I worked with games developers to create two games that educated the users about the sinister design psychology of dark patterns. Dark patterns are manipulative user interfaces that trick you into doing something that you don’t want to do.

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The first game highlights “confirmshaming”, a dark pattern often

found on website pop-ups advertising “special offers” or newsletter

subscriptions. The player must avoid the offers, clicking instead on

the small, low contrast decline buttons to defeat the browser.

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The second game focuses on infinite scrolling. You play as a cursor,

scrolling through a social media feed, highlighting how social media

uses variable rewards and the infinite scrolling mechanism keep you

always wanting more.

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The games exaggerate these manipulative design techniques to raise

awareness and give players the tools to identify and avoid them in

everyday life.