An Ontology of Dark Patterns Knowledge: Foundations, Definitions, and a Pathway for Shared Knowledge-Building

TL;DR

This paper develops a standardized ontology of dark patterns to unify definitions across disciplines, facilitating research, regulation, and ethical design practices.

Contribution

It harmonizes ten existing taxonomies into a three-level ontology with 65 dark pattern types, supporting shared understanding and regulatory actions.

Findings

Proposed a three-level ontology with 65 dark pattern types

Harmonized ten existing taxonomies into a unified framework

Illustrated pathways for empirical extension and cross-domain mapping

Abstract

Deceptive and coercive design practices are increasingly used by companies to extract profit, harvest data, and limit consumer choice. Dark patterns represent the most common contemporary amalgamation of these problematic practices, connecting designers, technologists, scholars, regulators, and legal professionals in transdisciplinary dialogue. However, a lack of universally accepted definitions across the academic, legislative and regulatory space has likely limited the impact that scholarship on dark patterns might have in supporting sanctions and evolved design practices. In this paper, we seek to support the development of a shared language of dark patterns, harmonizing ten existing regulatory and academic taxonomies of dark patterns and proposing a three-level ontology with standardized definitions for 65 synthesized dark patterns types across low-, meso-, and high-level patterns. We illustrate how this ontology can support translational research and regulatory action, including pathways to extend our initial types through new empirical work and map across application domains.