CRO ( Conversion Rate Optimization) , Conversion Optimization is usually a UI improvement techniques….. Most of the time people believes trying “creative call to actions”, “placing proper call to actions buttons” , “A/B testing” , “Color Combination”, “Improving User Interface” are best way to improve conversion & business. But I have something interesting for you.. there is a pattern which is called “Dark Pattern” which drives huge number of conversion to many websites & also drives huge amount of business but these dark patterns are usually considered unethical or inappropriate ( But all these patterns surely increases business)…….
There are so many “Dark Patterns” Type.. I will share you one by one dark patterns in this blog..
Disguised Ads
“Adverts that are disguised as other kinds of content or navigation, in order to get users to click on them.”
Look at two screenshots below .. will normal human being will be able to distinguish which one is advert and which one is content?
SoftPedia:
if you look below image can you find out which “download” link is promoted link and which one is not ?
Here .. to play this video on your website you do not need in VLC plugin but it still advertising pops up for this… ( I dont think its a promotion by VLC but I do not have much detail.)
Now Google Flight Search & Hotel Booking
Google has put “sponsored” text in top of the box but has not change color of this “sponsored” product.. many people will use this feature without knowing that google will list advertised listing instead of organic search in these products..
If you check these ads.. normal users can not find a difference.. between advertisement and content.. There are so many other examples of these type of misplacing advertisement in content which force/ tempts user to click.. dont know it is ethical or unethical… its all about business , isn’t it?
I will write more about “dark patterns ” soon…
