Task 10: Attention Economy
This concept of Dark Patterns is no surprise when we see the culture of media in today’s society. As Brignull (2011) mentions in his article regarding Dark Patterns, humans use it to control, manipulate and profit from each other. Certainly, when designing a particular program or application there is an intention behind it. It is evident that for many social media applications, the intent is to profit financially. As Tristan Harris (2017), founder of the Center of Humane Technology, says, there are ethics involved behind the creation of these applications and digital tools. There is a major influence of marketing that is occurring when we click on certain web spaces and applications. The algorithms that save what we like are then used as marketing strategies to appear in our next searches and web spaces explored.
This task to explore User InyerFace, was very counter intuitive. At the start, it was very frustrating, as things did not appear user friendly. I think I restarted about 5 times and with each attempt, found a few more ways to get a few more steps further. Unfortunately, I did not complete the game and was stuck at the portion that kept indicating a “Lock out.” The counter intuitive strategy was effective in making me slow down and read things more carefully (eg. fine print and all areas of the page). We often use colors to code things such as, red means stop or no (in this case yes) and green means go and yes. They were reversed in this game and it was definitely making my brain flip around!
As a designer, it really makes you think about how people would use your digital page. Navigation is key. I had the opportunity to visit a software company a few years ago where their focus was solely on marketing for companies. They would design pathways to motivate people to click on certain advertisements and create direct links so that people could purchase products they viewed immediately.
This task had me thinking of how social media is used and designed to market to users. User design is crucial in how people’s behaviours patterns are trained to click and be influenced to purchasing products due to exposure.
I’ve added a great podcast on social media and media literacy. Excellent insights for supporting students with social media exposure:
#55 – Jesse Miller (Mediated Reality)
This is VANCOLOUR
Jesse Miller is a national speaker and educator on the subject of social media. He delivers presentations for school districts across Canada and professional development training sessions to a diversity of corporate and non-profit groups. He also provides private consultation for social media strategies with regard to risk assessment and internal communication. He has been regularly featured on CKNW 980AM and has been a speaker at Tedx West Vancouver.
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/this-is-vancolour/id1400437702?i=1000456071055
References
Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. A List Apart. Retrieved March 16, 2021, from, https://alistapart.com/article/dark-patterns-deception-vs-honesty-in-ui-design/
Harris, T. (2017). How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention?language=en