Dark UX

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Chinese youth use computers at an Internet cafe in Beijing Saturday June 18, 2005. China has the world's second-largest online population - 100 million - after the United States, but addiction to the Internet is increasing. The country's first government-approved clinic geared toward curing Internet addicts, has treated more than 300 addicts since opening last October. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
The article this post is responding to is no longer able to be found, so the hyper-link has been removed to avoid confusion.
The article raises some interesting points if you look past the all too common concerns about internet addiction, namely is there a responsibility to avoid falling into 'Dark UX'?  The idea of dark UX is that people who know certain design tricks such as making specific buttons larger, or changing an animation to make scrolling smoother (i.e. UX designers) can use these tricks to make using an app more mindless and... well addictive is really the only word that comes to mind.  The final parts of the article discuss the role of the UX designer: should there be a sort of expectation to do no harm?  Or should it just be accepted that as they are contractors, they will do what the client asks?

I think that a pseudo Hippocratic oath for UX designers is a nice idea, but not entirely practical.  The job of a UX designer is to make an experience as stream-lined and usable as possible; restricting that by applying a limit to the design quality makes completing that job impossible.  The user's addiction to any given app is the result of the user... using the app, and the purpose of it.  An app that has a base function of providing a real-time connection to the outside world, if well designed, is going to result in a high use rate simply because it will be interesting, engaging, and easy, making it simply a good user design.

Discussion questions:

What limits and regulations would have to be placed on apps so as to prevent them from doing harm? (e.g. Certain colors of blue have been shown to impair sleep quality, would those be outlawed?)

In the case of FaceBook, at what point does it stop being product design, designed in a way to increase revenue, and start being UX design, designed to be a engaging user experience?

How can we prevent internet addiction in our own day to day lives, and encourage it in others? 







Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 18, 2017 at 1:37 PM

    This is just part of the follow-up for reviewing each of our peers blogs: trying to ensure I get a few comments out on everyone's pages. I'm really liking how consistent your posts are; they are concise, always have relevant visuals and a number of discussion questions to follow the responses to the articles. Very easy to navigate, and your use of tags to filter different posts is pretty helpful!

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