Bait & Switch is a Dark Pattern (deceptive UX/UI interactions designed to mislead or directly deceive users) regularly used to deceive the user by a specific design with the aim of directing them towards something they did not intend. This graphic exploration seeks to transpose this web practice into the public space.

Creation process:

Every week, the streets of Besançon are strewn with cardboard boxes, a familiar scene for its residents. These piles of waste, recurrent in the urban landscape, have been immortalized as part of this project. The first phase involved capturing these cardboard mountains in photographs. Then, after graphic processing, these images were reproduced using screen printing on cardboard, thus creating a kind of interface illusion, reminiscent of the visual traps of the Dark Pattern Bait & Switch in UX/UI.

Format: 70 x 100 cm
Typeface: Resistance by Velvetyne and students from ENSAD
Printing: screen printing on cardboard (3 colors)
Project type: student

Re-injection into the public space:

The graphic works were eventually placed next to the piles of cardboard. As a result, residents found themselves faced
with a new disruptive element during their walks in the city. In this way, we succeeded, akin to the reference Dark Pattern,
in directing attention towards something the person had not initially anticipated.

This reflects our tendencies to develop reflexes after prolonged and repeated use (in this case, the stacks of cardboard
we are accustomed to seeing every week), which we disrupt with this graphic element.