UX Patterns Guide
21 documented entries 3 anti-pattern checks

Trust, Safety, And Privacy

Consent, privacy, security, sensitive data, reporting, permissions, and safety exits.

Browse all problem families
Pattern index

Compare nearby options before choosing

Open an entry for its decision rule, states, implementation contract, and source trail.

Age gate

Age or age band controls whether users may access content, features, commerce, community interaction, personalization, or data collection.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedEligibility and safety boundary that asks for age, age band, date of birth, verified age, or parent authorization before age-sensitive access, data collection, or content exposure
Test in lab

Audit log

The product must support security investigations, compliance review, legal discovery, privileged-action review, or enterprise governance.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedGoverned audit evidence surface for security, compliance, forensic, and administrative review
Test in lab

Block / mute

Users need to reduce exposure to a person, account, conversation, channel, app, bot, word, topic, or thread.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedPersonal boundary control for reducing or stopping visibility, interaction, contact, and notification exposure from people, accounts, conversations, channels, apps, bots, words, or threads
Test in lab

Consent prompt

The product needs a user's active agreement for optional data use, marketing, research participation, personalization, partner sharing, AI training, or sensitive-data processing.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
standardSpecific opt-in decision for optional data use, participation, communication, sharing, or training
Test in lab

Cookie consent

The product uses cookies, local storage, pixels, tags, SDKs, or similar technologies that are not strictly necessary.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedPurpose-level consent and runtime enforcement model for cookies, local storage, pixels, tags, SDKs, and similar device storage or access
Test in lab

Dangerous-action review

A user, agent, automation, or admin tool is about to execute a high-impact action that can affect money, access, production systems, legal/compliance state, customers, external recipients, sensitive data, or safety.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
emergingPre-execution review of high-impact actions that may affect money, access, production systems, legal status, customers, external recipients, or safety
Test in lab

Dark-pattern consent

A UX review, privacy review, legal review, accessibility review, or support report identifies manipulation in a consent, cookie, marketing, sharing, AI training, or data-use choice.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
7
Trail checked
anti-patternAnti-pattern where consent, cookie, marketing, sharing, or data-use choices are shaped to obtain agreement without a fair, informed, reversible decision
Test in lab

Data export

Users need to download or transfer a copy of account, workspace, personal, product, activity, or organization data.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedUser or administrator workflow for selecting, preparing, securing, downloading, transferring, and verifying data export packages
Test in lab

Delete account

Users can create an account and need a self-serve or direct request path to close it and delete associated data.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
establishedAccount-level closure and associated personal data deletion workflow
Test in lab

Exit this page quickly

The user may be harmed if someone nearby sees them viewing or using the current sensitive service.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
domain-specificPersistent safety escape control for sensitive pages where being seen on the current content could put the user at risk
Test in lab

Hidden destructive account deletion

Auditing a product that supports account creation and may be hiding, obstructing, disguising, or underspecifying account deletion.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
anti-patternAnti-pattern where account deletion or associated data erasure is hidden, disguised, obstructed, or committed without a fair account-level review
Test in lab

Legal acceptance

A user must accept terms of service, conditions of sale, policy documents, service agreements, acceptable-use rules, or legal disclosures before access or transaction completion.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedExplicit agreement gate for terms, conditions, contracts, policies, legal disclosures, or updated service rules before access or transaction commitment
Test in lab

Official-site banner

The service is eligible to identify itself as an official government or public-authority website.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
establishedTop-of-page official identity and secure-connection disclosure for eligible government or public-authority websites
Test in lab

Permission prompt with no context

A product currently asks for device, browser, or app permissions before the relevant feature context exists.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
anti-patternAnti-pattern for platform permission prompts shown without a feature-triggered rationale, fallback, or recovery path
Test in lab

Permission request

A feature needs operating-system, browser, or device authorization to access location, camera, microphone, photos, contacts, notifications, Bluetooth, clipboard, motion sensors, storage access, or another powerful feature.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
standardContextual operating-system or browser permission request for device resources, powerful browser features, private user data, or local capabilities
Test in lab

Permission sharing

Owners or admins need to manage durable access to spaces, sites, repositories, projects, folders, datasets, boards, environments, or sensitive objects.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
6
Trail checked
establishedDurable permission administration for users, groups, roles, inherited access, effective access, and revocation
Test in lab

Privacy settings

Users need ongoing control over personal data collection, saved activity, visibility, app access, device permissions, connected services, data sharing, or personalization.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
establishedDurable privacy-control surface for account, product, device, app-access, activity, visibility, and sharing settings
Test in lab

Report abuse

Users need to flag content, behavior, an account, conversation, listing, repository, ad, or message for policy, abuse, spam, privacy, legal, or safety review.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
establishedReporter-facing safety submission flow for harmful, abusive, illegal, spam, impersonation, or policy-violating content and behavior
Test in lab

Security warning

A threat signal indicates phishing, malware, deceptive site, unsafe download, invalid certificate, insecure connection, mixed-content submission, suspicious redirect, file preview risk, or account-security danger.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
6
Trail checked
standardSecurity-risk warning and safe interruption before unsafe navigation, download, submission, preview, or sensitive action
Test in lab

Sensitive-data reveal

Users need to inspect, copy, verify, rotate, transcribe, or compare a sensitive value that should normally stay masked or redacted.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
5
Trail checked
standardControlled reveal and re-hiding of masked sensitive values, secrets, tokens, credentials, identifiers, or private records
Test in lab

Session timeout

An authenticated session has expired or been terminated while the user was on a protected task.

Type
UI-UX
Sources
4
Trail checked
establishedExpired authenticated-session state and safe return-to-task recovery
Test in lab

Saved items