Design teams borrow from behavioural science — defaults, framing, loss aversion, social proof — without always examining who benefits when behaviour shifts. A nudge that helps someone save for retirement and a nudge that makes cancellation humiliating use similar mechanics with opposite ethics.
We believe design is a political act. Nudging is one of the most political tools available because it works below explicit awareness.
A practical ethics checklist
Whose goal does this serve — the user’s stated goal or the platform’s metric? Would we defend this pattern publicly if users understood it? Does it preserve easy reversal and informed choice? Would we use it on someone we care about?
Four yes answers do not guarantee ethics, but any no is a stop signal worth discussing before ship.
Dark patterns as organisational choice
We will not design dark patterns — not for any fee. That is not idealism; it is a quality standard. Manipulation erodes trust, increases support cost, and attracts regulatory attention. Short-term conversion lifts rarely survive those second-order effects.
Human behaviour research should illuminate how to serve people better, not how to capture them longer. That is the line our practice draws, and the line we document for every client engagement.
Persuasion aligned with user intent is design. Persuasion against user intent is extraction.