Dark patterns are special tricks used in the interface of applications and websites that make you do things that you don’t really want to. For example, when you land on a website and have to sign up ...

You open a free app to do one simple thing. Before you even start, a full-screen message asks whether you want to try the paid version. The “Start free trial” button is large, bright and hard to miss.

Jerry Cao is a UX content strategist at UXPin — the wireframing and prototyping app. To learn more about content-first design, download the free e-book Web UI Design for the Human Eye: Content ...