Lecturer: Colin M. Gray
Fields: Human-Computer Interaction; Design Ethics; Technology Law and Policy; AI Governance
Content
Digital systems increasingly shape what people notice, disclose, buy, believe, and do. In this course, we ask when influence through design becomes deceptive or manipulative (often described as “dark patterns”), how these practices operate across interfaces and organizations, and how designers, researchers, organizations, and regulators can respond. Using examples from commerce, privacy, social media, and AI-enabled systems, participants will connect HCI and design theory with empirical evidence, professional ethics standards, and legal and regulatory approaches. Across four sessions, they will develop a shared conceptual vocabulary, examine how harms emerge and can be evidenced, explore how legal knowledge can become material for design, and consider practical routes toward more responsible and trustworthy technologies. No prior background in HCI or law is required. The course combines short lectures, discussion, interface analysis, and collaborative exercises.
Session 1 introduces dark patterns through HCI and design theory, asking what makes a design outcome normatively troubling or unlawful.
Session 2 examines how dark patterns operate across interfaces and organizations, how their harms can be evidenced, and who bears responsibility.
Session 3 explores how legal and regulatory knowledge can become practical material for design.
Session 4 considers how critique can be translated into more responsible design and organizational action.
Literature
- Bringing Dark Patterns to Light Staff Report. (2022). Federal Trade Commission. https://www.ftc.gov/reports/bringing-dark-patterns-light
- Gray, C. M. (2026, April). The Dark Patterns Knowledge Stack: Exploring New Ways to Negotiate Context, Law, and Design. Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’26). https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791264
- Gray, C. M., & Chivukula, S. S. (2019). Ethical Mediation in UX Practice. Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300408
- Gray, C. M., Mildner, T., & Gairola, R. (2025, April). Getting Trapped in Amazon’s “Iliad Flow”: A Foundation for the Temporal Analysis of Dark Patterns. CHI ’25: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713828
- Gray, C. M., Santos, C. T., Bielova, N., & Mildner, T. (2024). An Ontology of Dark Patterns Knowledge: Foundations, Definitions, and a Pathway for Shared Knowledge-Building. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642436
- Gunawan, J., Gray, C. M., Santos, C., & Bielova, N. (2025). Leveraging interdisciplinary methods for evidence collection in enforcement: Dark patterns as a case study. Internet Policy Review, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.14763/2025.4.2047
- Mathur, A., Kshirsagar, M., & Mayer, J. (2021). What Makes a Dark Pattern… Dark? Design Attributes, Normative Considerations, and Measurement Methods. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445610
- Monge Roffarello, A., Lukoff, K., & De Russis, L. (2023, April). Defining and identifying attention capture deceptive designs in digital interfaces. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ’23: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hamburg Germany. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3580729
- Wong, R. Y. (2021). Tactics of Soft Resistance in User Experience Professionals’ Values Work. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), Article 355. https://doi.org/10.1145/3479499
Lecturer
Colin M. Gray is a Professor of Informatics in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington, where they are Director of the Human-Computer Interaction design (HCI/d) program. They hold an appointment as Visiting Researcher at Northumbria University and have previously held appointments as Guest Professor at Beijing Normal University and Visiting Researcher at Newcastle University. Colin holds a PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University Bloomington, a MEd in Educational Technology from University of South Carolina, and a MA in Graphic Design from Savannah College of Art & Design. They have worked as an art director, contract designer, and trainer, and their involvement in design work informs their research on design activity and how design capability is learned. Colin’s research focuses on the ways in which the pedagogy and practice of designers informs the development of design ability, particularly in relation to ethics, design knowledge, and dark patterns. They have consulted on multiple legal cases relating to dark patterns and data protection and work with regulatory bodies and non-profit organizations to increase awareness and action relating to deceptive and manipulative design practices. Colin’s research and engagement activities cross multiple disciplines, including human-computer interaction, instructional design and technology, law and policy, design theory and education, and engineering and technology education. Colin is proudly gay/queer and non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.
Affiliation: Indiana University Bloomington
Homepage: https://colingray.me