This position paper was accepted for the CHI 2021 Workshop: “What Can CHI Do About Dark Patterns?"
Abstract:
In this position paper, we explore the concept of darkness through a policy lens, focusing especially on privacy and legal definitions of harm. We then propose future work to empirically explore one potential measure of darkness: the effort a user must exert in order to avoid or overcome a dark pattern’s persuasiveness. For the purpose of this position paper, we define dark patterns as interface designs that lead users towards outcomes that benefit the platform over the user, or that steer users away from what they are intending to do.