How do apps and websites trick us into clicking things we never meant to?
Amazon agreed to pay 2.5 billion dollars to settle claims that it tricked people into Prime and made cancelling a maze of offers.
▶ Start the storyThey use design instead of lies. A dark pattern, also called a deceptive design pattern, is a carefully crafted to trick users into doing things, such as buying overpriced insurance with a purchase or signing up for recurring bills. Nothing on the screen needs to be false. The page just makes the choice that benefits the company easy and obvious, and the choice that benefits you hard to find.
There are many kinds. One is : it shows a low headline price first and reveals extra fees step by step, until you have invested time and effort in the purchase. Another is , which words the button for declining a newsletter so that it shames you into saying yes. A roach motel design makes it easy to get in and hard to get out, as when cancelling a subscription means printing and mailing a letter. Confusing wording can even use a double negative, like "don't not sell my personal information", so you agree to the opposite of what you meant.
Honest design
- Clear total price up front
- Decline button as visible as accept
- Cancel in as few clicks as sign up
Dark pattern
- Low headline price, fees dripped in later
- Decline worded to shame you
- Cancellation hidden behind many pages
This is not a niche problem. A 2019 study of 11,000 shopping websites identified 1,818 dark patterns, grouped into 15 categories. In 2023 the US Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, alleging that it used dark patterns to trick people into enrolling in automatically renewing Prime subscriptions, with a cancellation process that routed subscribers through repeated pages of offers. Amazon settled in September 2025 for 2.5 billion dollars, without admitting wrongdoing.
The term was coined by the designer Harry Brignull in 2010. He started a website to name and shame such interfaces, and today several places require that cancelling be no harder than signing up.
Quiz me
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Recap
Dark patterns make the company's choice easy and yours hard, so slow down at screens that hurry you and look for the exit first.
💡 A trick to remember it · If the way in is a red carpet and the way out is a maze, someone designed the maze.
Surprising fact · A study of 11,000 shopping sites found 1,818 dark patterns, and Amazon settled a case over its cancellation maze for 2.5 billion dollars.
Sources (1)
No source, no claim. Every fact in this lesson (16 claims) cites at least one of these.