Dark Patterns in Indian Quick Commerce Apps: A Student Perspective
This study addresses the problem of manipulative user interfaces affecting financially constrained students in India's quick commerce sector, offering insights for value-sensitive design in the Global South.
The paper investigated how deceptive design dark patterns in Indian quick commerce apps exploit the 'Awareness-Action Gap' among university students, finding that despite recognizing manipulative tactics, students often succumb due to cognitive load and normalization of deceptive marketing.
As quick commerce (Q-Commerce) platforms in India redefine urban consumption, the use of deceptive design dark patterns to inflate order values has become a systemic concern. This paper investigates the 'Awareness-Action Gap' among Indian university students, a demographic characterized by high digital fluency yet significant financial constraints. Using a qualitative approach with 16 participants, we explore how temporal pressures and convenience-driven architectures override price sensitivity. Our findings reveal that while students recognize manipulative UI tactics, they frequently succumb to them due to induced cognitive load and the normalization of deceptive marketing as a price of capitalism. We conclude by suggesting value-sensitive design alternatives to align commercial incentives with user autonomy in the Global South.