“Dark patterns, the concept the users don’t know about” : A mapping of website users’ knowledge about dark patterns

Dark patterns are ubiquitous in user interfaces of today. They are often created by designers to manipulate users to make decisions they didn’t intend, or perhaps even wanted, in an interface that first and foremost benefits the stakeholders – at the expense of the users. Studies have shown that the designers themselves are aware of the concept of dark patterns, but are the users aware of them? This study aims to map website users’ knowledge about Harry Brignulls definition of the concept of dark patterns, the different types of dark patterns that the concept contains, and where users encounter these dark patterns. The data was collected through an online Sunet – Survey & Report-questionnaire and analyzed through an analyzing system called IBM SPSS and Sunets-questionnaire own analyzing tools. The result showed that very few of the respondents knew what the concept of dark patterns was, but many of them recognized that they had encountered the phenomena, after it was explained to them. The result also showed that there was no connection found between knowledge about dark patterns and the different factors of age, gender, occupation, or websites visited per day. The mapping of users’ knowledge about dark patterns opened for further future research