Deceptive Patterns and FAST

A presentation at Devnexus 2023 in April 2023 in Atlanta, GA, USA by Todd Libby

Slide 1

Deceptive Patterns and FAST Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies

Todd Libby - 6 April, 2023 Devnexus

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Thank you

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Todd Libby

• Senior Accessibility Engineer • W3C Invited Expert • Accessibility Advocate • Portland, Maine 🦞 • Phoenix, Arizona 🌵 • Former Executive Head Chef

Todd Libby - 6 April, 2023 Devnexus

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What is FAST?

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The Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies (FAST) advises creators of technical specifications how to ensure their technology meets the needs of people with disabilities.

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FAST was originally designed for internal accessibility spec review at the W3C.

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Goals of FAST

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Fill gaps in authoring tools where there are varying levels of accessibility.

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FAST is intended to be a single, optional, well-considered, potential source of guidelines addressing specifically the features technologies need to provide to support accessibility.

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User & Functional Needs

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User need: A high-level accessibility characteristic of content and/or a user interface that is necessary for users to complete an objective.

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Functional need: A statement that describes a specific gap in one’s ability, or a specific mismatch between ability and the designed environment or context.

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Along with POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandabale, Robust) we have added Personalization and Deceptive Patterns with over 1,500 intersections of user and functional needs.

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3 Stages of FAST

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FAST Approach Three stages

• Inventory functional and user needs; • Identify ways to meet needs; • Develop technology guidelines to meet those needs as best as we can.

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“Dark” Patterns

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“Dark” Patterns

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Connotation and Inclusion

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Black/Dark - Evil, disgrace, vile, immoral

• Slave/Master • White Hat/Black Hat • Blacklist/Whitelist • Grandfathered

White/Light - Purity, good, innocence, cleanliness

• Primary/Secondary • Ethical/Non-Ethical Hacker • Deny/Allow-list • Exempt

Todd Libby - 6 April, 2023 Devnexus

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Harry Brignull Cognitive Scientist, designer, UX consultant

• 2010 coined “dark patterns” • Gained traction in legal circles • Still used widely today • Deceptive practices go back as far as 1938!

Slide 21

A voting card in 1938 for Germans to vote for Adolf Hitler where the circle for “yes” is large and in the bottom center of the card with the “no” circle off to the right and smaller to separate those and identify those who voted against Hitler

Slide 22

Harry Brignull to Todd Libby

“Also I considered your words about “dark” patterns (and input from others) and I’m in the process of updating the site to use the term “deceptive patterns”. Also my new book will not use the term “dark patterns” as the title.

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Deceptive Patterns or Anti-patterns

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“A deceptive pattern is a deliberate anti-pattern designed to confuse or deceive a user. There is a difference between poor design and unintentional blockers for users.” Functional Needs Subgroup

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“A deceptive pattern is where there is a deliberate attempt to aim or force a user down a particular path or to trap attention in a way that redirects or focuses on a goal, that the user either doesn’t want or need or maybe harmful to them.” Functional Needs Subgroup

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Deceptive Pattern: Deliberate. With intent Anti-pattern: No intent but harmful/bad UX

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Solving User Needs

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Makes Web pages more accessible and usable, less harmful to people with disabilities and neurodivergent users, and creates friendlier and safer user experiences for everyone.

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Barriers & Categories

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Deceptive Patterns Categories of barriers

• Wording • Consistency (Affordances) • Adjustability / Flow blockers • (Time) Pressure • Invasive

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Deceptive Patterns Examples of patterns/anti-patterns

• Trick questions; • Infinite scroll; • Copy and paste is disabled; • Timers; • Asking the user to enable features (microphone, camera, etc.).

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Unsubscribe Shaming Anti-Pattern

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⚠ Trigger Warning 🚨

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CAPTCHA Anti-Pattern

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Subscription Deception Deceptive Pattern

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Obscuring Deceptive Pattern

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Confusing Navigation Anti-Pattern

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Unsubscribe Shaming Anti-Pattern

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Grover shows a picture of who the f🤬k asked

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Pay to Play Deceptive Pattern

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Any current gap in the WCAG guidelines we want to address through FAST and Deceptive Patterns.

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The most important part about bringing Deceptive Patterns to WAI / WCAG 3 is to reduce harm to those who are affected.

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People can use without physical harm or risk (to themselves or others within a physical environment).

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Ways to Meet User Needs

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How to meet user needs:

• Author design & technical implementation • User agent accessibility support of standard & author-implemented features • Assistive technology support (including accessibility API mediation)

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User needs need to be analyzed for how they can be met.

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But…

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What about large companies like Meta, Twitter, Google, etc.? How will you get them to change?

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Ethical Web Principles

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• W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles

• The web should be a platform that helps people and provides a positive social benefit

• Ethical Principles for Web Machine Learning

• This document discusses ethical issues associates with using Machine Learning and outlines considerations for web technologies that enable related use cases

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Slide 51

https://toddl.dev/slides https://raw.githack.com/w3c/fast/restructurefunctional-and-user-needs/index.html https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/ https://www.w3.org/TR/webmachinelearning-ethics/

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Twitter: @toddlibby Mastodon: a11y.info/@todd LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/todd-libby Website: https://toddl.dev

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Questions?

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Thank you!

Todd Libby - 6 April, 2023 Devnexus