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Referenced article: Computers and communication design: exploring the rhetoric of HCI https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/174809.174812

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The gist: There are two types of digital distraction.

The actual and the potential.

Actual distractions are things like notifications and alerts.

Potential distractions are the features a thing has which can provide an escape from a challenging thing we are using it to do.

If someone is using a computer to write an article, and that computer is connected to the internet, the potential escape that the internet can provide will be present in that person's mind.

The more their writing challenges them, the more they will be tempted by the potential for distraction.

E-reader devices can store hundreds of books at a time. This is a feature of convenience, to save space in your bag or home.

For someone reading a challenging book, the easy access to hundreds of other options becomes potential distraction.

It isn't a feature that helps you read a book.

We build an abundance of function and access to information into digital things because we can.

For multi-purpose products, anything that doesn't serve the task being done is still there — attached.

Even if it's invisible, the knowledge it exists becomes a distraction in itself.

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The gist: Standardised "dark patterns" of UX design exist separately from any underlying products. Because "dark" implies otherwise degrees of "light" a sense of free legitimacy is given to products which use them.

Usability is based on a removal of obstacles in a user interface. Any library of user interface components based on non-dark patterns does not care if it is applied to an online casino or a crypto rugpull project.

Every UX design decision which made FTX's apps easier to use turned out to be a dark pattern. Any part of the product which hindered a person's ability to interact with it was a light pattern.

Recognition of standardised dark patterns further disconnects UX design from seeing each product as an individual entity. One software product only resembles other software products because they share the material of computation for their construction, nothing else.

When UX design uses empathy, while not being intertwined with the nature of the product being designed for, it is free to share the same usability techniques between a banking app and a betting app.

UX techniques being disconnected from the nature of the product they are applied to reveals the marketing nature of the role within a commercial context. UX design exploits human psychology under the guise of empathy to sell more effectively.

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The gist: The tech industry has rejected the design process of starting with a purpose and deliberating over ways to satisfy it and, instead, latched on to a model of making the thing first and then deliberating over possible purposes it can satisfy.

A use case is a solution to a problem they wish people had. This means that the use case will always be smaller than the thing that was created in the first place. There will always be additional baggage around the benefits the thing provides for any particular purpose.

The health and emergency benefits of the apple watch serve as a good example because in order to access those benefits you have to buy a device which carries the baggage of ever-connectedness and luxury surveillance.

Even if the use case is virtuous, like the health benefits of the apple watch, it is not the reason the product came into existence. The maker can't be trusted to adopt the importance you may hold for that use case because it would cost them attention to other use cases.

LLMs are a prime example of reverse design deliberation because they exist purely as an invitation to find your own use case. This becomes the fool's errand because any use case you find will inheret the baggage of their problematic creation and continued effects.

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The gist: Software as a service providers leave us to find purpose in their product's collection of features. They escape accountability by only asserting vague purposes like "collaboration" or "productivity"

SaaS products are merging into something that, rather than being an "everything app", is more of a "general app" - made up of individually useful things that become the product's collection of features.

These SaaS products are so general purpose that the marketing language of "productivity", "collaboration", or "communication" translate to "here, see what you can do with this"

Eventually, SaaS products like figma, notion, or slack, will become the same thing under different names or merged together through acquisitions. They are all heading in the same direction, eating each others features.

The side-effect of products so general that the offering amounts to "here, see what you can do with this" is an accountability loophole for the provider. Not responsible for delivering anything particular that you may find it useful for.

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Tech organisations take a concept or thing which began with a sole purpose to benefit people and, through iterative antidesign, turn it into something that is both bad for people and bad for their business.

These things begin in the area of, supposed, human-centered design where the needs of people are the only concern, but within commercial constraints this inevitably leads to a drift toward the inclusion of business concerns.

The concerns of people become shared with the concerns of business. The drift continues as the organisation wants more tangible benefits from the good things they are providing people.

The organisation wants more than a healthy brand impression, they need to see a direct correlation between being good to people and profiting from it.

The need to make "being good for people" a profitable thing puts the quality of the product, and the brand impression, in danger of being eroded in relation to the amount of good that must be sacrificed for the sake of profit.

The inevitable next step to silicon valley greed for hypergrowth is the crossing of the line where the product is so bad for people that it can no longer be ignored. Product and brand are worthless and the benefits to both the people and the business are dead.

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Video also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJuXUpuFOGM

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Video also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_EhTVBR9Js

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Video also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S_hwTKeE8c

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Video also available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBKnOagRXqA

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.