Dark Patterns
Problem
Dark patterns are UI/UX choices that manipulate users into doing things they didn't mean to. This includes hiding costs, burying opt-outs below the fold, using colour and copy to push someone toward a "yes" they didn't intend. There's also a cost most people don't see: the tracking behind a lot of this runs on real computing power. One study into browsing cookies found that tracking across the top one million websites produces over 11,000 metric tons of CO2 a month just from the energy needed to keep it running, and digital advertising is estimated to account for around 3.5% of global emissions which is similar to aviation. The brief was to look at how manipulative design and its environmental cost tie together.
Solution
I built a user journey for a car-washing company, similar to one I'd actually worked for one summer, and put classic dark patterns into it on purpose: marketing pop-ups, hidden costs that only show up late in checkout, privacy toggles buried below the fold, hidden terms, and colour choices designed to steer people toward the option that suited the business over the user.
The idea was to build the manipulation deliberately so it could be picked apart afterward: what it does to user trust, and what it costs environmentally behind the scenes.