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Deceptive patterns: what can designers learn from Amazon getting sued?

The consequences of manipulating users with deceptive patterns

Eric Chung
UX Collective
5 min readJun 24, 2023
An iPhone with Amazon’s website open showing a Prime membership sign up page.
Photo by Marques Thomas on Unsplash

Imagine that you’re happily browsing an online store, casually searching for that perfect item, when out of the blue, a pop-up window shows up, begging you to sign up for a premium subscription. You’re not interested, but the “No thanks” button is cleverly camouflaged in minuscule print, while the “Sign me up!” button beams like a radiant sun. Voila! You’ve just encountered a classic deceptive pattern.

Deceptive patterns are the cunning tricks employed by companies to manipulate our thoughts and actions. They cunningly play with our psychology, subtly pushing us to do something we never really intended to do, or stopping us from finding what we’re really looking for. Crafty, isn’t it?

The allegations against Amazon

Now, let’s talk about the recent showdown between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the e-commerce giant, Amazon. The FTC has slapped Amazon with a lawsuit, accusing the company of duping millions of customers into signing up for its Prime subscription service through deceptive user interface designs.

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Published in UX Collective

We believe designers are thinkers as much as they are makers. Curated stories on UX, Visual & Product Design. https://linktr.ee/uxc

Written by Eric Chung

Writing about design, business, or whatever's on my mind

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