Recognition signals
- A declined request returns without a meaningful change in context.
- Dismissal is temporary while acceptance is treated as durable.
- Repeated interruption makes normal use or task completion harder.
Dark-pattern family · 1 patterns
Nagging
Repeatedly interrupts or asks the user to take a business-favoured action after the user has declined, deferred or ignored it.
This family groups related interface mechanisms for learning and journey review. It is not a legal category and does not make every matching interface unlawful. Start with the mechanism, then examine the complete decision, audience, effect and EU rule actually within scope.
Recognition framework
How to review nagging.
Trace the same request across sessions and screens after decline, dismissal and non-response. Measure frequency, interruption cost and whether the service remembers the choice. A single contextual reminder is different from a system designed to make refusal temporary while acceptance remains durable.
Decision points
- The first request and the available refusal
- How long the refusal is remembered
- Which events cause the prompt to return
- Whether normal use can continue without acceptance
Fair-design principles
- Respect refusals for a meaningful and disclosed period.
- Keep later reconsideration available in settings rather than blocking the journey.
- Measure whether prompts help users, including dismissal and complaint signals.
Evidence to retain
- Prompt-frequency and suppression configuration
- Event sequence after each refusal state
- Session-level captures showing recurrence
- Dismissal, complaint and permission-revocation signals
Boundary to keep visible
A later reminder may be relevant after a material context change or an explicitly chosen snooze period. Review should distinguish that case from immediate repetition, unrelated triggers and prompts that progressively remove the refusal route.
EU legal and policy context
Keep taxonomy, current law and the announced DFA process separate.
A family name helps teams compare interface mechanisms. It is not an EU legal category, and similarity to an example does not establish that a current rule has been infringed or that a future Digital Fairness Act will use the same label.
Current-law context
The UCPD and any relevant sector instrument require their own scope, conduct, information and likely-effect assessment. The complete journey and evidence matter; a taxonomy match is only a prompt to investigate.
Officially announced
The Commission is preparing a legislative DFA initiative and currently places a proposal in Q4 2026. That planning date is indicative, and no published proposal yet creates a family-specific duty.
Under consideration
The call for evidence discusses possible policy responses to digital fairness concerns. Options, consultation questions and stakeholder submissions are not Commission proposals or present obligations.
Still unknown
Final instrument form, scope, definitions, thresholds, enforcement, transition and application remain unknown until primary legislative text is published and validated.
Journey coverage
Where nagging can become visible.
Review the state before the decision, the controls and information available at that moment, the immediate result and any later account or billing consequence. Journey links below show where this family appears in the published taxonomy; they do not imply that every product or every stage contains the mechanism.
1 related pattern
Signup
Signup is where access, identity, permissions and first-run choices meet. A useful review follows the user from the promise made before registration through every required field, default, consent request and first-use screen. The question is not whether signup is persuasive, but whether people can understand what is necessary, what is optional and what each control will do before they commit.
Open the journey guide →1 related pattern
Checkout
Checkout concentrates price, add-ons, urgency, identity and the final payment action. Review should begin with the state carried into the basket and finish only when the order, receipt and account state agree. A control that appears clear in isolation can still be misleading when a fee arrives late, a removed item returns or the final button does more than its label predicts.
Open the journey guide →Pattern directory
Explore every nagging pattern.
Each detail page contains two fictional interface comparisons, practical recognition and exclusion criteria, a fairer alternative, review questions and a legal-status map that keeps editorial taxonomy separate from current law and the announced DFA process.
Repeated prompting
A business-favoured request repeatedly interrupts the user after decline, dismissal or non-response without a durable way to stop it. The label describes a recurring design mechanism; whether a particular implementation is harmful or unlawful depends on the complete journey, audience, evidence and rules within scope.
2 visual examples
See visual examples: Repeated promptingEvidence-led workflow
Turn a visual signal into a reviewable record.
- Reproduce the complete decision path and preserve each material state, option, disclosure, default and price before and after the action.
- Check the pattern’s inclusion criteria and legitimate-use boundaries instead of classifying from appearance alone.
- Verify the operating facts behind timing, stock, ranking, price, consent and account state, and record what evidence would falsify the initial concern.
- Apply current law, announced preparation, matters under consideration and unknown future details as separate layers with dated sources.
Evidence base
Sources
- Dark commercial patternsOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · Secondary · checked 2026-09-14 · OECD Digital Economy Papers No. 336
- Unfair Commercial Practices DirectiveEuropean Parliament and Council of the European Union · Primary · checked 2026-08-09 · Directive 2005/29/EC; CELEX 02005L0029-20220528
- Review of EU consumer lawEuropean Commission, Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers · Primary · checked 2026-09-14
- Commission work programme 2026: Europe's Independence MomentEuropean Commission · Primary · checked 2026-09-14 · COM(2025) 870 final; CELEX 52025DC0870; Annex I item 30
- Digital Fairness Act: call for evidence for an impact assessmentEuropean Commission · Primary · checked 2026-08-09 · Initiative 14622; Ares(2025)6275573