The Real Cost of the Trick Wording Deceptive Pattern: Time Lost, Minds Taxed

With the increasing attention on Deceptive Patterns (DP) in the digital world, especially in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), it is becoming more important to understand how Deceptive Patterns influence User Experience (UX). This research focuses on one specific DP, namely the obstruction pattern of “Trick Wording” which confuse the users by increasing the semantic complexity of sentences via the use of ambiguous language and multiple negations. Through the use of an eye-tracking technology in an experiment, we demonstrate how the presence of negations in text influence readability. We furthermore investigate possible relations between negations and cognitive load, fixations, and reading duration. The results show positive linear relations between all of the aforementioned variables, with the number of negations being a somewhat reliable predictor of cognitive load. There was a significant difference in cognitive load between questions that were correctly and incorrectly answered. This pilot study with a small sample size (n=20) lays a foundation for future research about the reading behaviour of users within HCI domain and challenges they face due to commonly used “trick wording” DP within web and mobile interfaces.