The art of adding roadblocks to a seamless user journey

#ABtesting #UXUI #design #manipulation #users #techniques #buyers #articles #layout #calltoactions #psychology #colors #emotion #animation #darkpatterns #techniques #psycology #understands #avoid #Cart #transparency #shadows

---

Introduction

The first principle of designing any website is to make it a seamless experience from the moment you access the website to the second you leave it. Some websites have gotten so good at Dark Patterns that they can now add roadblocks and still keep the website looking seamless. How, you may ask, can they do that? Let us dive into it!

 

1) Ever got to a payment page without feeling like it’s the end? A lot of websites might make you feel like there is something waiting for you after inputting your card credentials… they let you think there is some sort of confirmation after that, but no! The moment you go to this so-called confirmation page, you are just me with a message that says “payment successful.” How do you do that? A simole trick would be to name the button as “next” instead of “pay now,” very subtly hinting that this is not the end of the user journey.

 

2) A lot of websites recommend some additional items when you search for something, like “people who bought this also searched for:” or “these items look good together.” To make it even more sneaky, some websites automatically add those complimentary items (or maybe an additional, paid garanty or a small box ticked somewhere on your screen for some useless services). Couple this with the fact that it would be hard to remove any items from the cart, and many users will prefer paying a bit more than to figure it how to remove these little add-ons from their cart.

 

3) Have you ever tried downloading a file or a picture, but after clicking on the “download” button, you realise you clicked on the wrong one? Yes! A lot of websites will hide the actual download button to a small dot in the corner, with a bigger and shinier download button in the center… except the latter is designed to take you to another website, and ad or anything you might imagine. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something you fancy there?

Conclusion

To conclude, users must always be aware of the little tricks that website can pull on you, especially since a lot of them are very subtle and you won’t immediately recognize what’s happening.