Lead Digital Product Designer at Readdle. AI & UX Performance Consultant, Portland.
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2025, 25(03), 296-303
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2025.25.3.0691
Received on 26 January 2025; revised on 03 March 2025; accepted on 05 March 2025
This article presents a classification of "dark patterns," data on their prevalence, and the ethical implications of their use. The objective of this study is to identify the potential consequences of ethical and unethical UX design. The relevance of this research is driven by the oversaturation of modern websites and applications with dark patterns. The article formulates a UX designer's code of ethics and presents the findings of a large-scale study assessing the effectiveness of various patterns and user reactions to them.
The study concludes that regulatory oversight of unethical design practices is necessary. It also outlines the advantages and disadvantages of dark patterns for companies. The relationship between dark patterns and the Overton window concept is examined, and a hypothesis is proposed regarding the long-term effects of widespread unethical design practices on future generations of users.
UX design; Ethics; Dark Patterns; Deceptive Content; Consumer Protection; Manipulation; Ethical UX Design; Unethical UX Design; UX designer’s Code of Ethics; Dark Pattern Classification; Dark Pattern Prevalence; Personal Data Secur
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Oleg Sukhorukov. The impact of dark patterns on user trust and long-term engagement: An ethical analysis. World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2025, 25(03), 296-303. Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2025.25.3.0691.
Copyright © 2025 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0