Towards a Second Wave of Manipulative Design Research: Methodological Challenges of Studying the Effects of Manipulative Designs on Users

SANCHEZ CHAMORRO, Lorena; LALLEMAND, Carine

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SANCHEZ CHAMORRO, Lorena; LALLEMAND, Carine

2024 • In CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 3720

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Keywords :

consumer protection; dark patterns; deceptive design; ethics; manipulative design; user experience design; Academic community; Affordances; Case-studies; Dark pattern; Deceptive design; Design research; Design use; Manipulative design; Policy makers; User experience design; Computer Science (all)

Abstract :

[en] The pervasiveness of manipulative designs — i.e. dark patterns — in everyday applications and their impact on users is raising concerns among policymakers and scholars. These designs use techniques to nudge users to make decisions that they would not make if fully informed, causing them various types of harm. Yet, the ubiquitous mechanisms used are intertwined with other platform affordances, which makes it hard for users to perceive the manipulation. While understanding the effects of manipulative designs on users is key to the design of protective countermeasures, the academic community faces several methodological challenges. How can we investigate the effects of what is often not perceived by the users? In this paper, we reflect on the challenges inherent to the study of manipulative designs through three case studies. We describe key challenges and discuss methodological insights relevant to the empirical study of manipulative designs.

Disciplines :

Neurosciences & behavior

Author, co-author :

SANCHEZ CHAMORRO, Lorena ; University of Luxembourg > Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust > IRiSC > Team Gabriele LENZINI

LALLEMAND, Carine ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) > Cognitive Science and Assessment ; Technical University of Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Netherlands

External co-authors :

Language :

English

Title :

Towards a Second Wave of Manipulative Design Research: Methodological Challenges of Studying the Effects of Manipulative Designs on Users

Publication date :

2024

Event name :

2024 Workshop Mobilizing Research and Regulatory Action on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practices, DDPCHI 2024

Event place :

Hybrid, Honolulu, Usa

Event date :

11-05-2024 => 16-05-2024

By request :

Yes

Journal title :

CEUR Workshop Proceedings

eISSN :

1613-0073

Publisher :

RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Volume :

3720

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Funding text :

This research is funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR, grant no. IS/14717072 Deceptive Patterns Online (Decepticon)). We thank the anonymous reviewers for their detailed constructive feedback.

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since 18 December 2025

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