Artwork: Laurent Hrybyk
If you are not familiar with the term, Dark Patterns are the use of cheap user interface tricks and psychological manipulation to get users to act against their own best interests. User Experience consultant Chris Nodder wrote *Evil By Design,* a fantastic book that unpacks how to detect and think about them if you’re interested in this kind of thing.
Subverted design also isn’t beholden design, or simple lack of attention. This phenomenon isn’t even necessarily premeditated.
And right now there are glaring gaps in our methods, our experience, and our team dynamics that let through unethical products. Dan Brown writes in “UX in the Age of Abusability”:
With every one step taken to improve the design of products, the expectations of users and stakeholders take three.
Where do products and processes go wrong? And who is responsible? Joel Califa explains in his article “Subverted Design” how designers are part of this problem:
As a Designer becomes more Senior, they also become more realistic and business-minded, or so the idea goes. These “Senior Designers” understand that a company is a company, and that the money paying your salary has to come from somewhere. Their thinking alignes more closely with PMs and leaders, and that garnered respect. Respect feels good and is generally an indicator that they are on the right track. Project goals became increasingly centered around company needs rather than user needs. Their language changed to better communicate with stakeholders. Words like "polish” and “value” gave way to “adoption” or “engagement” or “platform cohesion.” It’s laughably easy to rationalize that these things are good for users too.
☠️ Here's some food for thought for your day: what if the very way in which we design is bad for the world?
😱 Don Norman says that the way we design today is wrong—a sentiment also voiced by designer Victor Papanek in 1971. So, what are we doing wrong as designers and—more importantly—why are we doing it wrong?
💥 In this video, Don shares his perspective on why designers (often unwittingly) contribute to the problems they could instead fix.