Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It

by Mike Monteiro

I intend to show you that design is a political act. What we choose to design and more importantly, what we choose not to design and, even more importantly, who we exclude from the design process—these are all political acts. Knowing this and ignoring it is also a political act, albeit a cowardly one. Understanding the power in our labor and how we choose to use it defines the type of people we are.

As the great Victor Papanek once said, “You are responsible for what you put into the world. And you are responsible for the effects those things have upon the world.”

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

It should freak you out that gangsters can agree on a code of behavior but designers can’t. Crime is more organized than design.

Every human being on this planet is obligated to do their best to leave this planet in better shape than we found it. Everyone on the planet is obligated to respect every other human being on this planet. Designers don’t get to opt out.

The work you bring into the world is your legacy. It will outlive you. It will speak for you. What do you want it to say?

Design does not exist in a vacuum. Society is the biggest system we can impact and everything you do, good and bad, is a part of that system.

An object that is designed to harm people cannot be said to be well-designed, no matter how aesthetically pleasing it might be, because to design it well is to design it to harm others.

If your work is so fragile that it can’t withstand criticism, it shouldn’t exist. The time to kick the tires on what you’ve designed comes before those tires hit the road.

Never throw another designer under the bus to advance your own agenda. This includes public redesigns of someone else’s work, spec work, unsolicited work, and plagiarism.

A designer seeks to build their professional community, not divide it.

A designer keeps their ego in check, knows when to shut up and listen, is aware of their own biases and welcomes having them checked, and fights to make room for those who have been silenced.

Not hiring someone because they’re not a good cultural fit is either elitist, racist, or sexist, or all three.

The world isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as it was designed to work. And we’re the ones who designed it. Which means we fucked up.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

Good leaders should aspire to have their fingerprints all over hard decisions.

“You may be hiring us and that may be your name on the check, but we do not work for you. We’re coming in to solve a problem, because we believe it needs to be solved and it’s worth solving. But we work for the people being affected by that problem. Our job is to look out for them because they’re not in the room. And we will under no circumstances design anything that puts those people at risk.”

“Social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, and is now so entrenched in the lives of young people that it is no longer possible to ignore it when talking about young people's mental health issues.”

We’re no longer pushing pixels around a screen. We’re building complex systems that touch people’s lives, destroy their personal relationships, broadcast words of both support and hate, and undeniably mess with their mental health. When we do our jobs well, we improve people’s lives. When we don’t, people die.

Again, in the abstract, like ride-sharing, the venture capital model isn’t unethical. New companies are risky. New companies need capital. It’s how people behave within these models that’s messed up.

Uber set out to build a tool that democratized access to cars. It ended up building a tool that further impoverished the poor.

The drivers, the riders, and the creators of the app that brought them together all need each other to survive. They should all share the benefits of success equally.

There is no such thing as neutral software. We all bring our own biases to the things we design—our own ethical code, and our own garbage.

The real question isn’t how you’re going to pay your rent or mortgage while working ethically, the real question is why you’d be willing to work unethically in the first place.

Our job isn’t just to make money for ourselves, although we can’t ignore that. Our job isn’t just to make money for those who hire us, although we can’t ignore that either. Our job isn’t just to do work that delights the people who use it, although we can’t ignore that. Ultimately, our job is to do all of those things in equal measure and also in a way that benefits the society that supports us all.

When no one else around you is asking the hard questions, when no one else around you is standing up for the people who entrust their personal information and their relationship statuses to your service… that’s when we need you the most.

A doctor’s ethical code doesn’t ebb and flow depending on what hospital employs them. The code is the code. It needs to be the same with designers. We need to do our job at an ethical level that goes beyond that of the people for whom we work.

A designer’s job is always to look out for society’s best interest. Sadly, at this particular moment in time, Silicon Valley’s goals run counter to that. This is why we need to stay and fight. We have people counting on us. We have more power than we think. Trust me on that.

If this all sounds like more than you bargained for when you decided to become a designer, it may be. Yet here we are. No one prepared us for this. We’re going to need thicker skins. We’re going to need to care about things that didn’t seem important before—which is maybe why we’re in this mess to begin with. We’re going to have to acknowledge our power to affect the things we design.

They lacked a basic understanding of how businesses work, how to research a problem, how to measure the impact of their work, how to present work effectively, and how to take criticism. Not to mention basic shit like how to charge for their work or write an invoice. More

Working ethically is a skill, and it’s a skill that needs to be taught and then developed.

The biggest problem, by far, is they confuse solving design problems with personal expression.

Not to shit on art schools—they’re a fine place to learn how to make art; but art has as much in common with design as a lobster has with a carrot cake.

Anyone who wants a career as a designer is going to need to speak about someone’s business and organizational goals. They’re going to have to learn how to analyze data, and how to measure effectiveness. They’re going to have to learn how to build and extend brands and to do goal-driven work. Most of all, they need to learn how to measure the effectiveness of their own work. Not only for the company, but more importantly for society at large. Design is not about expressing yourself. Design is not about following your dream. Design is not about becoming a creative. Design is about keeping people from doing terrible things to other people.

We need to build designers who understand their job is not to be a pair of hands, but to be society’s gatekeepers. We need to train designers who aren’t afraid to ask why and say no.

I’ve seen plenty of creative people’s careers derail because they couldn’t manage their shit. They couldn’t present their work effectively. They couldn’t speak about project goals. They couldn’t elicit or respond to feedback. They didn’t know to ask why, and they were afraid to say no. I want you to manage your shit. Because no matter how good a designer’s work is, at some point they’re going to have to have to stand in front of someone who can fire them and keep them from doing something stupid. That’s the day you actually become a designer.

The truth is that design, when it comes to digital products, is a team sport. Designing a complex tool well takes people from a lot of different fields. Be they engineers, strategists, developers, or yes, designers.

“Anyone who influences what the design becomes is the designer. This includes developers, PMs, even corporate legal. All are the designers.”

Engineers design things all the time. What a professional designer brings to the act is intention. But in order to do that, the designer needs to behave intentionally. Designers are dead. Long live design.

Today’s designers need to be systems thinkers, experts in regulation, collaborators, communicators, and fearless. We need to understand our job is to be advocates for the people who aren’t in the room. We need to understand we have a greater responsibility to society than to the people who sign the checks. The age of creatives is over. It led us to a garbage fire. The age of gatekeepers is at hand.

Today’s designer needs to encourage collaboration between people with different skill sets and experiences. She includes the people who need to be included in the design process, especially the ones who’ve been excluded in the past. She does this with authority. With agency. With good communication. And with conviction.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

We have to be ready for any tool we build to have a global impact. But even if it only impacts the area around you, chances are it is going to, hopefully, reach people who are different from you. People who have different needs, different abilities, different cultures, different languages, different experiences, different tastes.

Why should you listen to me? You shouldn’t. You should listen to all the women out there telling you their stories of harassment in the workplace. You should listen to all the black people who can’t get inside the door because they’re not a “culture fit.” If you’re lucky enough that this industry was built in your image, realize how lucky you are.

I tell you this without reservation: men have no problem interrupting women all over the world. We absolutely suck at it, me included. You’re probably thinking, like I have many times, “Sure, but it’s not because I’m a guy. It’s because I’m me.” Let me reassure you, it’s because you’re a guy. Because throughout the workshop, I’ll keep my eye on the dudes interrupting women and they’re not interrupting the men who come up to present.

And for the love of god, don’t ask to touch your black coworkers’ hair.

The people affected by our actions are always more important than our intent.

This is where my hope comes from. I believe the people coming up after us will do a better job than we did. I believe that, as a 51-year-old white male living in America, my job is to clear the path for the voices I’ve silenced either knowingly or unknowingly. I cannot be a good ally because I’ve benefitted too much from the world I was born into. Regardless of whether I wanted those benefits or not, I got them.

Earn your death by making room for the generation behind you. Might they fuck it up as well? Of course. But you already have. They still have a chance.

If you want to truly do good work, you’re better off applying your ethical framework to your day job. If