Deception by Design: A Temporal Dark Patterns Audit of McDonald's Self-Ordering Kiosk Flow

TL;DR

This paper audits McDonald's self-ordering kiosks in Germany, revealing manipulative dark patterns in their interface design that may influence consumer behavior and warrant regulatory attention.

Contribution

It introduces a structured framework for analyzing temporal dark patterns in self-service kiosks and identifies specific high- and low-level manipulative strategies used.

Findings

Identified recurring dark patterns like false hierarchy and pressured selling.

Showed how patterns accumulate and are amplified by kiosk design and physical context.

Highlighted the need for regulatory scrutiny of hybrid physical-digital interfaces.

Abstract

Self-ordering kiosks (SOKs) are widely deployed in fast food restaurants, transforming food ordering into digitally mediated, self-navigated interactions. While these systems enhance efficiency and average order value, they also create opportunities for manipulative interface design practices known as dark patterns. This paper presents a structured audit of the McDonald's self-ordering kiosk in Germany using the Temporal Analysis of Dark Patterns (TADP) framework. Through a scenario-based walkthrough simulating a time-pressured user, we reconstructed and analyzed 12 interface steps across intra-page, inter-page, and system levels. We identify recurring high-level strategies implemented through meso-level patterns such as adding steps, false hierarchy, bad defaults, hiding information, and pressured selling, and low-level patterns including visual prominence, confirmshaming, scarcity framing, feedforward ambiguity, emotional sensory manipulation, and partitioned pricing. Our findings demonstrate how these patterns accumulate across the interaction flow and may be amplified by the kiosk's linear task structure and physical context. These findings suggest that hybrid physical--digital consumer interfaces warrant closer scrutiny within emerging regulatory discussions on dark patterns.