Dark Pattern in UX Design: When Banks Cross the Line
I'll admit it – the headline got me, too.
“Secure your chance to win €5,000?” That was the prompt in a popular German direct bank’s app. Playful, innocent, maybe even helpful. But a closer look reveals a UX move that dances dangerously close to legal gray zones.
A good friend of mine, a lawyer, texted me this morning:
“This is skating right on the edge. Consent in exchange for sweepstakes is tricky.”
What appears to be a service message (“You'll hear about the raffle first”) is actually a textbook dark pattern:
- Framing effect: The reward (money) is visually and verbally amplified.
- Hidden intention: Consent includes advertising and revenue data analysis.
- Emotional trigger: “Don’t miss out!” plays on FOMO.
The result?
Privacy takes a back seat – and many users agree to data processing without even realizing it.
This kind of “privacy fatigue via reward” is especially sneaky because it doesn’t happen on some shady site. It happens right inside a respected banking app.
Yes, UX design can engage, inform, even persuade.
But it should never seduce.