We demonstrate the manipulative potential of haptics (‘Dark Haptics’) for the future of advertising in eXtended Reality (XR). Our demonstration showcases two haptic and one pseudo-haptic interactions as a XR-based advertising strategy that can subtly manipulate user actions in this dark future of advertising work. Developed in Unreal Engine 5.5 for the Meta Quest 3, this single-user Virtual Reality experience presents an initial exploration of the manipulative qualities of haptics design that can be exploited within immersive environments. By highlighting these dark design patterns, our demonstration aims to raise awareness and initiate discussion around the ethical implications of haptic feedback for the future of work in immersive environments, particularly within advertising. Our work lays the groundwork for future research and development of tools to mitigate the potential harms and risks of dark haptics as immersive technologies become more integrated into professional and commercial environments.

Mobile user interfaces abundantly feature so-called ‘dark patterns’. These deceptive design practices manipulate users’ decision making to profit online service providers. While past research on dark patterns mainly focus on visual design, other sensory modalities such as audio and touch remain largely unexplored. In this early work, we investigate the manipulative side of haptics, which we term as ‘Dark Haptics’, as a strategy to manipulate users. We designed a study to empirically showcase the potential of using a dark haptic pattern in a mobile device to manipulate user actions in a survey. Our findings indicate that our dark haptic design successfully influenced participants to forego their privacy after experiencing an alarming feedback for rejecting intrusive requests in the survey. As a first exploration of manipulative qualities of dark haptic designs, we attempt to lay the groundwork for future research and tools to mitigate harms and risks of dark haptics.