Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice

Special Interest Group at ACM CHI '25
by Katie Seaborn, Colin M. Gray, Johanna Gunawan, Thomas Mildner, René Schäfer, Lorena Sánchez Chamorro, and Satoshi Nakamura

Abstract

Dark patterns and deceptive designs (DPs) refer to user interfaces (UIs) that trick people into interactions that benefit the service providers. Today, academic research, legal action, and media coverage has raised awareness among a diversity of stakeholders worldwide. Yet, the lens has focused on Western and English contexts. We propose a Special Interest Group (SIG) that centres on cross-cultural and interdisciplinary engagement. The organizing team, who hail from a plurality of nations and disciplines, will spark discussion by sharing their knowledge—findings, frameworks, methods, and tools—and culturally-sensitive perspectives on deception in modern digital products and services. Attendees will participate in a small group drawing activity, whereby culturally-specific DPs and disciplinary perspectives can be surfaced and communicated without reliance on a specific language or cultural frame. This SIG is expected to draw in a diversity of designers, researchers, security experts, and legal scholars concerned about ethical design practice.

Authors

NameUniversity
Katie Seaborn Tokyo Institute of Technology Tokyo, Japan
Colin M. Gray Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Johanna Gunawan Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
Thomas Mildner University of Bremen, Germany
René Schäfer RWTH Aachen University Aachen, Germany
Lorena Sánchez Chamorro University of Luxembourg Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Satoshi Nakamura Meiji University, Japan

Publications

    2025

  • Katie Seaborn, Colin M Gray, Johanna Gunawan Thomas Mildner, René Schäfer, Lorena Sánchez Chamorro and Satoshi Nakamura. Global and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Dark Patterns and Deceptive Design Practice.  In Extended Abstracts of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA '25 (Forthcoming), pages 6, Association for Computing Machinery, April 2025.
    BibTeX Entry

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