Dark Patterns: How design seeks to control us | Sally Woellner | TEDxSydney
TEDx Talks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJUW0iZzAaQ

Transkript (automatisch erstellt)

0:00 Transcriber: Andrea Carrer Reviewer: Anna Sobota I became a designer to make the world a more beautiful place.
0:18 But the longer I’ve continued in my career, the more I’ve started to notice
0:23 some aspects of design changing into something a bit different, something that can be quite dangerous for all of us.
0:31 Many of you may remember design, as most people think of it, designing a beautiful poster for your wall
0:38 or designing the interior of a gorgeous building. But design has evolved alongside technology
0:44 and many designers these days are crafting what we call User Experiences, or UX Design.
0:51 A UX Designer isn’t really concerned with how a website looks. A UX Designer is designing the way that you interact
0:59 with the technology, products and apps that you use every day. A UX Designer is working to make your digital spaces easier,
1:07 more delightful and sometimes more addictive. And that’s how design might be controlling your behavior, without you even noticing,
1:18 when designers turn to what we call dark patterns. Dark patterns is a name for the multitude of worryingly effective ways
1:29 that designers use manipulative tactics to get you to behave the way that they would like.
1:35 I’m about to tell you about four of them today. So think back to last time you signed up for something.
1:42 It was probably super simple. It might have felt a little bit exciting.
1:45 If it was something like this, you might have done it even with a single click. And then, you might want to cancel that service or unsubscribe from that email.
1:56 In that case, you may have run into one of our first dark patterns, confirmshaming.
2:02 Confirmshaming is when designers use manipulative language, an emotionally charged design
2:07 to make you feel really, really guilty about canceling a service or leaving. Duolingo redesigned their owl to make you feel even more guilty about quitting
2:19 than you did before. It’s been proven to be really effective.
2:23 I mean, do you want to make the owl cry? Platforms that use this technique also often employ our next dark pattern,
2:32 misdirection. That’s when designers will hide the things that they don’t really want you to see
2:38 and draw lots of attention to the things that you do, in order to help you to behave the way that they want.
2:45 I know all of you will have had some experience with buying tickets and you know, this is a great price.
2:51 But four screens later, when you've raced to enter all your personal information, you might see something more like this in the fine print.
2:58 On platform StubHub, they used to put the entire price up front, even with that 30 % extra you can see in the tiny little text there.
3:07 But they discovered when they moved that fee just to the end and hid it until it was almost too late,
3:14 people spent, on average, about 21 % extra. But, that one’s kind of obvious.
3:20 You’ve probably noticed that one. Designers are using even more manipulative techniques
3:26 to influence the way that you behave. The color red has been shown to raise heart rate
3:33 and it gets your attention. Online platform HubSpot discovered
3:37 that when they changed one button from green to red, about 20 % more people actually clicked on it just for that.
3:44 Even that is pretty simple when you compare it to how some platforms are using this little red dot
3:50 to enable mechanics that are kind of like gambling or slot machines. What will happen is
3:57 Instagram’s notification algorithm will actually withhold likes from you. It’ll create this growing sense of unease, disappointment and anticipation,
4:08 and then, suddenly, BAM! They hit you with it all at once.
4:13 And that's what's being designed, that rush of dopamine that someone noticed your cat picture
4:18 that keeps you coming back. And when you combine that compulsion to keep clicking
4:24 with the next dark pattern number three, the trick question, things can get bad pretty quickly.
4:31 In 2010, online e-commerce platform Game Station added this little clause to their shopping checkout,
4:38 which gave them ownership of your immortal soul when you purchased with them.
4:44 They did also put a big opt-out option but they were quite surprised to end up the owners of several thousand souls.
4:52 They concluded that around 88 % of people didn’t read the Terms and Conditions or text when they checked out.
4:59 The problem is, even if you are someone who happens to read all the Terms and Conditions,
5:04 it might not help you. For instance, this is just a trick.
5:07 [Are you sure you want to cancel your account? Cancel. Continue.] I mean, I put this in the presentation,
5:12 and I’m still not sure which button I meant to be clicking. When you bring these all together,
5:18 often you enable dark pattern number four, privacy Zuckering, named, of course, for Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
5:27 This pattern is when designers combine all of these different techniques to get people to reveal much more information about themselves
5:34 than they intended to. Many people don’t know
5:37 that in a disquieting form of digital grave robbering, Facebook can actually continue to collect information on you
5:44 even if your account is deactivated. And, why does this matter?
5:50 Well, it's all to do with how these platforms work. The problem is that they use your information to make money.
6:01 They collect it and sell it to other people. The people who collect and sell this information are called Data Brokers,
6:10 and research by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission uncovered the fact that one Data Broker had as many as 3 000 pieces of personal information
6:21 on nearly every American in the United States. And Professor Frank Pasquale highlighted the fact
6:28 that this can be used to classify people into groups that can be dangerous or discriminatory.
6:35 They may group people together into a group called ‘Elderly and Gullible’, and then, sell their information onto gambling marketers.
6:44 This is what the dark side of design can enable. And this is why it matters.
6:51 Recent research, backed by the British National Health Service, uncovered the fact that 4 out of 5 health apps are so bad
7:00 they may be putting patient health at risk. 7 out of 10 apps designed to prevent suicide
7:07 fail to even meet basic measures of clinical quality. But, more than that, when you’re at your most vulnerable,
7:16 that's when you need your privacy the most. That’s the reason that there are such strict laws on therapists and counselors
7:23 that control what information they can share about you. But unfortunately,
7:29 design and technology is moving faster than the law can catch up. Four of the major therapy apps have been shown to be sharing some of your data
7:40 with platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Google and Snapchat. One of the reasons, these platforms gave, was
7:50 that it enables a personalized experience. That is, they serve personalized advertising to you
7:58 while you’re on those platforms. That means that these companies are using information about your mental health
8:06 to sell you advertising. Why is this happening?
8:12 Well, what you need to know is how platforms like Facebook make their money. They make it from you and your attention.
8:21 Your attention is the most valuable commodity in our modern digital ecosystem. If they have your attention, if they can keep you on the app or their website,
8:31 they can gather more data about you. They can sell more data on to Data Brokers.
8:36 They can give you more advertising and they can make more money off you. That’s why all of these companies are so desperate
8:44 to get your time and attention. And that’s why their designers have been pushed to such extremes
8:49 to try and keep your attention. But it doesn’t have to be like this.
8:56 Design is just a tool. It can be used far more effectively to do good than to harm.
9:02 And it shouldn't be like this. Now that I've told you about all of this,
9:07 I want you to hold these platforms and companies to account. Now that you're aware, you can avoid platforms that use techniques like this.
9:16 Choose products that use your data ethically. Check out darkpatterns.org
9:22 where ethical designers raise awareness of these patterns so that you can avoid them and not get trapped by them.
9:27 On top of that, raise your voice. In the EU and UK, recent legislation has outlawed several dark patterns,
9:36 that were particularly predatory, thanks to widespread public outcry.
9:41 Together, I believe that we can use design the way that it was intended. We can design a better world together.
9:49 Thank you.