If Deceptive Patterns are the problem, are Fair Patterns the solution?

Researchers and legislators increasingly worry about deceptive patterns: common tricks on websites and in apps that make users do things they did not intend to do (previously: dark patterns). If these deceptive patterns are a problem, could “fair patterns” be the solution? We highlight several caveats to this approach. First, it is not obvious what it means for a design pattern to be fair. What is fair depends on the context and even within the same context, people disagree on what fairness means. Moreover, one fair design element does not guarantee a fair overall design. Combining these objections, it may be inappropriate to call a design pattern fair. Second, not all problems are adequately addressed by interventions at the design level. If all possible choices are unfair, design alone cannot make the situation fair. Societal problems must be solved at a societal scale, although design can contribute through incremental improvements. Progress in interface design does not need the concept of fairness: empirically informed solutions for specific problems appear more practical.