publications | Johanna T. Gunawan

2026

CHI

Dark Patterns and the EU Digital Services Act: Mapping Autonomy Violations and Design Factors

Sanju Ahuja, Johanna Gunawan, Nataliia Bielova, and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, , Barcelona, Spain, , 2026

@inproceedings{ahuja-2026-chi,
  title = {Dark Patterns and the EU Digital Services Act: Mapping Autonomy Violations and Design Factors},
  author = {Ahuja, Sanju and Gunawan, Johanna and Bielova, Nataliia and Santos, Cristiana},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {Association of Computing Machinery},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
  location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Barcelona</city>, <country>Spain</country>, </conf-loc>},
  series = {CHI '26},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3772318.3791479},
}

CHI Workshops

[Workshop] Bridge Over Troubled Water: Aligning Commercial Incentives with Ethical Design Practice to Combat Deceptive Patterns

Thomas Essmeyer, Johanna Gunawan, Colin M. Gray, and 8 more authors

In CHI 2026 Workshops, 2026

Bib

@inproceedings{mildner-2026-chiworkshop,
  title = {[Workshop] Bridge Over Troubled Water: Aligning Commercial Incentives with Ethical Design Practice to Combat Deceptive Patterns},
  author = {Essmeyer, Thomas and Gunawan, Johanna and Gray, Colin M. and Seaborn, Katie and Sandhaus, Hauke and Sanchez, Lorena and Roffarello, Alberto Monge and Lukoff, Kai and Savino, Gian-Luca and Chivukula, Sruthi Sai and Nakamura, Satoshi},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {CHI 2026 Workshops}
}

CHI Workshops

[Research Statement] Do AI-Enabled Website Builders Dream of Dark-Patterned Sheep? Understanding AI-Enabled Design Tools

Johanna Gunawan, Shashank Chakravarthy, and Hannes Westermann

In CHI’26 Workshop: The AI Accomplice: Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence in Facilitating and Amplifying Deceptive Designs, 2026

Bib

@inproceedings{gunawan-2026-acai,
  title = {[Research Statement] Do AI-Enabled Website Builders Dream of Dark-Patterned Sheep? Understanding AI-Enabled Design Tools},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Chakravarthy, Shashank and Westermann, Hannes},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {CHI'26 Workshop: The AI Accomplice: Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence in Facilitating and Amplifying Deceptive Designs}
}

CHI Workshops

[Position Paper] Exploring the “Banality” of Deception in Generative AI

Ishitaa Narwane, Johanna Gunawan, and Konrad Kollnig

In CHI’26 Workshop: The AI Accomplice: Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence in Facilitating and Amplifying Deceptive Designs, 2026

Bib

@inproceedings{narwane-2026-acai,
  title = {[Position Paper] Exploring the ``Banality'' of Deception in Generative AI},
  author = {Narwane, Ishitaa and Gunawan, Johanna and Kollnig, Konrad},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {CHI'26 Workshop: The AI Accomplice: Exploring Generative Artificial Intelligence in Facilitating and Amplifying Deceptive Designs}
}

2025

JURIX

Can LLMs Create Legally Relevant Summaries and Analyses of Videos?

Lyra Hoeben-Kuil, Gijs Dijck, Jaromir Savelka, and 6 more authors

In , 2025

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{hoebenkuil-2025-jurix,
  author = {Hoeben-Kuil, Lyra and van Dijck, Gijs and Savelka, Jaromir and Gunawan, Johanna and Kollnig, Konrad and Kolacz, Marta and Duffourc, Mindy and Chavravarthy, Shashank and Westermann, Hannes},
  year = {2025},
  title = {Can LLMs Create Legally Relevant Summaries and Analyses of Videos?},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.13772},
  publisher = {Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems}
}

IPR

Leveraging Interdisciplinary Methods for Evidence Collection in Enforcement: Dark Patterns as a Case Study

Johanna T. Gunawan, Colin M. Gray, Cristiana Santos, and 1 more author

In Internet Policy Review Special Issue: The Craft of Interdisciplinary Research and Methods in Public Interest Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Digital Rights Governance, Nov 2025

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{gunawan-2025-ipr,
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna T. and Gray, Colin M. and Santos, Cristiana and Bielova, Nataliia},
  title = {Leveraging Interdisciplinary Methods for Evidence Collection in Enforcement: Dark Patterns as a Case Study},
  year = {2025},
  month = nov,
  publisher = {Internet Policy Review},
  booktitle = {Internet Policy Review Special Issue: The Craft of Interdisciplinary Research and Methods in Public Interest Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Digital Rights Governance},
  series = {IPR'25 Special Issue},
  url = {https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/interdisciplinary-methods-dark-patterns},
}

MobileHCI
“An Ad Posing as Medical Advice”: User Accounts of Dark UX in FemTech mHealth Apps

Ghada Alsebayel, Giovanni M Troiano, Johanna Gunawan, and 2 more authors

In Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Sep 2025

Abs DOI Bib HTML

FemTech is an emerging industry offering products, software, and services to support women’s health and well-being. Within FemTech, mobile health applications (mHealth apps) are popular for managing menstruation, fertility, pregnancy, and menopause. Yet, these apps expose users to deceptive and misleading practices, which can be characterized as Dark Patterns in user experience (or dark UX). Dark UX in commercial FemTech mHealth apps is underexplored, leaving a critical gap in understanding how deceptive patterns manifest in intimate health contexts, the harms they cause, and how to address them. We crowd-source and thematically analyze user accounts of dark UX through user reviews from sixteen systematically selected FemTech mHealth apps. User-reported accounts of dark UX in FemTech mHealth apps reveal several problematic design patterns, which emphasize risks for minors and the need for more transparent design of FemTech mHealth apps. Based on our results, we outline recommendations for enhancing ethical UX design and furthering regulatory action in FemTech.
@inproceedings{alsebayel-2025-mobilehci, author = {Alsebayel, Ghada and Troiano, Giovanni M and Gunawan, Johanna and Saksono, Herman and Harteveld, Casper}, title = {“An Ad Posing as Medical Advice”: User Accounts of Dark UX in FemTech mHealth Apps}, year = {2025}, month = sep, issue_date = {September 2025}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, volume = {9}, number = {5}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3743736}, doi = {10.1145/3743736}, booktitle = {Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.}, articleno = {MHCI003}, numpages = {34}, keywords = {FemTech, mHealth, Mobile Applications, Women’s Health, Well-Being, Tracking and Monitoring, Dark Patterns, Dark UX, Privacy, Regulations, Mixed Methods, User Reviews} }

DIS

Towards Key Contributing Factors in Identifying Dark Pattern Autonomy Violations under the EU Digital Services Act

Sanju Ahuja, Johanna Gunawan, Nataliia Bielova, and 1 more author

In Proceedings of the 2025 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, , Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, , Jul 2025

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{ahuja-2025-dis,
  author = {Ahuja, Sanju and Gunawan, Johanna and Bielova, Nataliia and Santos, Cristiana},
  title = {Towards Key Contributing Factors in Identifying Dark Pattern Autonomy Violations under the EU Digital Services Act},
  year = {2025},
  month = jul,
  publisher = {Association of Computing Machinery},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2025 Designing Interactive Systems Conference},
  location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Funchal, Madeira</city>, <country>Portugal</country>, </conf-loc>},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3715668.3736336}
}

CHI

Promises, Promises: Understanding Claims Made in Social Robot Consumer Experiences

In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, , Yokohama, Japan, , Jul 2025

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{gunawan-2025-chi,
  title = {Promises, Promises: Understanding Claims Made in Social Robot Consumer Experiences},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Association of Computing Machinery},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
  location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Yokohama</city>, <country>Japan</country>, </conf-loc>},
  series = {CHI '25},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713471},
}

Ind. L. J.

Dark Patterns as Design Loyalty

Johanna Gunawan, Woodrow Hartzog, Neil Richards, and 2 more authors

In Indiana University Law Journal Symposium Issue, Jul 2025

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{gunawan-2025-ilj,
  title = {Dark Patterns as Design Loyalty},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Hartzog, Woodrow and Richards, Neil and Choffnes, David and Wilson, Christo},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Indiana University School of Law},
  booktitle = {Indiana University Law Journal Symposium Issue},
  series = {100 Ind. L. J.},
  volume = {100},
  issue = {4},
  url = {https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11577&context=ilj},
}

PETS

Gig Work at What Cost?: Exploring Privacy Risks of Gig Work Platform Participation in the U.S.

Amogh Pradeep, Johanna Gunawan, Alvaro Feal, and 2 more authors

In Proceedings of 25th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, Jul 2025

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{pradeep-2025-pets,
  title = {Gig Work at What Cost?: Exploring Privacy Risks of Gig Work Platform Participation in the U.S.},
  author = {Pradeep, Amogh and Gunawan, Johanna and Feal, Alvaro and Choffnes, David and Hartzog, Woodrow},
  year = {2025},
  month = jul,
  publisher = {Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of 25th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium},
  series = {PETS'25},
}

2024

ConPro

PROPOSAL: Design Loyalty Approaches for Dark Patterns

Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, and 1 more author

In Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection, Jul 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{gunawan-2024-conpro,
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Choffnes, David and Hartzog, Woodrow and Wilson, Christo},
  year = {2024},
  title = {PROPOSAL: Design Loyalty Approaches for Dark Patterns},
  booktitle = {Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection},
  url = {https://conpro24.ieee-security.org/papers/gunawan-conpro24.pdf},
}

ConPro

PROPOSAL: Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors of LGBTQ+ Community in Turkiye

Devris Isler, and Johanna Gunawan

In Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection, Jul 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{isler-2024-conpro,
  author = {Isler, Devris and Gunawan, Johanna},
  year = {2024},
  title = {PROPOSAL: Privacy Perceptions and Behaviors of LGBTQ+ Community in Turkiye},
  booktitle = {Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection},
  url = {https://conpro24.ieee-security.org/papers/isler-conpro24.pdf},
}

ConPro

PROPOSAL: SoK; Towards Collaborative Evidence Collection in Dark Patterns Enforcement

Cristiana Santos, Johanna Gunawan, Colin Gray, and 1 more author

In Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection, Jul 2024

Bib HTML

@inproceedings{santos-2024-conpro,
  author = {Santos, Cristiana and Gunawan, Johanna and Gray, Colin and Bielova, Nataliia},
  year = {2024},
  title = {PROPOSAL: SoK; Towards Collaborative Evidence Collection in Dark Patterns Enforcement},
  booktitle = {Program of the 8th Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection},
  url = {https://conpro24.ieee-security.org/papers/santos-conpro24.pdf},
}

Wash. U. L. Rev.

Privacy Nicks: How the Law Normalizes Surveillance

Woodrow Hartzog, Evan Selinger, and Johanna Gunawan

In Washington University Law Review, Jul 2024

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{hartzog-2024-wulr,
  title = {Privacy Nicks: How the Law Normalizes Surveillance},
  author = {Hartzog, Woodrow and Selinger, Evan and Gunawan, Johanna},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {Washington University St. Louis School of Law},
  booktitle = {Washington University Law Review},
  series = {101 Wash. U. L. Rev.},
}

2023

CHI Workshops

Position Paper: What Evidence is Needed to Prove the Existence of Dark Patterns?

Johanna Gunawan, Colin M. Gray, Cristiana Santos, and 1 more author

CHI’23 Workshop: Designing Technology and Policy Simultaneously: Towards a Research Agenda and New Practice, Jul 2023

Bib PDF

@article{gunawan-2023-chiworkshop,
  title = {Position Paper: What Evidence is Needed to Prove the Existence of Dark Patterns?},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Gray, Colin M. and Santos, Cristiana and Bielova, Nataliia},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {CHI'23 Workshop: Designing Technology and Policy Simultaneously: Towards a Research Agenda and New Practice},
}

CHI
Understanding Dark Patterns in Home IoT Devices

Monica Kowalczyk, Johanna T. Gunawan, David Choffnes, and 3 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, , Hamburg, Germany, , Jul 2023

Abs DOI Bib HTML PDF

Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are ubiquitous, but little attention has been paid to how they may incorporate dark patterns despite consumer protections and privacy concerns arising from their unique access to intimate spaces and always-on capabilities. This paper conducts a systematic investigation of dark patterns in 57 popular, diverse smart home devices. We update manual interaction and annotation methods for the IoT context, then analyze dark pattern frequency across device types, manufacturers, and interaction modalities. We find that dark patterns are pervasive in IoT experiences, but manifest in diverse ways across device traits. Speakers, doorbells, and camera devices contain the most dark patterns, with manufacturers of such devices (Amazon and Google) having the most dark patterns compared to other vendors. We investigate how this distribution impacts the potential for consumer exposure to dark patterns, discuss broader implications for key stakeholders like designers and regulators, and identify opportunities for future dark patterns study.
@inproceedings{kowalcyzk-2023-chi, author = {Kowalczyk, Monica and Gunawan, Johanna T. and Choffnes, David and Dubois, Daniel J and Hartzog, Woodrow and Wilson, Christo}, title = {Understanding Dark Patterns in Home IoT Devices}, year = {2023}, isbn = {9781450394215}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581432}, doi = {10.1145/3544548.3581432}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems}, articleno = {179}, numpages = {27}, keywords = {UX design, human factors, IoT, dark patterns}, location = {<conf-loc>, <city>Hamburg</city>, <country>Germany</country>, </conf-loc>}, series = {CHI '23}, }

2022

CSLAW
Redress for Dark Patterns Privacy Harms? A Case Study on Consent Interactions

Johanna Gunawan, Cristiana Santos, and Irene Kamara

In Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law, Washington DC, USA, Jul 2022

Abs DOI Bib HTML PDF

Internet users are constantly subjected to incessant demands for attention in a noisy digital world. Countless inputs compete for the chance to be clicked, to be seen, and to be interacted with, and they can deploy tactics that take advantage of behavioral psychology to ’nudge’ users into doing what they want. Some nudges are benign; others deceive, steer, or manipulate users, as the U.S. FTC Commissioner says, "into behavior that is profitable for an online service, but often harmful to [us] or contrary to [our] intent". These tactics are dark patterns, which are manipulative and deceptive interface designs used at-scale in more than ten percent of global shopping websites and more than ninety-five percent of the most popular apps in online services. Literature discusses several types of harms caused by dark patterns that includes harms of a material nature, such as financial harms, or anticompetitive issues, as well as harms of a non-material nature, such as privacy invasion, time loss, addiction, cognitive burdens, loss of autonomy, and emotional or psychological distress. Through a comprehensive literature review of this scholarship and case law analysis conducted by our interdisciplinary team of HCI and legal scholars, this paper investigates whether harms caused by such dark patterns could give rise to redress for individuals subject to dark pattern practices using consent interactions and the GDPR consent requirements as a case study.
@inproceedings{gunawan-2022-cslaw, author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Santos, Cristiana and Kamara, Irene}, title = {Redress for Dark Patterns Privacy Harms? A Case Study on Consent Interactions}, year = {2022}, isbn = {9781450392341}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3511265.3550448}, doi = {10.1145/3511265.3550448}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2022 Symposium on Computer Science and Law}, pages = {181–194}, numpages = {14}, keywords = {data protection infringement, harm, damages, redress, deceptive design, dark patterns, gdpr, consent, policy and law}, location = {Washington DC, USA}, series = {CSLAW '22}, }

EuroUSEC

Exploring Deceptive Design Patterns in Voice Interfaces

In European Symposium on Usable Security, Jul 2022

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{owens-2022-eurousec,
  year = {2022},
  title = {Exploring Deceptive Design Patterns in Voice Interfaces},
  author = {},
  booktitle = {European Symposium on Usable Security},
  url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3549015.3554213},
}

2021

CSCW

A Comparative Study of Dark Patterns Across Mobile and Web Modalities

Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, and 1 more author

, Virtual Event, Canada, Oct 2021

Bib HTML PDF

@article{gunawan-2021-cscw,
  title = {A Comparative Study of Dark Patterns Across Mobile and Web Modalities},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Choffnes, David and Hartzog, Woodrow and Wilson, Christo},
  year = {2021},
  month = oct,
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  location = {Virtual Event, Canada},
  booktitle = {Conference Companion Publication of the 2021 Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing},
  series = {CSCW '21},
  bib = {gunawan-2021-cscw.bib}
}

Seton Hall L. Rev.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Technology Trust Gap

Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, Woodrow Hartzog, and 1 more author

Seton Hall Law Review Symposium Book on Privacy, Healthcare, and Artificial Intelligence, Oct 2021

Bib HTML PDF

@article{gunawan-2021-shlr,
  title = {The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Technology Trust Gap},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Choffnes, David and Hartzog, Woodrow and Wilson, Christo},
  year = {2021},
  journal = {Seton Hall Law Review Symposium Book on Privacy, Healthcare, and Artificial Intelligence},
  volume = {51},
}

MIT SERC

Case Study: The Case of the Nosy Neighbors

Johanna Gunawan, and Woodrow Hartzog

In Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing, Oct 2021

Bib HTML

@incollection{gunawan-2021-nosyneighbors,
  title = {Case Study: The Case of the Nosy Neighbors},
  author = {Gunawan, Johanna and Hartzog, Woodrow},
  year = {2021},
  booktitle = {Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing},
  publisher = {MIT Schwarzman College of Computing},
}

CHI Workshops

Workshop Position Paper: Towards an Understanding of Dark Pattern Privacy Harms

In CHI’21, Oct 2021

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{gunawan-2021-chiworkshop,
  title = {Workshop Position Paper: Towards an Understanding of Dark Pattern Privacy Harms},
  booktitle = {CHI'21},
  booksubtitle = {What Can CHI Do About Dark Patterns?"},
  year = {2021},
}

2020

BKC Medium

Beware of Apps Bearing Gifts in a Pandemic

Woodrow Hartzog, Johanna Gunawan, David Choffnes, and 1 more author

Oct 2020

Bib HTML

@misc{hartzog-2020-bewaregifts,
  title = {Beware of Apps Bearing Gifts in a Pandemic},
  author = {Hartzog, Woodrow and Gunawan, Johanna and Choffnes, David and Wilson, Christo},
  year = {2020},
  booktitle = {Berkman Klein Center Collection on Medium},
}