This is interesting - I feel like the site should separate dark patterns that add information from ones that lie or obfuscate. In my experience, consumers feel differently about these categories.
I've sat in on a few dozen user research sessions for ecommerce. This was qualitative research that included their general shopping habits, and additionally testing new features. The most interesting thing that I learned is that consumers (a) are generally pretty aware of when they're being pressured, and (b) are fine if it's transparent and accurate.
A classic example of this were low-stock notifications. The shoppers were generally okay with being told that something was low stock if that was really true. Many people could name specific items they lost because they were sold out. Some could also name instances of when they had bought something "1 item remaining" and seen it on sale the next day. They preferred having the information because it helped them make an informed decision. It turns out that lots of people browse the same items for a while, and use sales or almost-out-of-stock as a "now or never" moment.
The most interesting user session I ever sat in on was for a countdown timer for a sale ending. The designer refused to design it at first, and then was like, "fine, I'm going to design the hell out of this and then show you in user research that nobody wants this." And then she showed it to 5 people in user research, who were generally okay with it on the condition that it counted down to the actual sale ending. Some said they actually liked knowing, because when they're just looking on their phones they might not be in a good position to buy it, and want to know how much time they have later to get it. They said that they'll often refresh the page to see if the timer resets, because if it starts ticking from the same time, they feel like the site is just scammy and they'll leave.
Anyways, I'm not trying to defend lots of these patterns. Most of them are clearly wrong, and the ones that I mentioned above can also be used to lie and deceive. But I wouldn't put them all together - in my experience, consumers generally want accurate information even if they're aware that the company is doing it to pressure them.
The example session makes it clearer that they are talking about fake social proof and artificial urgency (if the promotion ends in 15 minutes, it is a fake one created just when you entered the site, real ones last until a round time or for days). Unless the examples are misleading, they should just name those categories better.
Totally, I agree that some of their specific examples mention this. Reading the whole site, it was not clear to me whether they holistically viewed "being honest about these things" as inside or outside the scope of their categorization, which prompted my comment
99% of these timers are completely bogus - if you open the same store on a new private browsing window you’ll see the timer reset. Or you’ll come back the next day and it’s expiring in <12 hours again.
Thank you for the link - I particularly enjoyed section 4, which really helped drive home that they're referring to patterns that induce a loss against some ideal: individual autonomy, societal welfare, etc. The paper puts much less of an emphasis on situations that are transparent to everyone. But they still had good examples of obviously harmful patterns like forced registration. Anyways, thanks!
I think it's more the reasons, if they include honest facts, partially justify the means. Of course, this could be because everyone thinks they're to smart to be influenced. In which case, they appreciate the true information but ignore the psyops.
>The shoppers were generally okay with being told that something was low stock if that was really true.
But isn't that true of pretty much anything? The problem for shoppers is that it's almost impossible to know if what you're being told is true, and most people have been burned by scummy sales practices too much to trust what a site is telling them since there's usually no way to verify it. Is the stock really low? Is the sale really about to end? How would the shopper know whether it is or whether it's a lie to trick them?
I've sat in on a few dozen user research sessions for ecommerce. This was qualitative research that included their general shopping habits, and additionally testing new features. The most interesting thing that I learned is that consumers (a) are generally pretty aware of when they're being pressured, and (b) are fine if it's transparent and accurate.
A classic example of this were low-stock notifications. The shoppers were generally okay with being told that something was low stock if that was really true. Many people could name specific items they lost because they were sold out. Some could also name instances of when they had bought something "1 item remaining" and seen it on sale the next day. They preferred having the information because it helped them make an informed decision. It turns out that lots of people browse the same items for a while, and use sales or almost-out-of-stock as a "now or never" moment.
The most interesting user session I ever sat in on was for a countdown timer for a sale ending. The designer refused to design it at first, and then was like, "fine, I'm going to design the hell out of this and then show you in user research that nobody wants this." And then she showed it to 5 people in user research, who were generally okay with it on the condition that it counted down to the actual sale ending. Some said they actually liked knowing, because when they're just looking on their phones they might not be in a good position to buy it, and want to know how much time they have later to get it. They said that they'll often refresh the page to see if the timer resets, because if it starts ticking from the same time, they feel like the site is just scammy and they'll leave.
Anyways, I'm not trying to defend lots of these patterns. Most of them are clearly wrong, and the ones that I mentioned above can also be used to lie and deceive. But I wouldn't put them all together - in my experience, consumers generally want accurate information even if they're aware that the company is doing it to pressure them.