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The UX con artist’s guide to common deceptive patterns
Are you a con artist disguised as an interface designer? Are you a UX grifter wanting to make a score off an innocent mark? Are you a product design swindler? If so, this is the article for you!
Published in
10 min readMar 9, 2022
This article looks at a few common deceptive patterns and how they are used against users. We will also look at who got busted and better alternatives to these patterns.
Be forewarned, that my research methods include watching Ocean’s 11 and The Real Hustle.
In this article, we will cover:
- What are deceptive patterns?
- Con goal 1: Swindel the marks out of money.
- Con goal 2: Get details to spam the mark.
- Con goal 3: Trap the mark.
- Closing thoughts
- Further reading
Writer's note (19.03.2022): One of my readers pointed out that the term "Dark Patterns" is problematic - and I was kinda surprised that I hadn't noticed it before (see comment). So naturally, I did some more research and tried to figure out how I could make this article more inclusionary.
