moral design (denver startup week)
DESCRIPTION
Someone recently said, "All good design is moral design, and only moral design can ever be good." As designers we spend our time thinking about things like usefulness, desirability, learnability, or gamification, and are rarely allowed to go up to that highest level and question the moral value of our designs. Questions like, what do our designs encourage in people? What view of the good life does our work encourage? Do our designs cause people to live better or become more human? In this session we'll ask those questions. We'll start by looking at the implicit moral framework existent in popular digital products today, consider better moral frameworks, and talk about the implications. This talk will be equal parts philosophy and design; while it will be moral, it will contain no moralizing. Questions Answered: -What does it look like to design from a specific moral framework? -What is the implicit morality most of us unconsciously bring to our work today? -What do our designs encourage in people? -What view of the good life does our work encourage, and how can we consciously promote one view over another? -Do our designs cause people to live better or become more human, and how could we get better at this?TRANSCRIPT
the things we use change us
80 - 90% of decisions are made subconsciously by trained networks of emotional perception
Emotional Perceptions
Actions
Habits
Desires
External Stimulus
Emotional Perceptions
Actions
Habits
Desires
Design
Design
Desires
80 - 90% of decisions are made subconsciously by trained networks of emotional perception
‘Moral’
Moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior"
How should I act?
What does it mean to live well?
Alex Pang https://www.flickr.com/photos/askpang/9694967999/
Univ
ersa
l Min
d™
Source: Mashable
Everything you touch has the power to change you.
there is no escape from this
Everything you touch has the power to change the things you love.
there is no escape from this
Everything you touch has the power to change the things you do.
there is no escape from this
Everything you touch has the power to change the way you live.
there is no escape from this
Moral DesignRJ Owen @rjowen
Denver Startup Week 2014
Who is this guy anyway?
RJ OWENDirector of User Experience
Universal [email protected] @rjowen
Former DevHost of CreativeMornings:Denver Co-author “The Truth about HTML5”
MORAL DESIGN FRAMEWORKS
The 7 Lamps of Architecture
!
John Ruskin
The 7 Lamps of ArchitectureSacrifice
Truth
Power
Beauty
Memory
Obedience
Doing something well for its own sake
Embrace of difficulty, restriction, and constraint
Tempered and guided by standards
Ornament and decoration
Always moving; never perfect; never finished
Adherence to ancient mastery in design
To the opinions & style of experience
Life
10 Commandments of Good Design!
!
Dieter Rams
should be innovativemakes a product useful
is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
is honestis unobtrusive
is long-lived
is consistent in every detailshould be environmentally friendly
is as little design as possible
10 Commandments of Good Design
Solving for PatternWendell Berry
in The Gift of Good Land
6 Principles
moral design IS Restrained
How much is enough?
How much is too much?
moral design DOESN’T ACCEPT TRADE-OFFS
Are you sustaining or improving harmony in a system, or are you simply “disrupting?”
Do you create new problems in solving others?
moral design IS DYNAMIC, REAL, MESSY
Are you trying to make something too perfect?
Have you tested your ideas with real people?
moral design REQUIRES CRAFTSMANSHIP
Are you failing too fast?
What did you get into this for?
moral design IS HONEST
“Design is a Promise”- Every Designer Ever
What are you promising?
Is it achievable?
Is it articulated?
Will it make people better people?
moral design IS ORGANIC
MORAL DESIGN is ORGANIC
Treat the user, the designer, the brand, and the environment as one organism
What is healthy for one must be healthy for the others; otherwise an imbalance exists and the solution is suspect
MORAL DESIGN is ORGANIC
When you “win”, does your customer win with you?
What’s your exit strategy? Does your user win?
What’s the environmental impact?
moral design IS Restrained doesn’t accept trade-offs is dynamic, real, messy requires craftsmanship is honest IS ORGANIC
IMMoral design IGNORES CONSTRAINTS SOLVES & CREATES PROBLEMS IS OVER-DESIGNED FOCUSES Only on results is Dishonest BENEFITS SOME WHILE HARMING OTHERS
Rethink “effectiveness”
Moral gamification: optimize app for the most pleasure, harmony, joy, peace. Think Stack Overflow. !
Immoral gamification: optimize app for “engagement”, i.e. obsession, addiction, etc. Think Zynga.
UX Deliverables
Map virtuous circles
Customer Hierarchy of Needs
Needs
Wants
Joys
Useful
Usable
Desirable
Useful
Usable
Fulfilling
Source: Kevin O’Connor, UXMag
Personas
Examples
@seamlyco
Yes: this is idealistic. !
YOU’RE A STARTUP.
Works Cited
Sample persona by Kevin O’Connor, in UXMag:
http://uxmag.com/articles/personas-the-foundation-of-a-great-user-experience