dark patterns - an overview for brand owners
DESCRIPTION
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.TRANSCRIPT
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Dirty marketing tricks that can harm your brand
DARK PATTERNS
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As a brand-owner, what’s one of the worst things that could happen?
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Marissa MayerVP, Search & User Experience Google
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Everyone wants to improve their conversion rates- This in itself is healthy.
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DARK PATTERN
Tricks and traps
HONEST PATTERN
Candid Persuasion
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DARK PATTERN: FRIEND SPAM
• Users don’t like their “voice” to be co-opted without their permission
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Friend_Spam
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CreditExpert
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“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
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DARK PATTERN: FORCED CONTINUATION
• Users don’t like surprises in their credit card bills!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Forced_Continuity
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DARK PATTERN: TRICK QUESTIONS
• Users hate deceitful forms - they feel scammed, regardless of whether it’s legal!
• Read more: http://darkpatterns.org/Trick_Questions
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All Dark Patterns have one thing in common:
POOR EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT
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I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING:Why should I care about this stu!?
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Your organisation is probably using tricks like this without you realising
You need to replace these Dark Patterns with Honest Patterns!
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MADGEX CASE STUDY
How we used honest patterns to deliver great conversion rates for our job board email
alerts
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EMAIL ALERT CREATION PAGEUser fills in form
SEARCH RESULTS PAGE User clicks “email me jobs like these”
LOG-IN / REGISTER PAGE User clicks register
REGISTRATION PAGEUser completes registration form,
EMAIL ACTIVATIONUser checks email, clicks link
• About 9 years ago, our original job board platform required users to register to create email alerts
• User Experience research showed huge potential for improvement
• Analytics showed Email alerts give DOUBLE the application rates our clients were getting from organic tra!c
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Bottleneck
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We had lots of options
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OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT
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OPTION 1: SET EMAIL ALERTS TO OPT-OUT
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rateCost: Annoying for users who feel tricked
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OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
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OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does for logged in users
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OPTION 2: AUTOMATICALLY CREATE EMAIL ALERTS FOR ALL SEARCHES
This is what primelocation.com does for logged in users
Benefit: Massively inflate alert creation rateCost: Massively annoying for users who feel tricked
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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...”
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OPTION 3: BROADEN USERS’ SEARCH CRITERIA SO EMAIL ALERTS ARE ALWAYS SENT
Benefit: Inflate number of emails sentCost: Users ask for one thing but get another
“We couldn’t find you any matching jobs in Brighton today, so we emailed you some jobs in Birmingham
instead...”
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OPTION 4: REMOVE REGISTRATION BARRIER
Benefit: Inflate alert creation rateCost: there is no cost, everybody’s happy!
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DARK PATTERN
Tricks and traps
HONEST PATTERN
Candid Persuasion
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So, we went for option 4: removing the registration barrier from email alert creation.
We also removed the barrier from email alert deletion.
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DID OUR USAGE OF HONEST PATTERNS PAY OFF?
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June 2010
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×2
June 2010
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June 2010
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×2
June 2010
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Massive uplift in email alert creation
Zero complaints from users regarding email alerts
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YOUR WEBSITE’S USER INTERFACE DEFINES YOUR BRAND’S PERSONALITY.
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YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO BE.
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Harry Brignull - http://darkpatterns.org
THANK YOU
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