Coercive And Deceptive Design: How To Prevent Decisions That Help Short-Term KPIs But Hurt Loyalty

Many companies drive growth by manipulating customers — breaking no laws but breaking trust. While these design decisions can boost revenues in the short term, they frustrate customers, demoralize employees, repel job candidates, and invite regulatory scrutiny. All design choices companies make influence the people who use their products and services. Coercive and deceptive design choices are ones that manipulate customers into acting against their own interests. This report outlines pragmatic strategies to help customer experience (CX) professionals identify dark patterns and combat the short-term thinking behind them, to steer their firms toward the sustained growth that arises from strong customer loyalty.