  Dark patterns and deceptive designs (DPs) are user interface elements that
trick people into taking actions that benefit the purveyor. Such designs are
widely deployed, with special varieties found in certain nations like Japan
that can be traced to global power hierarchies and the local socio-linguistic
context of use. In this breaking work, we report on the first user study
involving Japanese people (n=30) experiencing a mock shopping website injected
with simulated DPs. We found that Alphabet Soup and Misleading Reference
Pricing were the most deceptive and least noticeable. Social Proofs, Sneaking
in Items, and Untranslation were the least deceptive but Untranslation
prevented most from cancelling their account. Mood significantly worsened after
experiencing the website. We contribute the first empirical findings on a
Japanese consumer base alongside a scalable approach to evaluating user
attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours towards DPs in an interactive context.
We urge for more human participant research and ideally collaborations with
industry to assess real designs in the wild.
