they're unsure, or they've read, or they've been told. If you do this, it will be able to convert more. And unfortunately, dollar signs in front of your eyes drives people to do make silly decisions. But if it's brought to their attention, they go, look, sorry about that. Yeah, we'll change the way that we operate. If they do great, if not, and you repeatedly told them, then it needs to be reported. So we've talked about it from a consumer perspective. Let's talk about it now from the business perspective and how to avoid such behaviors as a business. Like you said, before most businesses do it by accident, but some do it on purpose. Both outcomes can obviously be ugly. What is the simplest test for whether your flow is a dark pattern? Use your website or use your process yourself. So put yourself in your customers shoes. Is it easy for them to purchase from you? What groups do you need to go through? Is it easy to unsubscribe or to pull out if needed? How's the flow of how you operate your business, especially in the digital space? Is there some trip ups? Is there things that you're done on purpose? I'd be very careful with that and maybe think twice. And look for certain things that we have suggested in the podcast around where your buttons, what set to default? Is it easy to toggle off or toggle on? Even though we want to ethically nudge in a certain way, but make sure that consumers are given choice. Remember, I said at the beginning, the manipulation is when you remove that choice, so you're courier someone into doing something that is out of their control, they need to be able to remain in control of their journey or their purchase journey. Being in control is super key there. Also, if you're a bigger business, use a testing is a great idea. Of course, just to see what a whole group of users are experiencing, witnessing, and getting feedback at that level. So you can make conscious decisions around avoiding dark pattern behavior. And doing an audit, getting some advice from someone, not saying us, it could be others. But getting some advice around what do I do or getting an audit, make sure that you comply. Soon, there will be compliance that you will need to provide. It's something very simple that you can do that will avoid anything detrimental or any kind of reputational risk down the track. And it's not dobing or you've done this wrong or you were trying to manipulate. No, it's just making things right. It's just making things right for everyone and doing the right thing. That's all it's about. Yeah, I guess there's a bit of a wild west that's happened over the course since the internet became a thing. And over time, we are slowly fixing these kinds of behaviors. But for a period, there is that wild west behavior where you're just getting away with it. You're just clearly getting away with these things. So I hate to say, I feel like we're really pulling out all the tricks and not allowing anybody to do anything. instead of done. like patent behavior, you know, what should replace it if you still want really strong conversion? I've some ideas here, of course, but transparent pricing early, honest urgency tied to real constraints. Was it you say tying value to an option, right? And making it really clear that the selection that the user, his making is right for them. Yeah, right. And again, going back to the monthly versus yearly, even if it's, if it's toggled to the yearly, make it easy to toggle back to monthly. And then you have the value around, you know, the clarity around, well, if you do yearly, the monthly is reduced by 30% or 20% off. And is what is what's common. But it's okay to do that. But make sure it's clear and the consumer has the control to decide which one they want easily. Yeah. The other one would be clear cancellation and clear support. Absolutely. Like, just I think support is underestimated as a value add. It's often missed. And it's one of those things where you don't want to use a searching for support, searching for the number where do I go? How do I super frustrating? It's brand damaging. Well, if you need support, you're already frustrated. Yeah, that's true. So you're done. Yeah, you're already in a predicament. Yeah. If you need support, I make the option to then get the support easy. Yes. 100% 100% Okay. The other things I would say remove, pre-tick, add-ons, make cancellation visible, show total cost earlier, it's so on and so I thought I've covered pretty much everything there. Here's the shift. Awareness changes behaviour. Consumers are becoming savvier around manipulation. That creates catastrophic brand risk for businesses that keep playing games. It also creates legal risk. As consumers, the more we recognise the behaviour, the less frequent it should become. We can only dream. One action for the listener this week, name it when you see it, do not reward it with your money. And one action for the businesses out there, design for control and clarity, trust is the growth strategy now. That's think shift. I'm Clint. And I'm Leane. One idea, one shift in under 30 minutes. If this has changed how you think, share it with someone who makes decisions for a living. And don't forget to follow think shift on all the socials, subscribe, like, so you don't miss what shift is coming up next. See you in the next episode. This is a March Made Media production.