The Drama of Dark Patterns: History, transformation, and why it still matters

In this paper I analyze the history, actors, and power encapsulated within deceptive user interface design called “dark patterns.” I open by outlining the cultural conditions encouraging the emergence of dark patterns and describe the created relationship between the user and the programmer. The first tradition of digital infrastructure I describe, usability, presents a trained and vulnerable user through its use of simplified, abstracted, and constructed grammars. Complementary with the emergence of usability, the force of privatization creates a centralized and systematized process of software development; one that places pressure on developers to further train and orient agency towards profit. This results in a regularized definition of dark patterns – design techniques that weaponize conveniences of usability for the capture of profit. I then step to explore how this weaponization manifests itself through various types of dark patterns, and, through qualitative research, categorize dark patterns into three groups centered upon their relationship to profit. I then analyze how dark patterns adjust in response to media attention, and come to the conclusion that interface modification is more substantial in patterns with an explicit relationship with profit. I connect this with a larger trend towards increasingly concealed and opaque deception in digital infrastructure. Using techniques such as concealment, personalization, or mutability, I argue modern dark patterns accentuate the asymmetric power dynamic between the user and the programmer. In conclusion, I return to the usability’s issue of creating a vulnerable and trained user, and push for interface design that encourages greater digital literacy; I also connect dark patterns to a larger history of neoliberalism and note that an attempt to work against deceptive design should look to work against the privatization of technology as well.Bachelor of Scienc