UX Glossary · D
Dark pattern
Also: Deceptive pattern · Deceptive design
An interface deliberately designed to trick users into decisions they did not intend to make.
A dark pattern is an interface designed to work against the user’s interest: making cancellation obscure, pre-ticking consent, disguising ads as content, or wording a decline button so it reads as agreement.
Harry Brignull coined the term in 2010 and now prefers “deceptive pattern”, partly because “dark” carries unhelpful connotations and partly because “deceptive” names the actual mechanism.
Recognised categories
Brignull’s taxonomy and subsequent academic work identify recurring types, including:
- Roach motel: easy to enter, deliberately hard to leave
- Confirmshaming: wording the decline option to shame the user, “No thanks, I don’t like saving money”
- Sneak into basket: adding items the user did not select
- Misdirection: drawing attention away from the choice that matters
- Forced continuity: a free trial converting silently to a paid subscription
They are increasingly illegal
This is no longer only an ethics discussion. The EU Digital Services Act, in force since 2024, prohibits deceptive interface design on online platforms in Article 25. The GDPR already required consent to be freely given and as easy to withdraw as to give, which most cookie banners plainly fail. Regulators in the EU and US have brought enforcement actions.
In practice
The test is simple. Would you explain this design to the user? If describing the mechanism out loud would embarrass you, it is a deceptive pattern regardless of what the metric says.