The New York Times Derides the Very Dark Patterns It Uses
‘Dark patterns’ aren’t always malicious mind control. They’re often a symptom of disjointed company culture. Will the Times change?
A recent New York Times op-ed, titled “Stopping the Manipulation Machines,” derided the use of dark patterns: design tricks that push people to do things online by confusing or deliberately inconveniencing them.
Kudos to the writer, Greg Bensinger, a member of the Times’ editorial board, who does a laudable job calling out obnoxious dark patterns.
His first target is the Amazon Prime unsubscribe process, which he calls “a labyrinthine process that requires multiple screens and clicks.”
Bensinger claims Amazon deters customers from canceling Prime with a confusing series of steps involving many more screens and clicks than the effortless sign-up process that got them paying $119 per year when they signed up.
The dark pattern Amazon uses is called, “the roach motel,” so named because like the insect trap, people check in but never check out. It’s an example of an unethical design practice because the right thing to do would be to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to start one.
Having written two books on how tech products get us Hooked, I was very familiar with this technique.
