In the book, Web strategy for Everyone, I’m writing a lot on different kind of design principles. One of them is Persuasive Web Design, how to design to be persuasive and strive for users fulfilling the websites objective. When trying to be convincing you have to be considerate of the user’s interest, otherwise you might end up designing a so-called dark pattern?
“It is all about lowering the threshold for decisions and guiding a series of micro-decisions towards the goal you have. Here the concept of dark pattern introduces itself. That, by design, you control what happens in a way that is not in the user’s best interest, or intention. It could be moving around buttons so the user happens to give an app a five-star rating in an app store, without warning, adding additional products to the shopping cart, or services sending e-mails to your contacts claiming to be you.”
– Web Strategy for Everyone, chapter Persuasive Web Design