This pattern library is dedicated to Dark Patterns: user interfaces that have been designed to trick users into doing things they wouldn’t otherwise have done.
Normally when you think of “bad design”, you think of laziness or mistakes. These are known as design anti-patterns. Dark Patterns are different – they are not mistakes, they are carefully crafted with a solid understanding of human psychology, and they do not have the user’s interests in mind.
The purpose of this site is to catalogue various common types of Dark Pattern, and to name and shame organizations that use them.
Source: Smashing Magazine: http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=16b832d9ad4b28edf261f34df&id=65d43ef796&e=c5b5dc3daa#a05
