Welcome to the Dark Side of UX

As yesterday was Star Wars day May the 4th and today is May the 5th also know as Revenge of the Fifth, The Dark Side Day. As the awesome third Prequel movie is enjoying it’s 20th Anniversary I decided to dive and shine some dark light on the dark side of UX.

Ever tried cancelling a subscription and ended up feeling like you were trapped in an escape room designed by someone who hates you? That’s not a bug. That’s design.

UX has a Dark Side

We all talk about good design. Delight. Joy. Smooth flows and happy faces. But in between all those friendly checkboxes and “accept” buttons, there’s a quieter, more sinister craft going on. The kind that gets users to click “yes” when they meant “no.” That adds things to your cart when you weren’t looking. That hides the cancel button like it owes you money. Design can manipulate just as easily as it can guide. It’s a question of intent.

What does the Dark Side look like?

Some of the classics:

The Roach Motel
Super easy to get in. Seems like impossible to get out. Think: free trials with cancel flows that somehow take 12 clicks and a call to customer service. Examples: LinkedIn’s Premium cancellation flow, HelloFresh subscription cancellation and Amazon: How to cancel Audible subscription?

Confirmshaming
“No thanks, I don’t like saving money.” Or worse: “No thanks, I prefer being cold and alone.” Why is the opt-out always insulting? Example: Wish.com

Sneak into Basket
Suddenly there’s a €9.99 “support plan” in your cart. You didn’t put it there. You just got nudged. Example: Name.com: Look for a "surprise" in your cart

Bait and Switch
You click “Next” thinking you’re skipping a step, but surprise — you just signed up for emails from six partners. Example: Microsoft Windows 10 Upgrade

Misdirection
Cancel? Log out? Delete account? Good luck. You’ll need a map, and possibly emotional support. Example:
Amazon Prime cancelation

And the design rationale?
“Well, it works.”
Of course it works.
Tricks work.
But so does spam, for a while.

Dark patterns spike short-term conversions, sure. But long-term? You’re burning trust for clicks. And once people realise they’ve been tricked, they remember and walk away.It’s like using the Force choke when a firm conversation would’ve worked. Impressive, but maybe not the vibe you want.

Why it matters more than ever

Interfaces are getting smarter, more invisible. AI assistants, voice interactions, subtle nudges. It’s easier than ever to hide the Dark Side in the margins. Which means it’s also easier than ever to excuse it.

“This is how it’s done.”
“This is what performs.”
“This is what the stakeholders want.”

But someone still designs the thing.
Someone still writes the copy.
And someone still decides how hard it is to say “no.”
That’s the moment where we choose our side.

So what now?

It’s May 5th. The revenge of the fifth. But if you’re designing something today — a form, a funnel, a chatbot, anything — maybe stop for a second and ask: Would I want someone to do this to me?

If the answer is no... you know what to do.

For more Dark Patterns head out to: Dark Patterns
Hall of Shame and Responsible Design series by Symran Bhue & Stuti Mazumdar

Photos Credit to Unsplash Cade Roberts, Daniel Maquiling,
jonathan Arreola

The importance of sizzle reels: Your Agency's Ultimate Calling Card

In the fast-paced world of advertising and creative agencies, first impressions matter. Clients, partners, and industry peers often decide in mere seconds whether they’re interested in what you have to offer. That’s why a well-crafted sizzle reel isn’t just a nice-to-have — it’s an essential tool in showcasing your agency’s identity, creativity, and capabilities in a matter of moments.

What Is a Sizzle Reel?

A sizzle reel is a short, dynamic video designed to capture attention and communicate a brand’s or agency’s essence. Think of it as a highlight reel — your agency’s best work distilled into a fast-paced, visually compelling format. It’s a fusion of work created, storytelling, branding, and proof of performance, and of course a pumping tune that get’s your head nodding.

Why Every Agency Needs One

1. Your Instant Elevator Pitch

People are busy, and attention spans are short. A sizzle reel allows you to communicate who you are and what you do in a visually engaging way. Whether you’re pitching to a new client, attracting top talent, or introducing your agency at an event, a sizzle reel gets your message across — quickly and memorably.

2. Show, Don’t Tell

You can talk about your creative prowess, innovative thinking, and award-winning work all day, but nothing proves it like seeing it in action. A sizzle reel lets your work speak for itself, demonstrating your expertise across different industries, platforms, and styles.

3. Sets the Tone for Your Brand

A well-produced sizzle reel isn’t just a collection of past projects — it’s a reflection of your agency’s personality, style, and values. The music, pacing, visual treatment, and messaging should align with your brand identity, making it a powerful branding tool in its own right.

4. A Door Opener for New Business

When prospective clients are considering agencies, they often browse websites and portfolios. A strong sizzle reel can be the difference between them digging deeper into your work or moving on to the next option. It creates excitement, builds credibility, and sets the stage for deeper conversations.

What Makes a Great Sizzle Reel?

• Concise & Impactful: Keep it short — ideally between 60–90 seconds. Every second should add value.

• Curated Content: Don’t include everything; focus on your most impressive, relevant, and recent work.

• Strong Narrative Flow: Even in a short format, storytelling matters. Ensure it has a rhythm and flow that keeps viewers engaged.

• High Production Quality: It’s a representation of your work, so make sure it’s polished, well-edited, and has a compelling soundtrack.

• Clear Branding: Your agency’s identity should be unmistakable. Use brand colors, typography, and messaging that align with your positioning.

At the end...

In today’s competitive creative landscape, a sizzle reel is more than just a montage of past projects — it’s a strategic tool that encapsulates the essence of your agency. Whether you’re winning over clients, attracting talent, or simply making a statement in the industry, a well-executed sizzle reel can be the ultimate calling card. If you don’t have one yet, now’s the time to start cutting. Tell me what you think about our reels on Merkle, DC and Dentsu Lab? happy to hear your thoughts!

The weight of words in digital design

Ever marvelled how some digital products seem more approachable, more human or even funny and engaging? When it’s just an interface with text or dialogue what makes the experience stand out as a good one? 

Tone of voice as a brand platform

The crucial differentiator in these cases is how and what the product is talking or presenting the content to the user. How to bring the brand feeling to a AI chat bot or a voice service like Amazon Echo? The brand must be reinterpreted as a tone of voice or apply one if one is already figured out. 

Some brands excel in the offline world with the way the tone of voice being a big part in the brand. One of my all time favourite is Innocent, the company that makes tasty smoothies and juices. On the packaging they make funny jokes and keep it light with a tongue in cheek tone of voice. 

So if innocent would be a chat bot, the transition would be pretty painless since the brand personality is so distinct.

One other great example is Tobias van Schneider’s app Authentic Weather. It trumps all the other weather apps with it’s snarky humorous ways it tells the current weather. The big difference is the tone of voice that makes it special. It seems it has a personality that our twisted sense of humour can connect to.

Why chat bots and digital virtual assistants need a personality?

The explosion in AI powered assistants and chat bots have challenged the UX designers to really make the experiences memorable and not just utilitarian. Apple has given Siri a bunch of jokes and comebacks that define her as a personality and it’s all about the context and tone of voice. The rest is in our imagination. Bots with a personality will connect to us in an emotional level and make us come back to them. 

When creating a bot we humans have to teach the AI to be more human, to reflect the tone of the brand. So it’s more a content creation task than anything else. Let’s keep it in mind that the  visible user interface is going to be replaced by touch and voice even by just text and when we design the next experience we use the tone in the content as a way to make a distinct brand experience.

How can a platform renewal change company culture?

DHL approached us to renew their DHL.com platform in full and during the discussions and estimations we recognised the need for really change the traditional approach for a big platform project. 

The DHL internal project team was ready for a change.

Instead of spending a year in just designing the experience and hammer the design through the political structure of the client, we took the agile road: Let’s design and build a beta site, and test this with real users and that voice of the DHL customer would help to drive the new portal into more customer centric direction.

This meant that we needed to design a system that would adapt of course to different screens but also that we couldn’t just go and design templates. We needed to create a design language for DHL that could be used in various different situations and templates. We decided to go with Brad Frost’s Atomic Design approach, that is a toolbox for creating a design system, all responsive and mobile first. 

The benefit is that when working with a design language or a design system, is that you can design and build elements and components that match to each other.  

This approach turned out to be a real winner in getting the refreshed brand into the digital platform and get the designs fast in the browser, where our front end designers were able to build the designs quickly as responsive prototypes. These helped the stakeholders really understand how the website was going to react in real devices. It also helped us to quickly try out different solutions straight in the HTML without the Photoshop ballet in between. The communication between designers and developers was crucial to the success of the approach.

With the new components the Business Unit website owners can create a multitude of different pages, since the templates are dynamic and can be built from different components just by combining as seen fit. This gives the editors more freedom and still keeping the websites on brand and consistent.

Drumming For The Social Good

On one Thursday I found myself on a plane to the Golden Drum Festival in Portorož, Slovenia.

Razorfish was invited to talk at the 22nd Festival with the theme “Transformation”. The topic is very close to the theme and message Razorfish has been talking in this year and the topic of the talk I was going to give was aptly named “Toolkit For Transformation”. The Festival is held in the beautiful Slovenian coast and the scenery was very nice at the hotel when I arrived.

Friday morning started the program with Jason Romeyko’s talk Curators In The Age Of Now. The talk focused on the modern age and it’s challenges and how to be a Creative Director in this age. He pointed out that creative direction was more like the curator at a museum, a person who has the guts and vision to pick from a vast pool of creative output the ones that make a statement and add to the overall story that the museum wants to tell with it’s exhibitions. I found this parallel very good.

He also set an example that to create good work you need to invest yourself and do good. He himself was pushing for Vangardist Magazine’s HIV+ awareness edition printed with HIV positive donated blood and he believed in the idea so much that he signed a paper that he’d lose he’s job at Saatchi & Saatchi if the campaign would crash and burn. Of course it didn’t. The project was one of the Grand Prix winners this year.

Another great talk was Harjot Singh bringing us to the basics of good marketing. Through common sense he outlined the military past of the Madison Avenue era of advertising and leading us to the age of Meaningful Marketing. A very fun and real talk.

My talk went smoothly and was a great to talk about the shifts in the industry to come and how as creatives we can prepare for the shifts.

The day ended with a massive award ceremony where the majority of the winners had a real social aspect and a wish to help out the ones the campaign involved. From Turkey the Vodafone Red Light Application 2.0 would help women that suffered domestic violence and from Serbia “Button for Help” tried to take on the issue of human trafficking with a button that helps the victims to send her data to border police and Interpol. The jury did take stand for socially good campaigns this year and it’s refreshing to see that advertising can have a positive impact on people’s lives while being successful campaigns to the companies that created them.

After the ceremony the final party went on with local electronic musicians showcasing the best beats.