UX (user experience) is everywhere. It is a powerful tool that we can harness in such a way to influence and shape user decisions and behaviours. In e-commerce, it can be the difference between whether someone decides to purchase a product from you or from your competitor. In web design, it can turn a casual visitor into an ambassador of your brand. It is a powerful tool.
“With great power comes great responsibility”, right? With the power of UX, we have a responsibility to use it well and there are many, many examples of good and bad UX in terms of their effectiveness.
However, what I believe to be an equally important question to be asking is; is the design light UX or is it dark UX? To clarify, what I’m really asking is; Is it ethical and empathic, or is it manipulative and deceptive?
Dark UX is effective and delivers business results, no doubt about it, but there is a cost that comes with it. A cost that I believe is even greater… trust. Users will eventually figure out their trust was broken, and trust is easily broken but not easily built. But on the other end of the spectrum is light UX, which focuses on aligning user needs with ethical practices. As UX designers, how do we strike the balance between business outcomes and ethical user-centric design?
What Is Dark UX? When Design Turns Deceptive
Dark UX is about trying to achieve business objectives by making intentionally deceptive or manipulative design choices. Of course it’s effective, it drives sales and increases sign-ups and engagement; but it can easily begin to rot the foundations of trust and lead to damage to your brand reputation.
5 Key Ways to Implement Dark UX - if you want to create distrust, frustration, negative reviews, and customer disloyalty
- Create Barriers for Key Actions: Hide options like account deletion or subscription cancelation in obscure settings or require long customer service calls to complete them.
- Use Misleading Language: Incorporate confusing terms, double negatives, or vague instructions to make user choices unclear (e.g., “Uncheck this box if you do not want to subscribe”).
- Introduce Hidden Costs: Reveal fees like VAT/taxes or shipping late in the checkout process, after users have mentally committed to the purchase.
- Exploit Urgency: Use countdown timers or fake “limited stock” alerts to pressure users into making hasty decisions.
- Pre-select or Auto-Enroll Users: Automatically opt users into services like newsletters or data sharing without giving them a clear choice to opt out upfront.
What is Light UX? When Design Builds Trust
Light UX is about fostering trust and satisfaction by making design choices that are user-centric, ethical, and empathic. It creates a scenario where users can achieve their goals with ease, you can build customer loyalty, and a bi-product of that is achieving business goals.
5 Key Ways to Implement Light UX - if you want to build a culture of trust between you and your users
- Be Transparent from the Start: Clearly display all fees, terms, and important details early in the user journey. For example, show delivery charges upfront or offer free shipping thresholds to set expectations.
- Use Clear and Direct Language: Replace ambiguous or overly complex terms with plain, actionable language (e.g., “Cancel Subscription” instead of “Manage Preferences”).
- Empower Users with Choice: Avoid pre-checking options like subscriptions or data-sharing agreements. Instead, let users actively opt in with a clear understanding of the benefits.
- Simplify Critical Actions: Design intuitive workflows for key tasks like account deletion, subscription management, and checkout, minimising steps and unnecessary friction.
- Create Delightful Experiences: Add thoughtful touches, such as progress indicators, confirmation messages, or simple microinteractions that reassure users and make interactions enjoyable.
UX Scenarios – The Results & Implications
Let’s take a look at a few common scenarios to illustrate the key differences between light and dark UX; with consideration for the user's emotions and business implications.
Subscription Cancellation
DARK UX 🚫
- User Experience: Cancellation options are buried deep within settings or require users to call customer support, often with long wait times.
- User Emotion: Frustrated, trapped, and wasting time.
- Business Implication: Users often leave negative reviews, damaging brand reputation and deterring future customers.
LIGHT UX ✅
- User Experience: Users are offered a prominent and intuitive “Cancel Subscription” button, with a clear, guilt-free journey to cancel.
- User Emotion: Empowered and in control.
- Business Implication: Users are more likely to view the brand positively and re-subscribe in the future if their circumstances change.
Checkout Flow
DARK UX 🚫
- User Experience: Hidden fees, such as VAT/taxes or shipping, appear only at the final step of checkout.
- User Emotion: Deceived and irritated.
- Business Implication: Users abandon their cart and turn to competitors with clearer pricing, eroding trust in the brand.
LIGHT UX ✅
- User Experience: Fees and costs are transparently displayed early in the process, with clear messaging such as “Free delivery on orders over £100” or early cost calculators setting users-expectation from the outset.
- User Emotion: Confident, satisfied, and trusting.
- Business implication: Increased trust build brand loyalty - users are far more likely to return to a service/shop if they have a previous positive experience.
Data Collection
DARK UX 🚫
- User Experience: Confusing language, such as double negatives, or auto-selected data-sharing options trick users into consenting.
- User Emotion: Apprehensive, deceived, and distrustful.
- Business implication: If users feel like they are being tricked, they are more likely to opt out. Also, more and more people are taking to social media to call businesses out on bad practices related to data handling.
LIGHT UX ✅
- User Experience: Users are provided with clear, simple language explaining why their data is being collected, with opt-out options by default.
- User emotion: Empowered, in-control, valued, safe.
- Business implication: If a user is trusted to make their own choice, they are more likely to reciprocate that trust and choose to share data voluntarily.
Newsletter Sign-Up
DARK UX 🚫
- User Experience: Pre-checked subscription boxes make it easy to inadvertently sign up, while opt-out processes are intentionally obscure.
- User emotion: Spammed and annoyed.
- Business Implication: Users immediately unsubscribe and avoid further engagement with the brand.
LIGHT UX ✅
- User Experience: Users are invited to actively opt in, with a clear explanation of the benefits such as early-access to sales, promotions, first look at new products, events etc.
- User emotion: Informed and invested.
- Business implication: Users will be more likely to stay subscribed and engage with the content they receive due to genuine interest.
Deleting an account
DARK UX 🚫
- User Experience: Account deletion is made unnecessarily complex, with unclear and ambiguous language (e.g., “Disable Account” that may leave it unclear as to whether users information will still be kept) and multiple convoluted steps.
- User Emotion: Confused, powerless, and distrustful of the brand’s data handling.
- Business implication: Users will have a negative view of the company and reluctance to any future engagement.
LIGHT UX ✅
- User Experience: A single, clear “Delete Account” option is provided, accompanied by optional feedback to improve services.
- User emotion: Appreciated, valued, understood.
- Business Implication: Positive closure increases the likelihood of users returning in the future or recommending the brand to others.
You can see from the scenarios above that dark UX is more about short-term gains but sacrifices long-term loyalty, while light UX is more likely to build trust and be a brand that users will engage with time-after-time.
It’s Good For Business
The argument can be made that dark UX will deliver business results, but it can only last so long before it starts to alienate your users and drive negative engagement. So let’s look at the benefits of ethical design:
- Customer Retention: Being open, transparent, and creating a positive user-friendly experience will drive customer loyalty.
- Good Reputation: Ethical and authentic brands are far more likely to have positive reviews, recommendations. Positive experiences are also inherently more shareable as content on social media.
- Increased Engagement: Users who trust a brand are more likely to complete a purchase, newsletter sign-up, and continue with a subscription.
- Organic Growth: Satisfied users will share their experience, whether it is through word of mouth or social media mentions.
How To Design Light UX, And Avoid UX-Drift
If, like me, you want to avoid falling into common dark UX traps, there are a few things you can do to stay aligned to ethical design:
- User-Testing: Conduct usability tests to ensure that users understand the language/phrasing you are using and if it is easy to understand
- Design Informed Consent: Make it clear for users to opt-in/opt-out, and don’t use manipulative language to guilt-trip
- Opportunity For Feedback: Include areas within your design where users can share their experience, particularly where they have felt frustrated or misled.
- Challenge: Argue the benefits of ethical approaches when facing pressure to implement dark UX practices for “business goals/advantages”.
Conclusion – Design A Digital World With Integrity
Design is powerful, and has the ability to shape experiences that impact people, as they interact with digital products.
And so, we have a choice. We can either shape negative experiences for short term gain, or we can foster a positive culture of empathy and integrity for long-lasting trust and genuine connection. This is how you build lasting impressions and loyalty.
Both types of UX are powerful, but your brand will be shaped and defined by the design choices you make.
Are you ready to build trust with ethical and empathic design? At The Good Way Co we are always looking to support brands with good UX, to design with integrity and authenticity and build long-lasting trust.
Contact us via https://www.good-way.co/contact to chat more about how we can support you.
