End User Accounts of Dark Patterns as Felt Manipulation

TL;DR

This study explores how end users perceive manipulation through dark patterns in digital services, revealing their felt experiences and proposing a continuum of manipulation to inform policy and empower users.

Contribution

It extends dark pattern research by incorporating user perceptions across cultures and introduces a continuum of manipulation based on qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Findings

Users experience manipulation as subtle and overt influences.

A continuum of manipulation levels was identified.

Cultural differences affect perceptions of dark patterns.

Abstract

Manipulation defines many of our experiences as a consumer, including subtle nudges and overt advertising campaigns that seek to gain our attention and money. With the advent of digital services that can continuously optimize online experiences to favor stakeholder requirements, increasingly designers and developers make use of "dark patterns"---forms of manipulation that prey on human psychology---to encourage certain behaviors and discourage others in ways that present unequal value to the end user. In this paper, we provide an account of end user perceptions of manipulation that builds on and extends notions of dark patterns. We report on the results of a survey of users conducted in English and Mandarin Chinese (n=169), including follow-up interviews from nine survey respondents. We used a card sorting method to support thematic analysis of responses from each cultural context, identifying both qualitatively-supported insights to describe end users' felt experiences of manipulative products, and a continuum of manipulation. We further support this analysis through a quantitative analysis of survey results and the presentation of vignettes from the interviews. We conclude with implications for future research, considerations for public policy, and guidance on how to further empower and give users autonomy in their experiences with digital services.