How the e-commerce giant Amazon is manipulating you?
We are being fooled by dark design patterns.
When I was a kid, I loved stories. I believe we all did. But my grandparents recited it in such a passionate and a comical way that even today, I find them popping here and there in real life.
So here is one of those interesting stories.
The clever fox of Amazon
Once upon a time, there was a clever fox in the deep jungles of Amazon. (Pun intended 😉). She was hungry and wanted to catch some rabbits for her meal. Though they lost the battle of race to tortoises, these rabbits weren’t that stupid and slow.
Clever foxy made a clever plan. She dug a hole, a deep one. She carefully placed a carrot on top of it and then covered it with grass and leaves.
Our smart rabbit was jumping around and saw this carrot. Feeling proud that he found an easy meal, he jumped to grab it with his big rabbit teeth.
Ouch!
He fell in the hole only to find that he got trapped. A trap that he wasn’t aware of. A trap that looked like a reward.
A trap that was very cleverly laid by the fox of Amazon.
What did the fox do?
She tricked the rabbit. She used deceptive and manipulative tactics to get rabbits to take actions they might not want to take.
A modern story of Amazon
Last week, I was looking for a book and I landed on the search results of Amazon, a well know e-commerce platform.
Amazon is literally the everything store.
I wouldn’t hesitate to appreciate the great work of engineers and designers over there. They have definitely made a significant impact on our lives.
But what I noticed last week put me in a dilemma. I saw some patterns and I wasn’t glad to notice them.
1. Easy to find, hard to leave
Amazon made it very easy for me to find the book I was looking for. They even put it on the landing page for my convenience so that I can find it easily once I’m back again.
Great work!
As long as I have not initiated checkout, I have the freedom to go back to homepage anytime. But once I am in the checkout funnel, I realised that I couldn’t just click on the logo of Amazon and go back. They intentionally made it difficult. Why?
Not just that, the everything store removed everything from the page in such a clever way that it seems the only way out is to move forward and checkout.
Does it not ring a bell?
Does it not remind you of the story above? The clever fox of Amazon.
2. Out of sight, out of mind
When I was looking at the description of book, they provided me with every information possible such as savings, ratings, reviews etc to convince me to make the buying decision.
So far so good.
And they put big bold buttons that I couln’t miss it even if I wanted to.
Not one button but two!
And if you notice, you’ll not be able to figure out easily which one is primary or secondary.
So I added the book to my cart.
And because I clicked on the “Add to Cart” button, I was taken to the cart.
Tch! I was wrong!
I wasn’t on the cart page but some other god knows page that wanted me to move forward to make the transaction.
So where is my cart and cart items?
Amazon doesn’t want me to look at my cart items. They fear if I’m having a nice look at my cart items, I might decide to edit, remove or exit. And that won’t be great for their business.
Out of sight, out of mind.
One more interesting thing. There is a “Go to cart” button but the way it is made subtle speaks a lot about their intentions. It wasn’t the case earlier when they made those two buttons, too bold to miss.
3. Confuse them, bombard them
As customers, we often make purchase decisions based on recommendations of our friends and families. We trust that they have used the product and would give us an honest opinion.
I was looking for one such product. A washing machine of Whirlpool recommended to my by a close friend.
I searched for that specific machine, landed on the details page and was about to learn more.
To my surprise, the brand changed to Samsung from Whirlpool. Not just the brand but price too.
No! I was wrong again.
It was a sponsored information.
This really bothered me. Why would anyone confuse their customers in such a mischievous way?
Presenting information at the very top of the page. That too in bold. And not mentioning that it is a stupid ad.
It isn’t magic. It is only an attempt to confuse the customer so that they can suck the highest gross profit per transaction.
Amazon needs to act responsible. And I wish one day, the impact Amazon would have on the world would only be positive.
Dark design patterns
Welcome to the world of design patterns that are deceptive and manipulative.
Have you noticed how some websites make it difficult for you to cancel the subscription? They use misleading languages or hide it so deep that you have to search on google to find it.
Designers are responsible to make the discovery easy for users. But what if they are making it difficult for you.
That’s dark design pattern of forced continuity.
Have you noticed the language that says “No, I don’t want to save money” when you are interested only in one item?
That’s dark design pattern of confirm-shaming.
There are a lot of such examples. And there are many websites that are taking advantage of their users.
As designers, it is our responsibility to make wise decisions for our users. The dark design patterns might bring immediate results but in the long term, it only breaks the trust and relationship.
Let’s build products that thrives on trust and transparency.
If you are interested to learn more about this topic, give a read to this book.
Ethical Design Handbook by Trine, Martin & Kim.
