PowerPOSE - Information management institute

Faculté des sciences économiques · Information management institute · Research · PowerPOSE

Information management institute

PowerPOSE – Understanding and Empowering the Consumer Facing Dark Patterns in Online Shopping Environments

Summary

Recently, a leading Swiss consumer advocacy group (i.e., la Fédération romande des consommateur – FRC) and an NGO (i.e., Public Eye) released a report exposing worrying online business practices of the fashion industry. The consumer advocates aimed to assess how the industry made use of digital nudges as dark patterns in their online shopping environment (OSE).

Digital nudges are interventions, where changes in the choice architecture modify user behaviour without major modifications in the incentives. However, whereas digital nudges were originally conceptualised with users’ welfare in mind, the report exposed how the industry used these mechanisms as dark patterns for its own profit at the expense of consumers’ welfare. An example of such dark pattern is the use of a default nudge, where an item is added by default to the shopping cart (e.g., an unnecessary insurance). Another example is the use of scarcity to create urgency (e.g., “two minutes left for a great deal”).

Following this report, the Swiss Parliament started pushing for better regulation of this practice. Switzerland is not alone. Similar initiatives are ongoing in the EU or the OECD for example. These initiatives and the literature on digital nudges and dark patterns highlight the need for further research to understand how dark patterns impact consumers, thereby enabling lawmakers to design effective policies based on empirical evidence, which remains limited.

To fill this gap, the first objective of this research proposal is to understand the effect of different types of dark patterns in online shopping environments depending on personal and situational factors. In doing so, we aim to gain insight into the variables that condition the effectiveness of dark patterns. Then, this proposal seeks to understand how consumers identify and interpret dark patterns. Finally, the objective is to implement interventions (consumer strategies and policies) to empower consumers to make shopping decisions that are in line with their objectives and more independent from the dark patterns’ objectives.

To conduct this research we will design and implement a controlled online shopping environment into which we will be able to plug different dark patterns to evaluate their effect. We will use an experimental approach to understand the effects of dark patterns on observed behaviours in our online shopping environment as well as on perceptions measured in follow up surveys. The experimental data will be supplemented by qualitative interviews where relevant. Altogether, this research will build on literature in information systems, data science, behavioural economics and marketing to offer novel theoretical contributions as well as practical solutions to guide policy on an increasingly prevalent societal problem.