philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Web Foundation is taking on deceptive design

The Web Foundation‘s Tech Policy Design Lab is working on an interesting-looking project to counter deceptive design — aka dark patterns* — with the goal of producing a portfolio of UX and UI prototypes which it hopes to persuade tech companies to adopt and policymakers to be inspired by as they fashion rules to make the online experience less exploitative of web users.

The Design Lab was launched last year to be the “action arm” of a wider Web Foundation initiative, announced back in late 2018 — when the not-for-profit digital access group proposed a “Contract for the Web” ahead of the 30th anniversary of World Wide Web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s invention. ...

Just look at how aggressively Amazon nudges users toward inadvertently agreeing to sign up to its subscription-based Prime membership scheme — teasing a carrot of free shipping at the point of purchase in a bid to distract the shopper from the simultaneous sleight of hand as shipping is only free if you also agree to sign up to a free trial of Amazon’s Prime scheme, after which the e-tail giant will start to bill you for what is normally a paid service. (And of course it also makes users go on a not-so-merry dance through multiple menu layers to find the button to cancel Prime if you inadvertently sign up for this “free” shipping/trial.) ...

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/23/deceptive-design-patterns-project/