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Deceptive Patterns as a Sociotechnical Phenomenon: Review, Catalog, and Discussion

Luiz Adolpho Baroni, Alisson Puska, Roberto Pereira

arXiv:2608.27684v1cs.HC

TL;DR

Deceptive-pattern research often separates social effects from technical mechanisms, leaving their interaction insufficiently characterized. This study combines systematic literature mapping with the Semiotic Framework and develops an interactive catalog; the mapping reveals a predominantly human-and-ethical focus, while exploratory evaluation suggests the catalog is easy to use and useful for awareness.

  • Problem

    Existing studies often examine deceptive patterns through isolated social or technical lenses rather than integrating their interacting dimensions.

  • Method

    The study combines systematic literature mapping with Semiotic Framework analysis and constructs an interactive catalog of deceptive patterns.

  • Results

    The literature predominantly treats deceptive patterns as ethical issues, while the evaluated catalog was reported as easy to use and useful.

  • Takeaways & Limitations

    An integrated sociotechnical approach and self-explainable catalog can support informed understanding and awareness of deceptive patterns.

  • Takeaways & Limitations

    The mapping was limited to English, omitted the term manipulative, and analyzed sociotechnical aspects using only one pattern.

Abstract

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Background: Deceptive patterns are interface design strategies aimed at misleading users or favoring specific interests, compromising user experiences and ethical privacy principles. These patterns involve exploit different issues of the interaction between humans and technology, revealing gaps in the scientific literature regarding their understanding and working mechanisms. Purpose: This research characterizes deceptive patterns as a sociotechnical phenomenon, integrating human and technical dimensions while offering a self-explainable interactive catalog to raise awareness among users and designers. Methods: To characterize deceptive patterns as a sociotechnical phenomenon, a systematic literature review in Computer Science was conducted, and the Semiotic Framework was applied to analyze and organize the sociotechnical aspects of identified patterns in an integrated manner. An exploratory evaluation of the interactive catalog was conducted, combining heuristic evaluation and focus group. Results: The research identified multiple deceptive patterns in scientific literature. Analysis revealed that existing studies frequently addressed specific aspects of patterns, such as typologies or effects, and do not focus on sociotechnical issues. The exploratory evaluation suggested that the self-explainable catalog is useful and easy to use, with potential to inform users and promote awareness regarding the deceptive patterns existence and functioning. Conclusion: The study contributes to an informed understanding of deceptive patterns, highlighting the need for an approach that integrates human and technical dimensions. The self-explainable catalog is a promising tool to inform and promote awareness about the topic. By exposing the risks and mechanisms of these patterns, the research seeks to promote awareness among users and designers towards ethical interface design practices.

1 Introduction

The paper frames deceptive patterns as intentional design decisions that benefit third parties at users’ expense and argues that they require an integrated sociotechnical understanding. It maps existing computing research and develops an educational catalog to address fragmented treatment of social and technical dimensions.

  • Deceptive patterns are intentional design decisions in digital or physical artifacts that benefit third parties at users’ expense.
  • Existing research often isolates social effects from technical interface mechanisms instead of examining how they intertwine.
  • A comprehensive account must treat deceptive patterns as technical artifacts that shape and constrain behavior while affecting social dynamics.
  • The research maps computing literature, analyzes neglected sociotechnical aspects, and develops an educational, self-explainable catalog.
  • The work aims to bridge the gap between studies focused separately on social or technical dimensions.

2 Background and Theoretical Foundations

The background distinguishes deceptive patterns from unintentional anti-patterns and illustrates their operation across digital and physical settings. It introduces the Semiotic Framework as a way to integrate technical platforms with human functions and situates the study within fragmented prior research.

  • Deceptive Patterns and Anti-patterns: Deceptive patterns differ from anti-patterns because they intentionally deceive or exploit users, whereas anti-patterns result from insufficient designer knowledge or experience.
  • Examples: Deceptive patterns include emotional appeals, obstructive interfaces, and software installation choices that manipulate users’ actions.
  • Digital and Physical Manifestations: The phenomenon extends beyond digital interfaces to physical artifacts such as benches with bars and layouts that direct customers past storefronts.
  • The Semiotic Framework: The Semiotic Framework integrates Technical Platform and Human Functions through six layers for sociotechnical analysis.
  • Prior Research: Prior research is fragmented across taxonomies, user perspectives, ethical implications, and disciplinary foundations, with limited attention to technical and infrastructural aspects.

3 Research Methodology

The methodology combines analytical and constructive investigations to study deceptive patterns sociotechnically and build an accessible catalog. It analyzes one pattern, maps the literature, examines neglected sociotechnical aspects, and constructs and evaluates the catalog.

  • The conceptual-constructive approach combines analytical investigation with construction of a technical artifact for accessible presentation of deceptive patterns.
  • Stage 1: Analysis of a Deceptive Pattern: The first analytical stage applies the Semiotic Framework to the Roach Motel pattern across six interconnected layers.
  • Stage 2: Systematic Literature Mapping: The second stage conducts a systematic literature review using a predefined protocol validated by researchers with systematic-review expertise.
  • Stage 3: Analysis of Sociotechnical Aspects: The third stage examines which sociotechnical aspects, from the physical to the social world, were acknowledged or overlooked in the mapped literature.
  • Stages 4 and 5: Construction and Evaluation of the Catalog: The catalog incorporates practical examples intended to give users firsthand experiential understanding of how deceptive patterns function.

4 Goal 1: Characterizing Deceptive Patterns from a Sociotechnical Perspective

The Roach Motel analysis characterizes deceptive patterns as sociotechnical phenomena by tracing how interface choices, language, task structures, and real-world constraints jointly affect users across six Semiotic Framework layers.

  • Roach Motel analysis: The Roach Motel makes account deletion easy to enter but difficult to exit, demonstrating how a technical artifact can negatively affect the social world.The pattern commonly appears in account deletion or service cancellation processes.
  • Semantic and syntactic layers: Users must navigate multiple screens and encounter the semantically ambiguous term “Cancel” instead of “Delete” or “Remove.”The sequence runs from Support through account information and registration data before reaching the cancellation option.
  • Empirical and social effects: A lengthy message adds irrelevant information, emotionally charged language, and an email requirement, creating cognitive overload and involving the social world.The message says users must contact support to delete the account.
  • Syntactic and physical-world layers: Email submission and a possible 72-hour wait shift completion to third-party intervention and impose additional physical-world effort and uncertainty.Users cannot complete deletion independently and must send an email to support.
  • Empirical layer: The excessive screens, text volume, and additional steps are deliberately designed obstacles that increase users’ cognitive burden.The obstacles include sending a message and waiting for a support team.
  • Sociotechnical characterization: Across the six interconnected layers, deceptive patterns exploit intentions, knowledge, expectations, interface structures, and real-world constraints to undermine informed choice.The Semiotic Framework integrates human and technical dimensions, while a cookie-banner example shows how semantic manipulation can be missed by syntactic analysis alone.

5 Goal 2: Mapping the Literature on Deceptive Patterns

This section introduces the systematic mapping of literature on deceptive patterns and directs readers to the protocol and results that follow.

  • The section presents the protocol used for the systematic mapping of deceptive-pattern literature.
  • The section presents the results obtained with the systematic mapping.
  • The mapping addresses the second specific objective of systematically mapping the literature about deceptive patterns.

5.1 Systematic Mapping Protocol - Method

The systematic mapping used a Kitchenham-and-Charters-based protocol to identify, select, extract, and analyze Computer Science research on deceptive patterns.

  • Search strategy: Researchers designed a search string from established systematic-mapping guidelines and searched ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, and Scopus.The search initially used “dark patterns” and later added “deceptive pattern.”
  • Objective and research questions: The mapping sought to identify and analyze Computer Science research on deceptive patterns and to catalog and classify the patterns studied.Its main research question asked about the state of the art in the Computer Science literature.
  • Objective and research questions: The study adopted a broad definition of deceptive patterns as established solutions for exploiting and deceiving users in a generic form.
  • Selection criteria: Publications were restricted to English-language Computer Science studies, excluding unrelated, duplicate, inaccessible, or less-comprehensive extended versions.
  • Selection process: The search and selection process applied title-and-abstract screening followed by introduction-and-conclusion screening, with full-text reading when uncertainties remained.Two experienced researchers conducted the first two filters, achieving a Cohen-Kappa coefficient of 0.8183.
  • Data extraction and analysis: Data extraction used predefined research sub-questions and metadata fields, with some values inferred when authors did not state them explicitly.Extracted data were reviewed, categorized, and organized to answer the mapping questions.
  • Data analysis: Open coding categorized reported research problems, while contributions and evaluations were grouped into predefined types and reviewed by another researcher.Evaluations were classified as experiments with users, designers, or students.

5.2 Systematic Mapping Results

The mapping covered 97 articles and found broad but fragmented research, with many pattern types and application domains alongside limited conceptual consistency and sociotechnical integration.

  • Publication profile: Publication output comprised 24 journal articles and 73 event articles across 46 venues, with CHI contributing 34 of the 97 selected articles.
  • Patterns and domains: 126 deceptive-pattern types were identified across 11 categories, with Disorientation containing 25 types and Temporal and Surveillance Capitalism three each.
  • Patterns and domains: Software Design appeared in 22 articles, Social Media in 18, and Cookie Notices in 14, across 30 identified application domains.
  • Definitions: Forty-seven distinct definitions were found, while only 20 articles explicitly mentioned intentionality and 22 merely discussed patterns without defining them.Only 28 articles based their definitions on established authors.
  • Cataloging: Only 23 articles presented cataloging or explanatory collections of deceptive patterns, including three catalogs of types and 18 collections of patterns.Other works used participant-assisted cataloging, a Visibility-Darkness matrix, or automated website extraction.
  • Research problems: The literature addressed seven problem categories, with 50 articles focused on consequences of design and 39 on understanding and mapping deceptive patterns.Most articles addressed more than one category.
  • Contributions and evaluation: Articles contributed experiments, interface examples, ethical discussions, and cookie-banner or consent-notice analyses, with 36 reporting experiments and 16 addressing consent or legal issues.
  • Contributions and evaluation: Thirty-seven articles presented evaluations or studies, commonly using observations and questionnaires involving deceptive interfaces in web, mobile-game, or social-media contexts.

5.3 Connecting the Research Questions - Discussion

The mapped literature is conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically fragmented, emphasizing human and ethical aspects while giving limited attention to technical and infrastructural dimensions. This imbalance motivates an interconnected sociotechnical understanding of deceptive design.

  • The field shows conceptual dispersion, theoretical fragility, and methodological heterogeneity across studies of deceptive patterns.
  • Studies concentrate in the Semiotic Framework’s upper layers, while technical and physical layers receive limited attention.
  • Deceptive patterns are predominantly treated as ethical issues rather than as fully sociotechnical constructs.
  • The literature’s emphasis on human, ethical, and behavioral aspects contrasts with limited attention to technical and infrastructural dimensions.

6 Goal 3. Sociotechnical Aspects of the Mapped Literature

Applying the Semiotic Framework reveals that research on deceptive patterns is concentrated in social, pragmatic, and semantic dimensions, while technical, empirical, and physical aspects are less explored. The mapping therefore exposes a sociotechnical imbalance and several directions for further study.

  • Human-functional layers: Most mapped studies emphasize social-world, pragmatic, and semantic layers, covering impacts, intentions, meanings, ethics, values, law, behavior, and manipulation.
  • Social World Layer: Social-world studies address privacy violations, security threats, behavioral and emotional manipulation, consent exploitation, user perspectives, and regulatory frameworks.
  • Pragmatic Layer: Pragmatic studies examine conflicts between user intentions and deceptive objectives, including exploitation of cognitive biases and optimization through A/B testing.
  • Semantic and Syntactic Layers: Semantic and syntactic research uses user experiments to show that interfaces can appear neutral while layouts, buttons, colors, formats, and language influence behavior and consent.
  • Empirical Layer: Empirical-layer studies less often examine statistical properties and platform capabilities exploited by deceptive patterns, including excessive legal text and misleading cookie banners.
  • Physical World Layer: Physical-world research is limited and includes material and economic consequences, while less explored areas include origins, funding, corporate exploitation, and physical environments.

7 Goal 4. The Self-Explanatory Online Catalog

The study built a Portuguese, self-explanatory online catalog from the mapped literature, organizing deceptive patterns into categories and embedding interactive examples. Its exploratory evaluation combined participant navigation, questionnaires, and a focus group, while broader audience evaluation remains needed.

  • Catalog construction: The catalog was constructed after systematic mapping to organize all identified deceptive patterns and present them as a technical resource.
  • Purpose: The catalog aims to support design practice and education by explaining how deceptive patterns function and affect users, helping them recognize and avoid such practices.
  • Catalog structure: All 126 mapped deceptive patterns were organized into 11 categories created through incremental exploratory coding and pairwise comparison.
  • Catalog structure: Users can browse category pages containing descriptions, practical examples, and lists of the deceptive pattern types within each category.
  • Interactive examples: Interactive examples mimic deceptive patterns during navigation, including a pop-up that blocks interaction and requests an email.
  • Evaluation design: The exploratory evaluation used website exploration, Technology Acceptance Model questionnaires, and a focus group with seven HCI professionals.

7.3 Results of Evaluation

Seven HCI professionals evaluated the catalog through characterization, usability, and perceived-usefulness questionnaires followed by a focus group. Results were positive overall, while participant feedback also identified opportunities for refinement.

  • Participants and procedure: Seven HCI professionals participated in the exploratory evaluation and represented part of the catalog’s intended audience.
  • Knowledge: Six of seven participants reported increased knowledge of deceptive patterns after using the catalog.
  • Usability: Six participants agreed that navigating the catalog was easy to learn and clear, and all agreed that learning about deceptive patterns was easy.
  • Perceived usefulness: All participants said the practical examples helped them understand deceptive patterns, and all considered the catalog valuable for developers and researchers.
  • Focus group: Participants expressed enthusiasm for the catalog’s interactive demonstrations, describing them as engaging and effective for discovering deceptive patterns.
  • Recommendations: Participants suggested additions including animated examples, quizzes, educational games, and tools to help users identify patterns affecting them.

8 Strategy of Capitalism

The paper frames deceptive patterns as strategies sustained by profit-driven structures, while arguing that regulation, ethical developer environments, and user awareness can limit their harms. It also links these practices to technical and social forces that reinforce deceptive design.

  • Deceptive patterns are presented as structural manifestations of digital economies rather than isolated interface features.
  • The paper interprets deceptive patterns as a strategy of capitalism driven by profit maximization at the expense of people.
  • Negative reinforcement may cause users to avoid deceptive situations, making these practices detrimental even to those who deploy them over time.
  • The authors identify regulation, oversight, and control as ways to reduce deceptive patterns’ societal impacts and punish their users.
  • Developers occupy a paradoxical position as implementers of deceptive practices while being constrained by corporate directives and performance metrics.
  • Raising awareness is proposed as a way to empower people to make decisions that benefit their lives and avoid scams and misleading advertisements.

9 Conclusion

This work characterizes deceptive patterns as a sociotechnical phenomenon through literature mapping, Semiotic Framework analysis, and construction and evaluation of an educational catalog. The findings show that research often neglects technical dimensions, while the catalog was considered easy to use and useful by participating HCI professionals.

  • Research objectives: The research characterized deceptive patterns as a sociotechnical phenomenon in Computing.Its objectives included analyzing patterns, mapping computing literature, examining neglected sociotechnical aspects, and developing a catalog.
  • Methodology: The analytical investigation combined Semiotic Framework analysis with systematic mapping of deceptive-interface literature in ACM, IEEE, and Scopus.A constructive investigation then organized and evaluated a catalog with seven HCI professionals.
  • Sociotechnical characterization: Analysis of the Roach Motel showed how deceptive patterns exploit interface elements, language, human psychology, and the physical medium systemically.The analysis connected elements from the user’s social world to the physical medium through which users interact with the pattern.
  • Literature mapping: The literature mapping found that most authors did not consider deceptive patterns systematically or as a sociotechnical phenomenon.Existing studies commonly focused on cataloging types, user perspectives, ethics, or societal implications, while overlooking creators, funding, transmission media, and physical environments.
  • Sociotechnical analysis: Most reviewed articles favored social layers and disregarded syntactic, empirical, and physical layers needed to explain how deceptive interfaces exist and function.This imbalance indicates why integrated social and technical analysis is needed for deceptive patterns’ systemic nature.
  • Catalog evaluation: Participants found the catalog easy to use and learn, useful for work or research, and helpful for learning through practical examples.Seven participants took part in the evaluation and subsequent focus group; all agreed that the practical examples helped them learn.
  • Contributions and future work: The authors identify deceptive patterns as potentially causing negative social, emotional, financial, and temporal impacts while advancing sociotechnical understanding of the phenomenon.The catalog is intended to raise awareness among users and interface-design professionals about deceptive practices and ethical implications.
  • Limitations and future work: The study was limited by English-only mapping, an incomplete search string, analysis of one pattern, limited prior Semiotic Framework research, and evaluation only with HCI professionals.The authors call for broader follow-up studies with the general public and deeper analysis of additional patterns and technical layers.

Declarations

The declarations report language editing assistance, funding and acknowledgments, author contributions, and an effort toward diverse citation practices.

  • AI use: A Grammarly AI-review tool was used to improve English language, with no other AI-generated content used.
  • Funding and acknowledgments: The research was partially funded by CAPES and PROEX, with Roberto Pereira holding a CNPq Research Productivity Scholarship.The authors also thanked colleagues from the IHC Research Lab at UFPR.
  • Author contributions: All authors contributed to conceptualization and formal analysis, while listed authors held distinct investigation, visualization, writing, supervision, validation, and editing responsibilities.
  • Citation practices: The authors sought citation diversity across gender, racial, ethnic, and geographical backgrounds while acknowledging incomplete demographic data.They encourage further research on equitable citation practices.
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