The books and papers this guide leans on, and what to take from each.
Nudge: The Final EditionRichard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, 2021The case for choice architecture from the people who named it, including when defaults serve the chooser and when they serve the one who set them.
Deceptive PatternsHarry Brignull, 2023The taxonomy of dark patterns from the designer who coined the term, with the legal cases. Read it with your checkout open.
“When and why defaults influence decisions”Jon Jachimowicz, Shannon Duncan, Elke Weber and Eric Johnson, 2019The meta-analysis behind chapters 2 and 3: how big defaults are, and why endorsement matters more than effort.
“RCTs to Scale”Stefano DellaVigna and Elizabeth Linos, 2022The antidote to published effect sizes. Read it before you forecast what any email will do.
“Shining a Light on Dark Patterns”Jamie Luguri and Lior Strahilevitz, 2021What dark patterns actually do to take-up, why mild ones don’t provoke backlash, and why “act now” did nothing.
“Dark Patterns at Scale”Arunesh Mathur and colleagues, 2019How common fake timers and stock counts are, and how many come from plug-ins. A checklist in disguise.
Why Not?Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, 2003A book of habits for turning problems around. Asking “why not the other way?” of every preselected box in your store is a good place to start.
Full references for everything else are in Appendix C.
This is one chapter of The Free Choice, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.