“It’s like the Wild West”: User Experience (UX) Designers on Ethics and Privacy in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

The degree to which User Experience (UX) designers unfairly steer users’ behavior through the use of “dark patterns” is a topical and contentious issue. Scholarship has largely assumed that designers are complicit in manipulating the user and undermining their privacy. In this paper, we investigate privacy dark patterns and report on interviews conducted with UX practitioners, describing three findings: (a) designers feel motivated to act ethically due to their “moral compasses”; (b) designers are restricted in their ability to act ethically due to commercial pressures and a limited purview of the project; (c) designers’ understanding of the ethics of their practice do not currently match determinations made by international privacy and design scholars and demonstrate a limited understanding of how user behavior can be shaped. We conclude by outlining the benefits of independent regulation and progressive ethics education in UX.

Keywords:

• dark patterns
• privacy
• user experience (UX) design
• ethics
• informed consent

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 We acknowledge that there are a multitude of ethical UX issues, such as accessible and inclusive design, but our interest in this paper is the relatively emergent ethical issue of dark patterns and associated infringements on user privacy.

2 Cookies are defined by the GDPR as “small text files that websites place on your device as you are browsing. They are processed and stored by your web browser […] [C]ookies can store a wealth of data, enough to potentially identify you without your consent. Cookies are the primary tool that advertisers use to track your online activity so that they can target you with highly specific ads. Given the amount of data that cookies can contain, they can be considered personal data in certain circumstances” (GDPR 2020).

3 We contrast privacy standards to the Privacy Mark in New Zealand, which is a Privacy by Design (PBD) initiative to identify gold-standard practices in managing personally identifiable data (Privacy Commission, n.d).

4 It is unclear whether dark patterns are an issue of illegal trading (currently captured under the Fair Trading Act, 1986, enforced by the Commerce Commission), of privacy (Privacy Act, 1993, enforced by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner), or unsolicited communications (Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act, 2007, enforced by the Department of Internal Affairs).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (NZ).

Notes on contributors

Alex Beattie

Dr Alex Beattie is a technology and media scholar at the School of Science in Society, at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. His work explores the relationship between science and media, with a focus on how science is embedded into digital media and the ways in which audiences and users enact resistance. [email protected]

Cherie Lacey

Dr Cherie Lacey is a Research Fellow in Media and Communications at Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland. Her primary research interests include digital wellbeing and the body–mind connection. Cherie is also a researcher and practitioner in positive psychology. [email protected]

Catherine Caudwell

Dr Catherine Caudwell is a Senior Lecturer in User Experience Design in the School of Design Innovation, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington. Catherine researches the sociocultural impact of design practice, values, and ethics and her publications have explored social robotics and toy design and digital accessibility. [email protected]