The Design Dilemma: The Dual Impact of Design on Addictions and Behaviors
Design has an inherent power to shape our behavior, influencing how people interact with their environment and all the products we use in our daily lives. Although design can be a powerful tool to make a positive impact, it also has the potential to exacerbate negative tendencies, especially when it comes to addictions and dangerous behaviors. January is supposed to be an alcohol-free month (“Dry January”). I wanted to talk about addictions in general and explore the dual role of design, examining both its potential to mitigate and incite these challenges.
It is no secret that the recent years have been challenging for everyone — as an example, this can be seen in companies where employee happiness is not measured only by the level of their salaries but also by their well-being in their job and company. Mental well-being is also a notion that is being discussed more and more in mainstream media and discussions, often to say that TikTok fuels anxiety and depression or that video games incite violent behaviors. We can challenge these assumptions made to fuel hatred against younger generations — purely pointless — we should spend more time understanding how these products influence us, in a good or bad way, and uncover how we, designers, could mitigate the bad influence and boost the beneficial effects.
Design as a Mitigating Force
User-Centered Design
If you are a designer yourself or are familiar with the industry, you know that we need a solid understanding of the target audience to build any product or service. We might have to design something that can easily be linked to issues such as gambling, screen addiction, alcoholism, or other substance abuse. In this case, it is vital to cultivate empathy for users dealing with these challenges. Conducting comprehensive user research via interviews, surveys, observation, and more will help us gather valuable insights about behaviors, triggers, and requirements they might need.
The final goal for designers should be to come up with a more nuanced understanding of how people will use our product and how they might think, act, or react to the experiences we are building for them. If we think about it, our role is not only to design a beautiful product, but it is also to have a positive impact on people’s lives. Knowing who we are building experiences for and being empathetic towards them contributes positively to their overall well-being.
Gamification for Positive Habits
We can incorporate game-like elements into our designs to enhance the enjoyment and satisfaction of our experiences, encouraging people to return by tapping into their motivations. However, it is important to note that this approach can potentially lead to addictive behaviors, as the addition of unpredictability or scarcity in our product can have an impact. Without going into excessive detail, we can utilize the Octalysis gamification framework, although there are other valid options available as well.
To provide a quick overview of the framework, it is built upon 8 “Core Drives” or sensations: meaning, accomplishment, empowerment, ownership, social influence, scarcity, unpredictability, and avoidance. Each of these drives can be addressed by incorporating specific features into our product that satisfy these core motivations. For example, badges and progress bars can fulfill the need for accomplishment, while a narrative can provide more meaning. Additionally, the framework can be further categorized into left/right brain core drives and white and black hat gamification (which is the focus here).
As mentioned earlier, this framework presents two approaches to gamification. The White Hat approach concentrates on positive sensations to assist users in achieving their goals. This is accomplished through the use of badges, leaderboards, high-fives, milestones, and various other methods. On the other hand, the Black Hat approach primarily utilizes borderline sensations to motivate users to engage with a product, employing techniques such as progress loss, random rewards, and countdown timers.
To create a product with a positive impact, it is important to consider both approaches. Utilizing Black Hat drives is not inherently “bad.” As Yu-kai Chou, a gamification expert and the designer of this framework, stated: “These are just motivators and they can be used for productive and healthy results or malicious and manipulative ones”.
If we conduct research correctly, meaning that we have continuously updated insights about our users, we can identify which Core Drives will help them achieve their goals. We can also select these drives based on business needs, user behaviors and requirements, and the specific product we are designing.
Honest Design
When discussing designing for a positive impact, one important aspect to consider is transparency and honesty. It is common for certain pieces of information to be hidden or removed to influence the user’s decision regarding an action on our product. In cases where the information is not hidden, it is often deliberately made difficult to find, which can be likened to Dark Patterns.
To improve user experience, we can all be more empathetic by including disclaimers, using plain language explanations, and providing guidance in our products. This approach not only helps users from diverse backgrounds (including those dealing with addictions or who are neurodivergent, as well as individuals who may not be proficient in a particular language), but also benefits the company by offering a transparent and user-friendly service.
Design as an Inciting Force
Dark Patterns and Manipulation
Dark patterns, or deceptive patterns, are hard to identify. Sometimes, we might not even be aware that we are designing or being subjected to one. They intend to manipulate users, leading them to do things they didn’t mean to or to engage in addictive or dangerous behaviors.
If we refer back to the Octalysis framework, some Core Drives exploit Dark Patterns and the FOMO (“Fear Of Missing Out”). This can include notifications inviting you to check what someone recently posted or not miss out on a trending hashtag, for instance. Social platforms heavily rely on these tactics because their business model is based on users returning so they can present ads. Games also use similar tactics by telling you that your health has been fully restored or that an event is about to end. While these patterns may not fuel drug consumption or alcoholism, they contribute to screen addiction and constantly divert our attention from what we are doing.
For example, during the last week of December 2023 (excluding Messages because I actively communicate with friends and family), I received 306 notifications from 6 different apps, with 5 of them being social platforms. One app dedicated to star-gazing actively uses FOMO to send notifications about astronomical events happening in my area. I received approximately 840 notifications during that week in total, which is an average of 5 notifications per hour. Out of these 840 notifications, about 40% of them were from social platforms. This is one example of how notifications constantly grab our attention and fuel our fear of being “left out” of what is happening — should it matters or not.
There are multiple dark patterns, and some of them are listed on this website. It is important for designers to be aware of their existence and to challenge what they are designing. Even if it is required “for the business,” there are multiple ways to monetize a service that is more ethical or at least less “shady”.
Engaging but Harmful Design Elements
Why do we like social platforms? They help us connect with loved ones and people who share our interests. We share posts about events we attended, meals we enjoyed with friends, and stories from trendy bars. Algorithms collect all of these posts and build our profile based on our interests and what others with similar interests like. Without realizing it, we can quickly find ourselves in a filter bubble or echo chamber. We mostly see things that align with our preferences and ways of thinking, which can be dangerous because we are not exposed to different opinions or opposing viewpoints.
Large groups often form around specific topics on social platforms, with discussions all going in the same direction and sharing similar content. This perpetuates the cycle and only reaches those who are already interested. I believe designers can have some impact on this by providing users with the necessary information and practicing Honest Design. However, changing the way algorithms work is a difficult task, akin to moving a mountain. Instead, we can educate users about the potential harm and equip them with resources. Concerning this topic, the Community Notes from X (formerly Twitter) can help identify fraudulent or fake content often shared in filter bubbles on the platform.
Empathetic designers
Designers have an additional responsibility: our users’ digital well-being. This is a significant duty that affects multiple individuals, each with their own lives and challenges. Design can help users address the issues they may encounter, but it can also contribute to those problems. We must be aware of this and strive to provide the best possible user experience while also considering the business aspect.
Transforming the design industry will not happen overnight, but we can make an effort to incorporate more empathy into our design process. Building a research repository can positively impact our outputs. I firmly believe that well-being, both mental and digital, will increasingly play a prominent role in our profession. I hope that this topic will receive more attention when developing digital products.
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