Sometimes app developers create sneaky strategies to keep you on your phone longer. Other times, they create tools meant to help consumers protect their data or accomplish tasks. These mechanisms are at the heart of research by computer science Professor Peter Story and Becker School of Design & Technology Professor Kat Andler.

The tools developers use to hook consumers are called dark patterns and can include tactics to keep a person playing a game longer, therefore seeing more advertisements and making the developers more money.

“It brings out the passion in people because if you feel like you have been manipulated, you’re going to be pretty upset about that,” says Andler, who prepares her students to recognize dark patterns and think up alternative designs. “You have to know what’s bad to avoid it in the future.”

Thankfully, there are light patterns, or nudges, a tool meant to assist the average person with helpful reminders.

“People live busy lives. They can’t be thinking carefully about every decision every day,” Story says. “The idea is for people with authority to help people make the decisions that are in their best interest.”

Story has studied nudges that encourage people to use protective technologies such as Apple Pay, a mobile payment system that is more secure than using a debit card.

“The protection motivation theory is one type of nudge that provides high-quality information about what you want protection from and what you can do,” Story explains. “I think there’s a lot of strong evidence that that works well.”

Challenge. Change. is produced by Andrew Hart and Melissa Hanson for Clark University. Listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Find other episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.