Has anyone actually lost anything of value from a dark pattern?
If so, then this seems the place to start the discussion. Until real loss happens, dark patterns will persist.
If so, then this seems the place to start the discussion. Until real loss happens, dark patterns will persist.
The video at the top of darkpatterns.org, linked by the article, discusses the LinkedIn lawsuit concerning linking to users' contact lists.¹
So they say "register a new account for my site and get $10", then trick you into dismissing the $10 award as a pop-up.
It greatly depends on a user type, it might be true for tech users but average Joe will read the pop up almost everytime.
This may sound a little harsh, but you’ll see, when you do usability tests, that there are quite a few users who simply do not read words that you put on the screen. If you pop up an error box of any sort, they simply will not read it. This may be disconcerting to you as a programmer, because you imagine yourself as conducting a dialog with the user. Hey, user! You can’t open that file, we don’t support that file format! Still, experience shows that the more words you put on that dialog box, the fewer people will actually read it.”
User Interface Design For Programmers (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/10/24/user-interface-des...)
A quick google brought me to this aritcle (https://sumo.com/stories/pop-up-statistics) which indicates a conversion rate of 3-9% for pop ups requesting info / sign-up. So you may be right!
I wasn’t commenting on the dark pattern though. I was surprised to hear that “common users” don’t just auto dismiss pop ups.