Thread by @hvost

Here is how TrustPilot uses dark patterns to make businesses stick even if they didn’t plan to 👇

Last week I decided to give TrustPilot a try. I created a new business page and shortly got my first 5-star review.

Now you'd expect my brand to have a 5-star rating, right? Well, TrustPilot believes it should be 3.7.

Turns out TrustPilot adds 7 reviews worth 3.5 stars by default. Although they don't tell you about it until you get your first review (dark pattern #1).

Few people want to buy from a brand with a 3.7-rating.

At this point, you might find such an approach manipulative and change your mind about using TrustPilot.

Although it turns out...

...you can not delete your business page (dark pattern #2).

Your page with a 3.7-star rating is stuck on TrustPilot forever.

Now you have no other choice but to ask your customers ASAP to go to TrustPilot and review your brand.

Congrats, now you’ve become a long-term TrustPilot user and sending them loads of traffic.

Even if 100% of your reviews are 5 stars, you’d need at least 46 of them until TrustPilot will display a 5-star rating for your brand.

Don’t be like TrustPilot. When designing a product:

1. Create clear expectations (especially when your product behaves differently from the same category products).

2. Allow users to change their mind when their expectations aren’t met.

More about these two dark patterns:

- Roach Motel (easy to get in, hard to get out) darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-…
- Bait and Switch (the user sets out to do one thing, but a different, undesirable thing happens instead) darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-…

cc: @darkpatterns