I work in ‘user experience’ design. Despite what it sounds like, we don’t actually design experiences. We design for experience. We use products and services to choreograph the minds of other people, often at scale. Unfortunately, a lot of user experience designers use this skill to coerce sales, whip votes, maximize screen time, or worse. I love this work, but I have to admit, our methods have many blindspots and can easily be used to exploit people.
Wonderful piece. Definitely whenever I use single use plastic I think about how this has been optimized for my few seconds of enjoyment and in total disregard for the centuries of consequence for living systems.
I guess the cynic in me fears that without these other life systems being represented economically this type of design will stay in the fringe—because what is profitable is to optimize for the paying user.
Wonderful piece. Definitely whenever I use single use plastic I think about how this has been optimized for my few seconds of enjoyment and in total disregard for the centuries of consequence for living systems.
I guess the cynic in me fears that without these other life systems being represented economically this type of design will stay in the fringe—because what is profitable is to optimize for the paying user.
Great piece, Jay!