A List Apart: Articles: Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design
Great article on “dark patterns”—deceptive user interfaces that companies use to increase conversion.
Removing dark patterns from any site involves a leap of faith. A company has to shift from a short-term quantitative measurement mindset to one that values relatively slow, steady growth of “warm fuzzy” qualitative things like brand image, credibility, and trust. This kind of cultural shift is hard to do, which partially explains the reason why dark patterns tend to stick around once deployed.
More examples of dark patterns at darkpatterns.org→ (via springbox)