How Figma Tricked Me And My Agency Team With Dark Patterns 👀

There are many ways companies get you to sign up for their services, but some of the worst ones are dark patterns. A dark pattern relies on manipulating users into doing what they want, often through deceit or manipulation.

Today I want to share with you guys an incident when I myself fell prey to this.

If any point you've worked on the design of any digital interface/product, then you must be familiar with Figma. (In case you aren't, it is an online design tool that anyone can use for free to create digital interfaces)

Since Figma is one of the go-to design tool for my team, I usually have to purchase more premium accounts for my team members at Brucira. It's on a standard monthly payment basis so the per month charges are usually constant unless I add new members to the team.

However, few weeks back, I got a ridiculous amount of bill charges from Figma and it was totally unexpected. Turns out that one of the team managers had the permissions to add new members and added few new accounts to the team, which were chargeable as expected, but Figma never informed me about these additions.

This is exactly what I mean by dark patterns. The team member definately was informed of the additions but as a business owner myself, it was crucial that Figma notified me of any new member additions and the charges associated with it, regardless of what kind of permissions my team members have.

Sadly we learnt the lesson hard way and eventually cancelled several accounts to fix this problem.

Have you ever faced something similar like dark patterns while building your products? Let's discuss each other's experiences in the comments below. 👇

Have a great day,
Harsh 💯