separate-persuasion-from-deceptionlisted

# Separate persuasion from deception Persuasion and deception use the same techniques. Contrast, defaults, sequence and copy are how every good flow guides a decision, and how every bad one takes it. The line is not the technique, it is whether the user's understanding of what they agreed to matches what actually happens. Which is why a design-quality pass makes deception more effective rather than less: polish buys trust, and a misleading default is what spends it. Step 7 is where that gets checked. ## Procedure 1. **Name the stake, or hand the flow back.** What can the user lose here that they cannot easily recover: money they did not agree to spend, data they cannot retrieve, a right they cannot reclaim, a change they cannot undo? Write it in one sentence. Nothing recoverable at risk means this is ordinary design review and not this skill; say so and stop. 2. **Enumerate decision points in order, not screens.** A screen can be blameless while the sequence it belongs to is not, so walk the path instead of judging any single view: click the running flow through, step the frames in their intended order, or read the spec's steps in sequence. For each point where the user chooses, record what they are deciding, what the default is, what each option costs them, and what they have already spent in effort to get there. That last column is what turns a truthful disclosure on the final step into a finding. The record is the working material f