Trickery: Exploring a Serious Game Approach to Raise Awareness of Deceptive Patterns

Deceptive patterns are often used in interface design to manipulate users into taking actions they would not otherwise take, such as consenting to excessive data collection. We present Trickery, a narrative serious game that incorporates seven gamified deceptive patterns. We designed the game as a potential mechanism for raising awareness of, and increasing resistance to, deceptive patterns through direct consequences of player actions. We conducted an explorative gameplay study to examine player behavior when confronted with the game Trickery. In addition, we conducted an online survey to shed light on the perceived helpfulness of our gamified deceptive patterns. Our results reveal different player motivations and driving forces that players used to justify their behavior when confronted with deceptive patterns in the Trickery game. In addition, we identified several influencing factors that need to be considered when adapting deceptive patterns into gameplay. Overall, the approach appears to be a promising solution for increasing user understanding and awareness of deceptive patterns.