Secret menu - a lesson in ethical design

Recently, having seen a lot of ads for a new plan with a popular streaming service, I thought I’d review my options and cut down on costs if possible. What I discovered shocked me, especially as a UX Designer at CI&T, passionate about ethical design. What happened next was even crazier! 

The streaming service in question have four plans customers can choose from, starting at $6.99 per month, going up to $22.99/m

Seems simple enough, right? Unfortunately no. 

On the sign up page, they only show 3 plan options by default (hiding the cheapest plan without ads). To view this plan they make users take unnecessary effort to look for it by clicking a hyperlink below the table. This is a deceptive and unethical design.

Deceptive design patterns

Deceptive design patterns are sneaky, they are tricks that are used in websites and apps that make users do things that they didn't mean to. They are carefully crafted with an understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind.

People don't read, they scan

According to research on how user read on the web, by the Nielsen Norman Group, they found that:

In short, people rarely read web pages word by word, instead, they scan.

In this case, the streaming service is deliberately taking advantage of people who don’t read, by making it look like there are only 3 plan options available, when there are actually 4 plan options available.

Manipulating users through design

By hiding an option and making it hard for users to look for the cheapest ad-free option, they’re tricking us into choosing a more expensive plan. By default, they ‘help’ the user choose the most expensive plan - “Premium”.

What happened next - a LinkedIn post

Needless to say, I was annoyed. I’m a passionate UX Designer and I strongly believe that companies should use their design to offer their products and services in the best possible way, not to deceive. 

So I posted about it on LinkedIn. Like a lot of my posts, it got some clicks and likes, but not a heap of attention. 

Then, something happened. 

A few days later, some changes were made to the design of the page in question. 

In the previous design, ‘See all plans’ was a hyperlink, and it wasn’t very obvious.
If a user is on a mobile phone, they would need to scroll down, to look for the ‘See all plans’  hyperlink.

In the new design, they have made ‘See all plans’ more visible by making it a button. However, it’s still below the fold.

So, let’s be real. 

What they should have done

In the sign up process they could have easily removed the deceptive design by removing the middle screen (where it has ‘See all plans’), so that users can see all available plans from the start. 

Pushing in an ethical way

There are ethical ways to help achieve business goals. We should always have users' interests in mind.

Helping user to make the right decision

To help users to choose the right plan for them, they could give more details about each plan, what type of users the plan might be suitable for, and back it up with some social proof and real data. 
Here is an example:
Premium

The cost of deceptive design

In the short term, businesses who use deceptive design might see to a financial gain. 
In the long term, this will negatively impact the business, due to a loss of customer trust or loyalty. 

According to Manipulative online design: Dark patterns in Australia by The Consumer Policy Research Centre in June 2022, a significant portion of Australian consumers reported leaving platforms, losing trust in the business or having negative feelings towards business, when they experience deceptive design from the business.

What can businesses do to avoid deceptive design

Businesses, especially large corporations, should be leading design by the best and ethical design practice, and designing from a consumer-centric perspective rather than profit-driven-only perspective.

To avoid any deceptive design, as The Consumer Policy Research Centre suggested, businesses should:

As a designer, what can we do?

I was once told by the owner of the business, to make customers sign up for our paid VIP membership program by default,  during their check out process.

We, as a designer, should be responsible for user action, we should have an ethical code of conduct and use our own values to guide design decisions.

Nadja Niesner, a Germany based UX designer has written an article on how different roles can contribute to the ethical design, including developers and product owners.

Designers: If there are any project’s requirements that raise ethical red flags, we should always question, push back, and understand why the business is doing that. 

One of my favorite quote from Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.” 

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