This talk was given at the Madgex Innovations Event (December 2010) at the Soho hotel in London. It’s a revised version of the original Dark Patterns talk given at UX Brighton 2010, containing a fair amount of new material, and a different intended audience: this talk is aimed at marketers and brand owners.

2. DARK PATTERNS
Dirty marketing tricks that can harm your brand

3. As a brand-owner, what’s one of the worst
things that could happen?

10. Marissa Mayer
VP, Search & User Experience
Google

16. Everyone wants to improve their conversion rates
- This in itself is healthy.
100
75
50
25
0
October November December January

17. HONEST PATTERN DARK PATTERN
Candid Persuasion Tricks and traps

18. DARK PATTERN: FRIEND SPAM
• Users don’t like their “voice” to be co-opted without their
permission
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Friend_Spam

19. CreditExpert

25. “Having requested credit card details “to
complete the report” I then find that they
have taken 2 x payments of £7.99 from
the card without my authority. These
people are [...] devious and unscrupulous
[...] obtaining revenue by small print
deception.”
http://www.reviewcentre.com/review738914.html

29. DARK PATTERN: FORCED CONTINUATION
• Users don’t like surprises in their credit card bills!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Forced_Continuity

36. DARK PATTERN: TRICK QUESTIONS
• Users hate deceitful forms - they feel scammed, regardless
of whether it’s legal!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Trick_Questions

37. All Dark Patterns have one thing in common:
POOR EXPECTATION
MANAGEMENT

38. I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING:
Why should I care about this stu ?

39. Your organisation is probably using tricks like this
without you realising
You need to replace these Dark Patterns with
Honest Patterns!

40. MADGEX CASE STUDY
How we used honest patterns to deliver great
conversion rates for our job board email
alerts

41. • About 9 years ago, our SEARCH RESULTS PAGE
User clicks “email me jobs like these”
original job board
platform required users
to register to create email LOG-IN / REGISTER PAGE
User clicks register
alerts
• User Experience research REGISTRATION PAGE
showed huge potential User completes registration form,
for improvement
• Analytics showed Email EMAIL ACTIVATION
User checks email, clicks link
alerts give DOUBLE the
application rates our
clients were getting from EMAIL ALERT CREATION PAGE
organic tra c User fills in form

42. Bottleneck

43. We had lots of options

44. OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT

45. OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rate
Cost: Annoying for users who feel tricked

46. OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS
FOR ALL SEARCHES

47. OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS
FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does
for logged in users

48. OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS
FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does
for logged in users
Benefit: Massively inflate alert creation rate
Cost: Massively annoying for users who feel tricked

49. OPTION 3: BROADEN USERS’ SEARCH CRITERIA
SO EMAIL ALERTS ARE ALWAYS SENT
“We couldn’t find you any matching jobs in Brighton
today, so we emailed you some jobs in Birmingham
instead...”

50. OPTION 3: BROADEN USERS’ SEARCH CRITERIA
SO EMAIL ALERTS ARE ALWAYS SENT
“We couldn’t find you any matching jobs in Brighton
today, so we emailed you some jobs in Birmingham
instead...”
Benefit: Inflate number of emails sent
Cost: Users ask for one thing but get another

51. OPTION 4: REMOVE REGISTRATION BARRIER
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rate
Cost: there is no cost, everybody’s happy!

52. HONEST PATTERN DARK PATTERN
Candid Persuasion Tricks and traps

53. So, we went for option 4: removing the
registration barrier from email alert creation.
We also removed the barrier from email alert
deletion.

54. DID OUR USAGE OF HONEST PATTERNS
PAY OFF?

55. June 2010

56. June 2010
×2

57. June 2010

58. June 2010
×2

59. Massive uplift in email alert creation
Zero complaints from users regarding email
alerts

60. YOUR WEBSITE’S USER INTERFACE
DEFINES YOUR BRAND’S PERSONALITY.

61. YOU GET TO CHOOSE
WHO YOU WANT TO BE.

62. THANK YOU
Harry Brignull - http://darkpatterns.org