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

by Mike Monteiro

Ethics cannot be a side hustle.

Doing good work isn’t a matter of location. It’s a matter of craft and a matter of responsibility. If you want to do good work, start doing it at your day job. Start asking questions about what you’re building.

We need people who are willing to look at a product lead and say, “I will absolutely, under no circumstances, build a tool to share our users’ banking data, relationship data, or medical data.” We

Good work cannot be done in situations where the work is to hurt people, deceive them, or manipulate them.

Manipulate them? Holy shit, did I just throw the entire advertising industry under the bus? Yeah, I did. Well, hold off. Not entirely. If someone needs an oven and you convince them to buy yours instead of your competitor’s without lying to them about what your oven is capable of doing, or what your competitor’s is not capable of doing, by all means advertise it that way.

Here’s the important part: nothing that I just described is hard or expensive. Find a place with good leadership. Find a place that wants to listen to what you have to say. Find a place filled with people you want to collaborate with you, and people you’re willing to collaborate with. If you’re reading this and you run a company? Running that kind of place should be your goal. Like I said, it’s not hard or expensive.

We’ve all been in spots where we’ve done things that were ethically questionable. We’re human beings; we’re messy. For example, I think we can all agree that stealing is wrong, yet none of us would hesitate to steal the proverbial loaf of bread to keep our families from starving. The problem comes when theft goes from being an emergency method to stave off starvation to the primary means through which you earn your income. Throughout

This is not the path to respect. It is not the path to a long career. This is a path to a career doing short stints of shame work. I get it. You

Like Dr. Kelsey, you were hired to do a job. You were hired for your judgment. You were hired to look out for the people affected by your work, no matter what pressure you might be getting to do otherwise. You were not hired to do someone’s bidding. You were not hired to be someone else’s hands. You were not hired to green-light someone else’s work without a second thought.

The point isn’t to aim for a certain percentage though. The point is to foster an environment where different viewpoints are not just welcomed, but encouraged. When women apply here, they see themselves reflected in who’s interviewing them, making this feel like a more welcoming place.

As designers, we are tasked with solving the problems of the world. The more we and those we look up to reflect the face of the world around us, the better our solutions will be. If we continue to behave like it’s a white man’s world, we’re not only doing ourselves a disservice, we’re doing our society a disservice.

Very early on in our company’s life, we decided we could no longer work with early-stage startups, even if they had a good reason for what they were building, and could answer the money question. The reasons may relate back to the solitary genius issue. We were getting calls from people who had a fully formed idea in their head, and they were looking for someone to take that idea, which was already real to them, and make it real for others.

Believing you have a great idea is good, knowing your idea is great is even better. If you’re afraid of having those tires kicked, it’s because you know there’s something wrong or you’re afraid there’s something wrong. So, beware of someone who doesn’t want you to look behind the curtain, kick the tires, and have their assumptions tested. All of those things are part of your job. Helping people realize shitty ideas in order to preserve their ego is an equally shitty way to earn a living.

The goal of feedback isn’t to find out if people like what you made. We already discussed that. “I like it” isn’t good feedback. It’s shitty feedback. It contains exactly zero information. “This right here is broken” is good feedback. It tells you there is a problem. You can explore that further. Ask the person how it’s broken. Keep digging until you get to the root of what the problem is, and then fix it.

The work we do lives in the world. We make it. It affects the people who come in contact with it. It’s our solemn duty to make sure it’s well thought out, beneficial, and as free from error as possible once it’s in their hands. Even then, we owe them vigilance.

Ultimately, the success we crave isn’t our own. It’s the success of the people we work for. The ones on the ground. We want the work we do to be successful for them. That’s the job.

Hopefully, we can also agree on this: we shouldn’t be designing platforms that enable, much less promote or profit from, bullying.

Like about twenty percent of the world, I have to deal with it. (I’m lucky enough to have access to care when I need it.) One of my warning signs is when I can’t tell the difference between a big problem and a small problem. My brain stops prioritizing. Every problem comes at me as exactly the same size.

Society simply can’t afford for your business to make money without regard to the impact it has on the environment.

Society simply can’t afford for your business to make money without regard to the impact it has on our mental well-being.

Dark patterns are Level 1 shit. That’s the level of the video game where you learn how the character moves, how far you can jump, and how the world is laid out. If you can’t succeed at this level, you don’t get to go to Level 2.

Designers should be able to write their own interface language.

I write a bunch of form labels on the whiteboard, in a nonsensical order, along with a bunch of randomly sized input boxes. I include first name, last name, address, gender, city, state, email address, etc. Then I tell the interviewee that we’re designing a form to sign up for an email newsletter and to arrange them in the right order. Only people who ask me why I need the users’ gender, or physical address, or really, anything but their email address get a second interview. I won’t hire a designer who doesn’t ask why, and I won’t hire a designer whose desire to arrange boxes is more important than their desire to protect users’ data.

The data we collect from users should be the absolute bare minimum in order to do the thing we are telling them is happening. The thing we are telling them is happening needs to be what’s actually happening. If you want more of their data to do something else later, you need to tell the user. If you, as the designer, don’t know what that something else is, do not let it make it onto the interface.

So, no. You cannot collect lots of extra data just in case.

So no, asking people for their names is not an easy question. Your name is your identity. Identity is a choice.

Maybe race will be easier to discuss than names. I almost couldn’t finish that sentence! Look, if you’re going to ask people for their race, ask yourself what the worst people in the world would do with that information.

You do not have to build WhitePowerBob5000 a platform.

There’s a concept called an Overton window, which describes what we’re willing to discuss or tolerate over time—or as the window opens or closes. What was once unthinkable (window closed) such as putting children in cages or constant surveillance or a president breaking with standards of decorum, slowly becomes policy (window open) as we get used to new behavior.

Many of the design practices in this chapter can even live in murky legal waters. Is it legal? I don’t care. Our question is whether it’s ethical, and the law often drags far behind what’s ethical. Is it legal to stalk someone for five minutes after they’ve used your app? Actually, in some places it is, and in some places it’s not. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s wrong.

This arranging of pixels is one of the first things we learn to do as designers. Sadly, for many of us, the job ends where it begins—by gaining expertise and mastery over the smallest unit of measurement in design. Pushing a pixel is the absolute least you can accomplish as a designer.

That’s when I understood. A lot of designers equate designing with the pushing of pixels. (So do the people who hire us.) We equate our power with the ability to move this tiniest of units into proper and pleasing placements. We still believe this to be our one true purpose. This, and only this, is design work. Thus everything I was currently doing wasn’t design work, but rather things keeping me from doing true design work. We’ve also been taught to persuade people by how well we can position pixels. (Let your work speak for you!) When people push back on our solutions, we react by pushing pixels to other new places, as if persuasion happens at the pixel level. We equate our jobs with aesthetics and while aesthetics are certainly a component of design, they’re truly just a small component. A tiny bit. The smallest bit possible. We need to care much more about the effects of our work than the cleverness of our pixel positioning. If we want to truly influence what we’re designing, and to have

say in how things are truly designed, not to mention who we affect, we need to expand our understanding of what design means. We need to expand what we’re capable of affecting, from tiny little dots to people’s minds. To design is to influence. The important work won’t get done at the pixel level. A pixel is just a point of proof in the stage of execution. It’s the period at the end of the sentence. That sentence though? That’s the important thing. To design is to influence people. To design is to build new connections in people’s minds. To design is to build relationships where there previously weren’t any. True design decisions are made face-to-face. They are made in meetings where you need to be. They are made in the hallways you need to patrol. They are made when people interact with each other. The first design decision on your project was made when a budget was allocated. Sadly, a lot of design decisions get made in places that haven’t granted you access—yet. We need to change that.

I also need to tell you why the work is good, to walk you through all its aspects, and to explain to you how I reached the conclusion that the work is good. My confidence in the work then passes from me to you and puts that work one step closer to helping the people it’s intended to help. My confidence isn’t for my benefit or even my boss’s benefit, it’s for the people’s benefit. When we see them as the reason for our confidence, then humility isn’t just expensive, it’s also selfish. How dare you allow your fear to keep people from being helped.

Our profession needs to be willing to speak truth to power. We need to say no, ask why, and check receipts. We need to advocate for the people who aren’t in the room and stand up to those who are. That’s the job. We must be engaged in the process of what gets designed way before it enters the phase we’ve traditionally (and erroneously) thought of as design. We’re going to need to raise our voices.

None of this can happen if we’re being humble. Humility is a trait we simply don’t have the luxury of entertaining. T...

Cockiness is about ego. It means I don’t think I have to do any of those things. Cockiness got us to the garbage fire we find ourselves in today.

There are more jobs out there; don’t let a job stop you from doing something worthwhile with your life.

If you want to have a say in what’s being designed you need to be in the room where design decisions are being made. By design decisions, I mean things like metrics, strategy, outcomes, definitions, timelines, and resources. All of those things will influence what is being designed a million times more than where pixels ultimately get placed.

Let’s deal with the real reason we don’t ask to be in these conversations. They are boring. At least, they’re often boring. I get that. You’d rather be doing something else. You’d rather be pushing pixels around on your giant monitor while listening to the new War on Drugs on your expensive headphones. I would too. But then shit hits our desk. We look through it. We partially understand it. We may even want to discuss it, which is more difficult now because all the decision-makers will tell you the time for discussion came and went. So, we roll our eyes and we execute it. That’s a shitty way to do the job. We’re gatekeepers, remember? Mind the gate.

In my presentation workshop, I have participants get up to do five-minute presentations. I’ve started assigning one of the participants to get up at the one-minute mark, and walk out the door. After the presentation is over, they come back in, and tell us what they heard. It’s usually nothing of value.

There’s a metaphor used in journalism called the inverted pyramid. In short, you give the most important information at the very beginning, increase the details as, or if, the reader continues reading the article, and then finish up with relevant background.

So, the next time you want to convince people they’re making shitty software that might get people killed, start by telling them they’re making shitty software that might get people killed. Then tell them why. Then tell them how you can keep that from happening.

The higher you climb the design ladder and the closer you get to where decisions are being made, the more important people skills are going to be.

Yes, this is all design. The person who convinces the boss that you need more time for research has done more to influence the design of the product than the person placing the pixels by a long shot.

“I listen to people and provide them with what they need. I listen to what they’re not saying and provide them with that as well, or at least have it in hand, if that’s what they actually wanted. I unblock things. I help people find the people they need in order to get the thing they need done, done. But I don’t see any of that as building alliances. What they need from me, or from each other, in one instance will not be what (or who) they need next time. I embed myself by becoming the warp to people’s weft.”

DON’T KNOW”

Also, you need to follow that up with something like, “I’m excited to find out,” or, “Give me until the end of the day/week to look into it,” and make sure you do.

Why? Because people are not data-driven mammals. People make decisions based on feelings and emotion more than they make decisions based on data. I’m guilty of this myself.

Like any good designer, I work with data. If you’re designing something for people to use and no one can use it, that’s data. You’d be a fool to ignore the data. If I’m hired to fix a system that’s been in place for a few years, I’ve probably got a few years of data to study, and I’d be an idiot to ignore it. (Just like parents would be idiots to ignore decades of data on measles vaccines.) While you’re designing, you’re like a scientist. You study every data point. It’s the smart thing to do. Then you gotta persuade people the work is right. Hold onto your butts…