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DOC • How design is governance

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Summary

This article explores the idea of design as governance and how it impacts user experience. It uses a cafe example to illustrate how design choices can have a negative effect on the customer experience and how implementing principles of calm technology can help create an environment that is conducive to self-governance. It further goes on to discuss the role of designers and how their design philosophies shape the interactions between users of digital products. Finally, the article introduces the launch of a Calm Technology standards body as a way to create products and services that offer value for customers for a lifetime.

Q&As

What is design governance?
Design governance is the processes, systems, and principles through which a group, organization, or society is managed and controlled.

How does design shape customer's interactions with products?
Design shapes customer's interactions with products by defining what is possible or at least highly encouraged within the context of the product, as well as what is discouraged.

How can design optimize for a goal other than just engagement?
Design can optimize for a goal other than just engagement by using Calm Technology principles, which optimize for the right information at the right time, a sense of flow, and pass-through.

What is the role of designers in creating digital products?
The role of designers in creating digital products is to scope the product to maximize engagement, prioritize the needs of a subset of stakeholders, and create an architecture that enables users to self-govern in an efficient and effective way.

What are the principles of Calm Technology?
The principles of Calm Technology are flow, pass-through, and optimizing for the smallest possible amount of attention without disrupting the user's environment or current task.

AI Comments

👍 This article provides an interesting and comprehensive look at the concept of design as governance, from a cybernetics perspective. It provides great examples of how the principles of Calm Technology can help create an environment that enables users to self-govern in an efficient and effective way.

👎 This article is quite lengthy and can be difficult to follow. Additionally, some of the concepts discussed can be complex and difficult to understand without prior knowledge of the topics.

AI Discussion

Me: It talks about how design is a form of governance. It shares the example of a coffee shop, and how the design of the cafe was not conducive to the needs of the customers. It touches on the idea of implicit feudalism in digital products, and how designers can use calm technology principles to improve the user experience.

Friend: That's really interesting. It makes me think about how user experience and design decisions have a much bigger impact than we think. It's not just about making something look good, but also about how it functions and impacts users.

Me: Right. The article talks about how designers are essentially making decisions on behalf of customers, even if they don't realize it. It also mentions how designers are often limited by timelines and other factors and can't always do research or make decisions with the customer in mind.

Friend: Yeah, that's definitely true. It's really easy to forget about the user when you're focused on other things. I think it's important for designers to think about how their design decisions will impact the user experience, and to keep the customer in mind when making decisions.

Action items

Research the principles of Calm Technology and how they can be applied to design.
Reach out to the Metagovernance Project, Michael Zargham, and James Au to learn more about their work and how it relates to design as governance.
Join the Calm Technology standards body to contribute to the development of a culture that values pass-through over junk engagement.

Technical terms

DOC: A new experimental publication by the team behind the UX Collective.
DAO/Nation: A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a type of digital organization or network that is run through a set of smart contracts on a blockchain. A DAO Nation is a DAO that is organized as a nation-state, with its own laws, government, and citizens.
UX Collective: A digital publication and community focused on user experience design.
Michel Foucault: A French philosopher and historian who wrote about the concept of governance and how it structures the field of action for others.
Cybernetics: The study of communication and control systems in both machines and living things.
Donella Meadows: An American environmental scientist and systems thinker who wrote the book “Thinking in Systems”.
Nathan Schneider: A media studies professor who wrote about the concept of implicit feudalism.
Calm Technology: A design philosophy that focuses on creating technology that is unobtrusive and minimizes disruption to the user’s environment.