This Design Generation Has Failed
February 21, 2018 7:02 AM Subscribe
And that’s when I decided that we — and by we I mean those of us currently drawing paychecks for professional design services — are design’s lost generation. We are the Family Ties-era Michael J. Fox of the design lineage. Raised by hippies. Consumed by greed. Ruled by the hand of the market. And nourished by the last drops of sour milk from the withered old teat of capitalism gone rabid. Living where America ends — Silicon Valley. Mike Monteiro on the ethical state of design's lost generation.
Metafilter: (It exists. That happened.)
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:39 AM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:39 AM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Thank you for posting this. I started reading it when I saw it on FastCo and was kind of confused by the lede so clicked away and would have missed it. I'm a writer, not a designer, but I didn't make enough at my harmless book editing job and I'm being laid off from my helping nonprofit job and now my great white hope for my career is one of those companies that we regularly deride as evil here on the blue, and the litany of "I have rent to pay, I can't afford to stand up for my morals" felt so familiar. I'm afraid of losing myself and this was something I needed to read right now.
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
An engineer in the audience screamed out, “It was the chorus director’s fault, not ours.” And that somehow manages to be the scariest part of this whole story. We’re putting the people who need us most at risk, and we’re not seeing our responsibility.
I've done a fair bit of working with systems designers/integrators/project managers what have you, who are all confident and chuffed about the technologies they bring to the table. Yet many of the projects they manage end in failure. Most of the time we got something that didn't work, was half-configured or built to a spec that nobody on the client or the provider side really understood when they were writing it.
What clicked for me was seeing a former boss take charge of one of the larger software/hardware projects I had been part of and force the lead engineers to start thinking through consequences of design, with teams of end users (people like me). Why make this choice rather than that one, what is the consequence of choosing this configuration over that, what workflow does this suit? The engineers, by and large, wanted to supply lots of options, but no guidance. Here's a configuration panel, just make it work the way you want!
My boss forced the design engineers, the programmers and the testers and their managers to get right into the problem and make it work as we needed it to. Where the original spec was vague or even wrong, more work was done and choices were made.
It's a model I've used since, successfully: user-driven design. It means the designers are fully responsible for the end-user experience. Their job isn't done until until we have a working thing. Specs get you through the contracting process, but can't be seen as final documents, because nobody, not client nor designer fully understands the complex thing that may be needed. It's a dangerous form of arrogance---designer's disease, if you will---to assume that a spec can.
posted by bonehead at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [34 favorites]
I've done a fair bit of working with systems designers/integrators/project managers what have you, who are all confident and chuffed about the technologies they bring to the table. Yet many of the projects they manage end in failure. Most of the time we got something that didn't work, was half-configured or built to a spec that nobody on the client or the provider side really understood when they were writing it.
What clicked for me was seeing a former boss take charge of one of the larger software/hardware projects I had been part of and force the lead engineers to start thinking through consequences of design, with teams of end users (people like me). Why make this choice rather than that one, what is the consequence of choosing this configuration over that, what workflow does this suit? The engineers, by and large, wanted to supply lots of options, but no guidance. Here's a configuration panel, just make it work the way you want!
My boss forced the design engineers, the programmers and the testers and their managers to get right into the problem and make it work as we needed it to. Where the original spec was vague or even wrong, more work was done and choices were made.
It's a model I've used since, successfully: user-driven design. It means the designers are fully responsible for the end-user experience. Their job isn't done until until we have a working thing. Specs get you through the contracting process, but can't be seen as final documents, because nobody, not client nor designer fully understands the complex thing that may be needed. It's a dangerous form of arrogance---designer's disease, if you will---to assume that a spec can.
posted by bonehead at 7:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [34 favorites]
This applies specifically to the Silicon Valley design ethos. It is much needed but I did want to say that it shouldn't be held up as the lens to assess designers elsewhere or focused on other industries or geographies. Students have been wanting to make the world a better place as far back as I can remember, and in my past I've been the director of graduate admissions for a top 10 design school.
This article may also work as a good supporting theme to the Valley's excesses.
The tech bias: why Silicon Valley needs social theory
As Monteiro implies, speed and scale have beaten the designer's skills of empathy and human centeredness into the background. Time compassion came back as a design skill and criteria for "innovation", and not just for the altruistic do gooders seeking impact. Impact in today's world isn't just doing it for a poor African or India - cliches in themselves - but the global impact that an organization such as FaceBook has.
posted by infini at 7:53 AM on February 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
This article may also work as a good supporting theme to the Valley's excesses.
The tech bias: why Silicon Valley needs social theory
As Monteiro implies, speed and scale have beaten the designer's skills of empathy and human centeredness into the background. Time compassion came back as a design skill and criteria for "innovation", and not just for the altruistic do gooders seeking impact. Impact in today's world isn't just doing it for a poor African or India - cliches in themselves - but the global impact that an organization such as FaceBook has.
posted by infini at 7:53 AM on February 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
Mike Monteiro is good people. I've been a fan of him ever since his "How Designers Destroyed The World" talk at Webstock '13. A brilliant designer, a guy who actually thinks this shit through, and also, he's from Philly.
posted by SansPoint at 7:55 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 7:55 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
We remain enamored with our ideas, and blind to their effects.
I fell very much under the sway of UX and urbanist design utopianism for a while. Trying to implement the former in my organization, and watching how the latter has been weaponized in the service of gentrification (and a broader, 60s systems theory style, redux of dreams of the perfectibility of man masquerading for the entrenchment and expansion of elite power) has made me very skeptical of the illusions of control and intent involved. We may be able to improve an app interface with user-focused design, but society is fundamentally a chaotic and deeply irrational enterprise, and all the high minded talk beyond that is probably just whistling in the dark.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:00 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
I fell very much under the sway of UX and urbanist design utopianism for a while. Trying to implement the former in my organization, and watching how the latter has been weaponized in the service of gentrification (and a broader, 60s systems theory style, redux of dreams of the perfectibility of man masquerading for the entrenchment and expansion of elite power) has made me very skeptical of the illusions of control and intent involved. We may be able to improve an app interface with user-focused design, but society is fundamentally a chaotic and deeply irrational enterprise, and all the high minded talk beyond that is probably just whistling in the dark.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:00 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
The elephant in the room of this article for me was that it was actually an argument for the licensing and certification of software engineers as much if not more than it was an argument for the licensing and certification of UX designers...
posted by potrzebie at 8:01 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 8:01 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
"Yes. You will sometimes lose your job for doing the right thing. But the question I want you to ask yourself is why you’re open to doing the wrong thing to keep your job. Without resorting to the level of comparing you to guards at Japanese internment camps, I’d argue there are paychecks not worth earning. An ethical framework needs to be independent of pay scale. If it’s wrong to build databases for keeping track of immigrants at $12 an hour, it’s still wrong to build them at $200 an hour, or however much Palantir pays its employees. Money doesn’t make wrong right. A gilded cage is still a cage."Holy shit. I want to stand on my chair right now, and cheer and applaud. But I can't, because
a) It's a rolling chair and that's dangerous.
b) I'd disturb my co-workers.
Part of why I'm in the job I'm in right now is exactly because of this. I jumped ship from a startup, in large part, because a part of my job was enabling shady clients to continue to rip-off people. I think the one that pushed me over the edge was a business that squatted a URL for address changes, and then charged $60 to fill out the Post Office's change of address form. I should be defending these people against credit card chargebacks why? And I was not getting $200 an hour for it.
posted by SansPoint at 8:03 AM on February 21, 2018 [24 favorites]
Oh my, yes. I'm not a designer, but my research (and the lab I'm a postdoc in) bumps into design / human-computer interaction hard and I read through that article nodding my head. It's not enough to build a thing, and make it pretty: make it functional, and understand why it is or isn't functioning in a way that's compatible with its users.
The localized version of this that I run in to is looking at how interfaces are designed in vehicles (the shiny touchscreens that most/all manufacturers have gone to in lieu of the old buttons and knobs and dials). When marketing dictates what goes there and why, the consequences get ugly (and potentially lethal) fast. Does your display have a moving screensaver image? Congratulations, you've just put a strong distracting cue in the cabin, and you'll pull drivers' eyes off the road ahead, and that's the single largest contributor to collision risk (and, hey, it's even worse for older drivers). Marketing convinced you that, hey, that infotainment display could be rented out to advertisers while the vehicle is in motion? Great! Now you're going to compound the problem I just described by moving from an uninformative motion cue to something you want the driver to actually look at while they're driving, and you're going to let them order their morning dunkin' from that same display, with a long series of onscreen button presses? Why not?
(Yes, all of those are real examples that are either in production vehicles, or have been announced for forthcoming software updates, and I have Opinions about them, why do you ask?)
I'd argue it's not actually enough to design with your users' capabilities and limitations in mind (e.g., vision, age-related changes, individual variability in the population...), but that it's actually necessary to test, rigorously and empirically, whether what the designers think is a good solution to the users' needs is actually a good solution. Designer intuition is powerful, but it requires actual testing (and I'm not talking just "did you like it" I'm talking "did this manipulation help."
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 8:08 AM on February 21, 2018 [18 favorites]
The localized version of this that I run in to is looking at how interfaces are designed in vehicles (the shiny touchscreens that most/all manufacturers have gone to in lieu of the old buttons and knobs and dials). When marketing dictates what goes there and why, the consequences get ugly (and potentially lethal) fast. Does your display have a moving screensaver image? Congratulations, you've just put a strong distracting cue in the cabin, and you'll pull drivers' eyes off the road ahead, and that's the single largest contributor to collision risk (and, hey, it's even worse for older drivers). Marketing convinced you that, hey, that infotainment display could be rented out to advertisers while the vehicle is in motion? Great! Now you're going to compound the problem I just described by moving from an uninformative motion cue to something you want the driver to actually look at while they're driving, and you're going to let them order their morning dunkin' from that same display, with a long series of onscreen button presses? Why not?
(Yes, all of those are real examples that are either in production vehicles, or have been announced for forthcoming software updates, and I have Opinions about them, why do you ask?)
I'd argue it's not actually enough to design with your users' capabilities and limitations in mind (e.g., vision, age-related changes, individual variability in the population...), but that it's actually necessary to test, rigorously and empirically, whether what the designers think is a good solution to the users' needs is actually a good solution. Designer intuition is powerful, but it requires actual testing (and I'm not talking just "did you like it" I'm talking "did this manipulation help."
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 8:08 AM on February 21, 2018 [18 favorites]
If the underlying problem is the way that profit seeking permeates the entire enterprise at every level, then it seems like requiring expensive certifications will only exacerbate the issue.
posted by Pyry at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2018 [6 favorites]
And while there’s certainly something to be said for speed, excessive speed tends to blur one’s purpose.
Tattoo that on the inside of every executive's eyelids.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Tattoo that on the inside of every executive's eyelids.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:12 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
My opinion is that 'designer' as a professional occupation as the authors envision it doesn't exist.
As stated the product is the sum of all decisions & actions made everywhere by everybody working on it. No two of them will be developped the same way, and in complex products a bunch of features aren't even designed, they just emerge from the combination of other parts. The UX is not always the most important part of the product and sometimes isn't even part of the core value of it.
This not to say that UX isn't important, but to me he's confusing product direction/inception with design and I'm not even sure where he thinks the line is between design and engineering.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
As stated the product is the sum of all decisions & actions made everywhere by everybody working on it. No two of them will be developped the same way, and in complex products a bunch of features aren't even designed, they just emerge from the combination of other parts. The UX is not always the most important part of the product and sometimes isn't even part of the core value of it.
This not to say that UX isn't important, but to me he's confusing product direction/inception with design and I'm not even sure where he thinks the line is between design and engineering.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
software engineers
I'm of the archaic opinion that you have no right to pretensions to being a professional unless you have a legal responsibility for failure and omissions in the work you produce.
There's nothing wrong with being an uncertified/unregulated programmer or designer. They're covered by a EULA that says they're not responsible for anything. But they must realize that they're not equivalent to an architect or an automotive engineer who are responsible and can very reasonably be sued if something they build breaks and causes economic or human damages.
I realize this is not a universal opinion, but that's where this piece is going too.
posted by bonehead at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
I'm of the archaic opinion that you have no right to pretensions to being a professional unless you have a legal responsibility for failure and omissions in the work you produce.
There's nothing wrong with being an uncertified/unregulated programmer or designer. They're covered by a EULA that says they're not responsible for anything. But they must realize that they're not equivalent to an architect or an automotive engineer who are responsible and can very reasonably be sued if something they build breaks and causes economic or human damages.
I realize this is not a universal opinion, but that's where this piece is going too.
posted by bonehead at 8:13 AM on February 21, 2018 [19 favorites]
If the underlying problem is the way that profit seeking permeates the entire enterprise at every level, then it seems like requiring expensive certifications will only exacerbate the issue.
Big engineering firms of all sorts do exist. And make a lot of money too.
posted by bonehead at 8:14 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Big engineering firms of all sorts do exist. And make a lot of money too.
posted by bonehead at 8:14 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Hmmm. We don't license scientists or engineers. We do license specific kinds of engineers and very specific professional roles for particular scientists. Calling for a "science licensing board" sounds utterly insane, and as far as I can tell scientist seems to be a lot more precisely defined than designer.
Also, if your argument hinges on the wisdom of licensing dog walkers, I'm not sure we share enough of a world view to have a meaningful discussion.
posted by eotvos at 8:15 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Also, if your argument hinges on the wisdom of licensing dog walkers, I'm not sure we share enough of a world view to have a meaningful discussion.
posted by eotvos at 8:15 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
If the underlying problem is the way that profit seeking permeates the entire enterprise at every level
This.
posted by infini at 8:16 AM on February 21, 2018
This.
posted by infini at 8:16 AM on February 21, 2018
I've spent 22 years in tech and this article, despite it's flaws, is a desperately-needed clarion call to the entire tech industry.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:17 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:17 AM on February 21, 2018 [7 favorites]
Big engineering firms of all sorts do exist. And make a lot of money too.
Which leads to the situation where you can sue a gun manufacturer for a misfire, but not for intentional use in a crime.
posted by Pyry at 8:18 AM on February 21, 2018
Which leads to the situation where you can sue a gun manufacturer for a misfire, but not for intentional use in a crime.
posted by Pyry at 8:18 AM on February 21, 2018
Metafilter: I've found the one superficial flaw in this piece, so we can all safely dismiss it now.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:20 AM on February 21, 2018 [18 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 8:20 AM on February 21, 2018 [18 favorites]
(also I fell into technology work via graphic design, and this sentence here has me all resounded yesses)
We fought for a seat at the table, and once we started getting that seat, we found out a lot of designers didn’t want it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:21 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
We fought for a seat at the table, and once we started getting that seat, we found out a lot of designers didn’t want it.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:21 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Which leads to the situation where you can sue a gun manufacturer for a misfire, but not for intentional use in a crime.
Architects don't get sued because they designed the doors of banks that get robbed either.
Similarly, I don't think we'd expect to be able to sue Mathematica, if, say, it were being used by a gang of bank robbers to defeat FBI pattern analysis prediction software (I realize this is a contrived movie-plot example).
We should perhaps be able, however, to sue Microsoft because Excel's built-in functions consistently miscalculate statistical metrics, which results in adverse outcomes in medical trials.
posted by bonehead at 8:24 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Architects don't get sued because they designed the doors of banks that get robbed either.
Similarly, I don't think we'd expect to be able to sue Mathematica, if, say, it were being used by a gang of bank robbers to defeat FBI pattern analysis prediction software (I realize this is a contrived movie-plot example).
We should perhaps be able, however, to sue Microsoft because Excel's built-in functions consistently miscalculate statistical metrics, which results in adverse outcomes in medical trials.
posted by bonehead at 8:24 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Which leads to the situation where you can sue a gun manufacturer for a misfire, but not for intentional use in a crime.
The gun manufacturers have statutory immunity from liability. That's got eff-all to do with licensing and everything to do with lobbying.
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
The gun manufacturers have statutory immunity from liability. That's got eff-all to do with licensing and everything to do with lobbying.
posted by praemunire at 8:30 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
The user-hostile designs of tech companies are not the result of incompetence that could be fixed with certifications-- these systems are efficiently working as intended. When Facebook collates all the details of your life into a convenient database to sell to advertisers to leverage against you, that's correct operation.
posted by Pyry at 8:31 AM on February 21, 2018
posted by Pyry at 8:31 AM on February 21, 2018
I've been a fan of Monteiro ever since I saw Fuck You, Pay Me back in 2012. He is a clear and level-headed communicator.
Regarding this essay, I have felt a similar moral dilemma working as a coder at multiple design agencies. I don't have much/any influence in the design process, I am tasked with implementation. When I receive instructions to implement bad design, I try to push back, but quite often the response is the decision has been made, and this is what the client wants.
I realize that the design I have been given is the product of hard work, compromise, and budget constraints. I realize that design and UX are subjective to some extent. But sometimes a design is objectively bad. At that juncture I can try to re-open the design dialog (seldom successfully, especially since I'm "just a developer"), or I can implement the bad design and Pilate the fuck out. Or, of course, I can refuse to do the work and lose my job.
What can developers do when ordered to implement bad design?
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:36 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Regarding this essay, I have felt a similar moral dilemma working as a coder at multiple design agencies. I don't have much/any influence in the design process, I am tasked with implementation. When I receive instructions to implement bad design, I try to push back, but quite often the response is the decision has been made, and this is what the client wants.
I realize that the design I have been given is the product of hard work, compromise, and budget constraints. I realize that design and UX are subjective to some extent. But sometimes a design is objectively bad. At that juncture I can try to re-open the design dialog (seldom successfully, especially since I'm "just a developer"), or I can implement the bad design and Pilate the fuck out. Or, of course, I can refuse to do the work and lose my job.
What can developers do when ordered to implement bad design?
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:36 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Hot Pastrami!: This is also why Mike Montiero, as well as MeFi's own Maciej Ceglowski, are pushing to unionize tech workers, including developers, so they have leverage to push back on stuff like this.
posted by SansPoint at 8:37 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by SansPoint at 8:37 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
The user-hostile designs of tech companies are not the result of incompetence that could be fixed with certifications
I disagree. In the example given, Bobbi could have sued Facebook, and perhaps even a designer personally, for outing her without permission. I mean, she still could have, but this would give her solid way to go after an engineer for professional malpractice. Just as a lawyer might see consequences both legal and professional to breaching client privilege for example, a software engineer might see similar for professional negligence.
posted by bonehead at 8:38 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I disagree. In the example given, Bobbi could have sued Facebook, and perhaps even a designer personally, for outing her without permission. I mean, she still could have, but this would give her solid way to go after an engineer for professional malpractice. Just as a lawyer might see consequences both legal and professional to breaching client privilege for example, a software engineer might see similar for professional negligence.
posted by bonehead at 8:38 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
What can developers do when ordered to implement bad design?
I mean, bad as in just not-good, or bad as in "you can anticipate this would seriously hurt someone". I think as a developer, I'm fighting with myself a lot to work out how I feel about this, too, but one of the things I like about my current job is that I'm constantly asked to implement terrible designs but they're all garden-variety terrible, not harmful-to-the-public terrible. I am at this point starting to come down on the side that when I leave here--having a 3-6-month emergency fund is a big priority for me and that once I have that, this plus having a skill that is currently in high demand? At that point then even sans union, it becomes my responsibility to walk if I'm asked to do something harmful to the public that I know is likely to be so.
This is like my third or fourth career attempt, depending on how I count them; I have had jobs before where I had to do things that I had a moral problem with because I had to keep a roof over my head. I don't live in that world anymore, and I have more responsibility with this than I did as an hourly-rate bookkeeper for a guy I knew was cheating on his taxes and breaking landlord/tenant laws.
posted by Sequence at 8:43 AM on February 21, 2018
I mean, bad as in just not-good, or bad as in "you can anticipate this would seriously hurt someone". I think as a developer, I'm fighting with myself a lot to work out how I feel about this, too, but one of the things I like about my current job is that I'm constantly asked to implement terrible designs but they're all garden-variety terrible, not harmful-to-the-public terrible. I am at this point starting to come down on the side that when I leave here--having a 3-6-month emergency fund is a big priority for me and that once I have that, this plus having a skill that is currently in high demand? At that point then even sans union, it becomes my responsibility to walk if I'm asked to do something harmful to the public that I know is likely to be so.
This is like my third or fourth career attempt, depending on how I count them; I have had jobs before where I had to do things that I had a moral problem with because I had to keep a roof over my head. I don't live in that world anymore, and I have more responsibility with this than I did as an hourly-rate bookkeeper for a guy I knew was cheating on his taxes and breaking landlord/tenant laws.
posted by Sequence at 8:43 AM on February 21, 2018
The user-hostile designs of tech companies are not the result of incompetence that could be fixed with certifications-- these systems are efficiently working as intended. When Facebook collates all the details of your life into a convenient database to sell to advertisers to leverage against you, that's correct operation.
This ties into something I've been chewing on as an attorney, not a designer: technical proficiency is not the only function of licensure. Legal and medical licensure, at least, include an ethical component with some clear lines around areas where the professional may not stray.
The example Monteiro gives of Palantir tracking immigrants is not that licensure would help designers improve that project but that it would provide support for designers refusing to work on it. This is the old bad and right, good and wrong paradigm, but where one continuum is some kind of ethical constraint on what a project can do.
And the greater point is the one that is made in Tim Snyder's On Tyranny and Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead, which is how much society relies on the ethical strictures of the learned professions, and how much danger we are in when those professions fail to self-police.
If the online world is just as real as the physical world, as was the promise of the internet and is increasingly the case, then code really is law because it defines what is possible in a way that is much more airtight than statute could ever be. The law can forbid you from screaming, but code can seal your mouth.
posted by gauche at 8:44 AM on February 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
This ties into something I've been chewing on as an attorney, not a designer: technical proficiency is not the only function of licensure. Legal and medical licensure, at least, include an ethical component with some clear lines around areas where the professional may not stray.
The example Monteiro gives of Palantir tracking immigrants is not that licensure would help designers improve that project but that it would provide support for designers refusing to work on it. This is the old bad and right, good and wrong paradigm, but where one continuum is some kind of ethical constraint on what a project can do.
And the greater point is the one that is made in Tim Snyder's On Tyranny and Jane Jacobs' Dark Age Ahead, which is how much society relies on the ethical strictures of the learned professions, and how much danger we are in when those professions fail to self-police.
If the online world is just as real as the physical world, as was the promise of the internet and is increasingly the case, then code really is law because it defines what is possible in a way that is much more airtight than statute could ever be. The law can forbid you from screaming, but code can seal your mouth.
posted by gauche at 8:44 AM on February 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
My opinion is that 'designer' as a professional occupation as the authors envision it doesn't exist.
I kind of think Mike Monteiro is familiar with design as a professional occupation, as it is his occupation.
posted by maxsparber at 8:46 AM on February 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
I kind of think Mike Monteiro is familiar with design as a professional occupation, as it is his occupation.
posted by maxsparber at 8:46 AM on February 21, 2018 [12 favorites]
What can developers do when ordered to implement bad design?
In my professional and anecdotal experience, the two most useful tools I’ve found (as a designer) have been:
1. Explain the reasons why you think your thing will work better than their thing. People on the business side aren’t generally aware of UX understandings like “Too many things on the page make people leave the page” or whatever, and if they are willing to listen for a couple minutes about the best practices behind your reasoning, they will usually be more accommodating.
2. If #1 fails (we frequently hear that the business team gets it but VP Wants It That Way and So It Shall Be Done), then you wait a few months, create the solution you wanted to implement in the first place, do an A/B test and then come forth with real data proving that your thing works better, and would make them more money, than their thing.
And if they still don’t listen, well, then you collect a paycheck for implementing their shitty design and let them take the punch for a bad user experience. It’s their design, not yours. Again, if the design just looks worse than it could, and isn’t actively harming anyone.
That’s ideally how it would work out, anyway. In reality, they insist on their shitty design and then they say it’s your fault when customers don’t engage. Everyone’s a genius at design except the designer. 🤨
posted by Autumnheart at 8:53 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
In my professional and anecdotal experience, the two most useful tools I’ve found (as a designer) have been:
1. Explain the reasons why you think your thing will work better than their thing. People on the business side aren’t generally aware of UX understandings like “Too many things on the page make people leave the page” or whatever, and if they are willing to listen for a couple minutes about the best practices behind your reasoning, they will usually be more accommodating.
2. If #1 fails (we frequently hear that the business team gets it but VP Wants It That Way and So It Shall Be Done), then you wait a few months, create the solution you wanted to implement in the first place, do an A/B test and then come forth with real data proving that your thing works better, and would make them more money, than their thing.
And if they still don’t listen, well, then you collect a paycheck for implementing their shitty design and let them take the punch for a bad user experience. It’s their design, not yours. Again, if the design just looks worse than it could, and isn’t actively harming anyone.
That’s ideally how it would work out, anyway. In reality, they insist on their shitty design and then they say it’s your fault when customers don’t engage. Everyone’s a genius at design except the designer. 🤨
posted by Autumnheart at 8:53 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sequence: I mean, bad as in just not-good, or bad as in "you can anticipate this would seriously hurt someone".
Thankfully I have been faced with few dilemmas that would cause public harm, most of my dilemmas are about usability. But there are exceptions. For example, I've been asked to develop software that is clearly designed to help a predatory door-to-door sales company coerce their sales force to sell more aggressively. That strikes me as harmful to the sales people and potential buyers.
Luckily I managed to sidestep that project, but if it had remained on my to-do list I'd have been very conflicted regarding how to proceed. I also detect a chance that I'll soon be asked to write software for a big MLM, which makes me a bit queasy. But that may or may not manifest as a design problem, it might just be a general objection to doing any design for a yucky organization.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:56 AM on February 21, 2018
Thankfully I have been faced with few dilemmas that would cause public harm, most of my dilemmas are about usability. But there are exceptions. For example, I've been asked to develop software that is clearly designed to help a predatory door-to-door sales company coerce their sales force to sell more aggressively. That strikes me as harmful to the sales people and potential buyers.
Luckily I managed to sidestep that project, but if it had remained on my to-do list I'd have been very conflicted regarding how to proceed. I also detect a chance that I'll soon be asked to write software for a big MLM, which makes me a bit queasy. But that may or may not manifest as a design problem, it might just be a general objection to doing any design for a yucky organization.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 8:56 AM on February 21, 2018
And if they still don’t listen, well, then you collect a paycheck for implementing their shitty design and let them take the punch for a bad user experience. It’s their design, not yours. Again, if the design just looks worse than it could, and isn’t actively harming anyone.
Again, though, that is "bad design" as "incompetent design" but what if there were also "bad design" as "unethical design," design that would, implemented competently, hurt people? What if hurting people were the actual objective? How would A/B testing address this?
posted by gauche at 9:01 AM on February 21, 2018
Again, though, that is "bad design" as "incompetent design" but what if there were also "bad design" as "unethical design," design that would, implemented competently, hurt people? What if hurting people were the actual objective? How would A/B testing address this?
posted by gauche at 9:01 AM on February 21, 2018
In the example given, Bobbi could have sued Facebook, and perhaps even a designer personally, for outing her without permission.
She still can if she can prove damages. I doubt Facebook would provide a specific engineer to sue but it's not like GM does either if something in your car negligently injures you.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:06 AM on February 21, 2018
She still can if she can prove damages. I doubt Facebook would provide a specific engineer to sue but it's not like GM does either if something in your car negligently injures you.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:06 AM on February 21, 2018
Calling for a "science licensing board" sounds utterly insane
Isn't this kind of what IRB is? It doesn't certify people, but it does certify what they're doing.
And even as a low-level research assistant in a psych lab I had to do research ethics, human subjects research and data security training my first week in the office and print out a little certificate saying I'd done the trainings and passed the assessments. Heck, every single person who works at my very large R1 institution, no matter what role, has to pass a child abuse clearance because there are, like, 16 and 17-year-olds walking around.
Also, you don't get a lot of self-taught, self-trained freelance scientists. If you're doing science, you probably spent many years in an institutional environment, wrangling with IRB, writing grants that had to pass ethical muster with funding agencies, etc... It most definitely doesn't lead to 100% perfect outcomes because shitbags exist everywhere, but you can be reasonably certain that someone with a PhD in Biology has taken at least one course in ethics and worked on and had a hand in writing grants that have passed IRB scrutiny. It is not, by a long shot, a flaw-free system, but it is at least a system.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:07 AM on February 21, 2018 [10 favorites]
Isn't this kind of what IRB is? It doesn't certify people, but it does certify what they're doing.
And even as a low-level research assistant in a psych lab I had to do research ethics, human subjects research and data security training my first week in the office and print out a little certificate saying I'd done the trainings and passed the assessments. Heck, every single person who works at my very large R1 institution, no matter what role, has to pass a child abuse clearance because there are, like, 16 and 17-year-olds walking around.
Also, you don't get a lot of self-taught, self-trained freelance scientists. If you're doing science, you probably spent many years in an institutional environment, wrangling with IRB, writing grants that had to pass ethical muster with funding agencies, etc... It most definitely doesn't lead to 100% perfect outcomes because shitbags exist everywhere, but you can be reasonably certain that someone with a PhD in Biology has taken at least one course in ethics and worked on and had a hand in writing grants that have passed IRB scrutiny. It is not, by a long shot, a flaw-free system, but it is at least a system.
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:07 AM on February 21, 2018 [10 favorites]
Nor can I personally sue the construction engineer who put the telephone pole in the middle of the sidewalk - you have to sue the city.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on February 21, 2018
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on February 21, 2018
They teach ethics - regardless of how it pans out - in Business school. But they don't in Design schools (and I've studied in two on two different continents). The assumption seems to be that being a designer is enough to ensure your values show up in your work, along with the buzzwords of empathy, user centeredness and right brain thinking. But they don't, as Monteiro has consistently being highlighting in his writing.
The second challenge is that when Silicon Valley took off as a mecca for design, it attracted people from all kinds of backgrounds to the field because it was so new and not being taught in existing design programs so much as being built from the ground up by the people who created the UX, and IA, and Interaction Design disciplines and associated professional associations. Even the profession themselves tended to learn by "build/test/learn" - it was only half a decade at the very least after the fact that some of these concepts and methods began trickling into the academic design programs, till then focused on industrial product design and graphic/communication design in the traditional sense. Stanford's much feted d-school for instance doesn't even have a communication design discipline, housed as it is in the Mechanical engineering department. CMU might have been the first to come up with a dedicated program for the tech industry because of its own strengths in software and robotics etc
This also means that knowledge and expertise is variable across the designers that Monteiro is addressing, as is their educational background and thus ideological underpinnings.
Any wonder that ethics and values are now being perceived to be in short supply?
posted by infini at 9:24 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
The second challenge is that when Silicon Valley took off as a mecca for design, it attracted people from all kinds of backgrounds to the field because it was so new and not being taught in existing design programs so much as being built from the ground up by the people who created the UX, and IA, and Interaction Design disciplines and associated professional associations. Even the profession themselves tended to learn by "build/test/learn" - it was only half a decade at the very least after the fact that some of these concepts and methods began trickling into the academic design programs, till then focused on industrial product design and graphic/communication design in the traditional sense. Stanford's much feted d-school for instance doesn't even have a communication design discipline, housed as it is in the Mechanical engineering department. CMU might have been the first to come up with a dedicated program for the tech industry because of its own strengths in software and robotics etc
This also means that knowledge and expertise is variable across the designers that Monteiro is addressing, as is their educational background and thus ideological underpinnings.
Any wonder that ethics and values are now being perceived to be in short supply?
posted by infini at 9:24 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
But they don't in Design schools (and I've studied in two on two different continents).
That's quite interesting. They certainly do in Industrial Design and in Architecture (in Canada, at least). I wonder why Design gets a pass.
posted by bonehead at 9:33 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
That's quite interesting. They certainly do in Industrial Design and in Architecture (in Canada, at least). I wonder why Design gets a pass.
posted by bonehead at 9:33 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Is it an Ethics course called out as such or rolled into something related to user research and product testing?
posted by infini at 9:37 AM on February 21, 2018
posted by infini at 9:37 AM on February 21, 2018
I'll have to ask my brother---he (and his wife) are the IDs in the family.
posted by bonehead at 9:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bonehead at 9:49 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
bonehead: Industrial Design and Architecture, as Monteiro notes, is likely to kill you, or at least maim you, if it fails. Software typically doesn't, but that's changing. Fast.
posted by SansPoint at 9:54 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 9:54 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I kind of think Mike Monteiro is familiar with design as a professional occupation, as it is his occupation.
I'm not saying there are no professional designers. And I'm not saying UX design is constrained to pretty colors and fonts.
But my reading of his text is that the scope he puts on the designer responsibility is so large it has to include all of the software engineering that goes into the product since there is no known way to specify what a sufficiently large software project will do other than coding it and declaring the code 'the design'. See CSS for example (which isn't even that complex).
Hence the 'as he envision it'.
In any case there's no putting the genie back in the bottle, we'll never be able to require the people involved in producing a software product to hold certifications.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:09 AM on February 21, 2018
I'm not saying there are no professional designers. And I'm not saying UX design is constrained to pretty colors and fonts.
But my reading of his text is that the scope he puts on the designer responsibility is so large it has to include all of the software engineering that goes into the product since there is no known way to specify what a sufficiently large software project will do other than coding it and declaring the code 'the design'. See CSS for example (which isn't even that complex).
Hence the 'as he envision it'.
In any case there's no putting the genie back in the bottle, we'll never be able to require the people involved in producing a software product to hold certifications.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:09 AM on February 21, 2018
My ID relatives mostly design/produce things like playing cards and home furnishings and box hardware (hinges, latches, etc...). There are lots of examples of ID, that, say like software games are pretty unlikely to cause significant damage if they fail. They still did some form* of ethics training.
*Checked with my brother and confirmed in his uni calendar---it's a "professional practices" course, legal and ethical issues explicitly covered.
posted by bonehead at 10:10 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
*Checked with my brother and confirmed in his uni calendar---it's a "professional practices" course, legal and ethical issues explicitly covered.
posted by bonehead at 10:10 AM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ethics can’t be a side hustle
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:10 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:10 AM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Bobbi could have sued Facebook, and perhaps even a designer personally, for outing her without permission
In most states, there is no such cause of action even for someone doing so deliberately and maliciously. (And in the other states, you mostly have to hope a court will buy your jamming that claim into a cause of action that wasn't designed for it.) Gawker did not go down in the courts for outing Peter Thiel.
posted by praemunire at 10:11 AM on February 21, 2018
In most states, there is no such cause of action even for someone doing so deliberately and maliciously. (And in the other states, you mostly have to hope a court will buy your jamming that claim into a cause of action that wasn't designed for it.) Gawker did not go down in the courts for outing Peter Thiel.
posted by praemunire at 10:11 AM on February 21, 2018
Industrial Design and Architecture, as Monteiro notes, is likely to kill you, or at least maim you, if it fails. Software typically doesn't, but that's changing. Fast.
I don't think that's changing so much as becoming increasingly visible, and I think that is part of Monteiro's point. Facebook's algorithms have already killed people. Twitter's willingness to pin their profitability to Trump has already killed people, and the groundwork is being laid that will kill many more. He mentions the Excel "quirk" that screws up formulas in medical data that leads to inaccurate conclusions that leads to killing people. Uber's insistence that it is not an employer and doesn't need to act like one has killed people (as has their insistence that they aren't union-busters).
Every month I notice that multiple digital platforms have new algorithms kicking in that lead to legal documents and financial documents and medical information going astray (and therefore missing deadlines), or getting into the wrong hands (divulging classified info), or, getting erroneously deleted. When Gmail refuses to help users dealing with the firstlast@gmail.com vs first.last@gmail.com problem, when mailing lists don't give you a way to unsubscribe, when the "Contact Us" page is 404-ed, these are all choices that cause real damage. My work spamfilter keeps blocking emails containing legal documents that are being sent from certain countries, and it doesn't give me the option to change that setting. A different software program at my job requires a QR code reader and no one but my boss could understand why I just refused to download the program on my personal smartphone (because "accidentally" making recently purchased smartphones into unspoken job requirements is discriminatory af are you kidding me) and patiently waited for them to find a workaround that could be installed on my work computer.
That the thousands of people responsible for these decisions are so willing to shrug and say "not my fault!" or "go big or go home" or "I was just doing what I was told to do" does not diminish the harm that has been done, or restore the lives that have been lost. Their eye rolling when people point out the consequences of these choices does not actually make the damage they are doing insignificant or new.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:25 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
I don't think that's changing so much as becoming increasingly visible, and I think that is part of Monteiro's point. Facebook's algorithms have already killed people. Twitter's willingness to pin their profitability to Trump has already killed people, and the groundwork is being laid that will kill many more. He mentions the Excel "quirk" that screws up formulas in medical data that leads to inaccurate conclusions that leads to killing people. Uber's insistence that it is not an employer and doesn't need to act like one has killed people (as has their insistence that they aren't union-busters).
Every month I notice that multiple digital platforms have new algorithms kicking in that lead to legal documents and financial documents and medical information going astray (and therefore missing deadlines), or getting into the wrong hands (divulging classified info), or, getting erroneously deleted. When Gmail refuses to help users dealing with the firstlast@gmail.com vs first.last@gmail.com problem, when mailing lists don't give you a way to unsubscribe, when the "Contact Us" page is 404-ed, these are all choices that cause real damage. My work spamfilter keeps blocking emails containing legal documents that are being sent from certain countries, and it doesn't give me the option to change that setting. A different software program at my job requires a QR code reader and no one but my boss could understand why I just refused to download the program on my personal smartphone (because "accidentally" making recently purchased smartphones into unspoken job requirements is discriminatory af are you kidding me) and patiently waited for them to find a workaround that could be installed on my work computer.
That the thousands of people responsible for these decisions are so willing to shrug and say "not my fault!" or "go big or go home" or "I was just doing what I was told to do" does not diminish the harm that has been done, or restore the lives that have been lost. Their eye rolling when people point out the consequences of these choices does not actually make the damage they are doing insignificant or new.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:25 AM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
When Gmail refuses to help users dealing with the firstlast@gmail.com vs first.last@gmail.com problem
What problem is that? They're the same email address.
Uber saying it is not an employer is not a software problem. Your job asking you to use your phone is not a software problem. Maybe if people didn't see a computer and say "oh, a software problem", then we'd be able to use all of the existing frameworks in society for something?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:30 AM on February 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
What problem is that? They're the same email address.
Uber saying it is not an employer is not a software problem. Your job asking you to use your phone is not a software problem. Maybe if people didn't see a computer and say "oh, a software problem", then we'd be able to use all of the existing frameworks in society for something?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:30 AM on February 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
Right now I'm taking some APIs and pulling data from two or three systems and getting them onto a different platform. After that, I'm still responsible for some level of data transformation, including deduplication, sanitization, and additional augmentation. Then and only then do I get to build out some level of user interface for the masses. I'm tasked with getting this data in in X amount of time.
I know all the data that I want from the given system, but I also know that there will be unforeseen circumstances, error handling that nobody accounted for (and that upstream 'decision makers' don't value) and changes to my underlying data sources that I have to be ready to handle.
Guess how much time I'm going to have to put this in a 'final form' after I get the everything built, tested, loaded, and acceptance tested... We value speed over proper implementation, meaning that I'm sure I'll get dinged when I take the time to prevent 2:00AM server alerts... The only one that will appreciate that is me - after all - I'm salary. They view that incursion on my time as a nice to have not a need to have... Well, probably not quite that extreme, but the value to doing it right is in long term planning - not short term. And if I didn't set this stuff up ahead of time (and be challenged by it) the business would be happy because it would be delivered early - and then be screaming that it broke and there was no easy way to handle getting things back on the rails...
So yes, design is an afterthought - answers now are the only thing folks seem to settle for. This stuff isn't instantaneous or error free.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:31 PM on February 21, 2018
I know all the data that I want from the given system, but I also know that there will be unforeseen circumstances, error handling that nobody accounted for (and that upstream 'decision makers' don't value) and changes to my underlying data sources that I have to be ready to handle.
Guess how much time I'm going to have to put this in a 'final form' after I get the everything built, tested, loaded, and acceptance tested... We value speed over proper implementation, meaning that I'm sure I'll get dinged when I take the time to prevent 2:00AM server alerts... The only one that will appreciate that is me - after all - I'm salary. They view that incursion on my time as a nice to have not a need to have... Well, probably not quite that extreme, but the value to doing it right is in long term planning - not short term. And if I didn't set this stuff up ahead of time (and be challenged by it) the business would be happy because it would be delivered early - and then be screaming that it broke and there was no easy way to handle getting things back on the rails...
So yes, design is an afterthought - answers now are the only thing folks seem to settle for. This stuff isn't instantaneous or error free.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:31 PM on February 21, 2018
Uber saying it is not an employer is not a software problem.
But the subject of this article is "designers agreeing to help engineers design unethical systems that subvert the law and make people unsafe", and here is an excerpt from TFA: "In March of 2017, Mike Isaac published an exposé in the New York Times about Greyball, a tool at Uber designed to purposely deceive authorities. Authorities who were looking out for the safety of Uber’s riders. No one at Uber has yet to go to jail. But the stories are the same."
Your job asking you to use your phone is not a software problem.
The software designers who implemented an update that results in discriminatory practices for people with socioeconomic disadvantages and acting puzzled when their users point this out is a software problem and an ethics in design problem.
The subject of this article is about how the ethics of design and implementation are treated as secondary at best, pointless inconveniences at medium, and obstacles to intentionally obliterate at worst. You coming in to say "but maybe software isn't the problem, and users are the real villains!" reminds me a lot of the Facebook employee who shouted at the author.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:39 PM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
But the subject of this article is "designers agreeing to help engineers design unethical systems that subvert the law and make people unsafe", and here is an excerpt from TFA: "In March of 2017, Mike Isaac published an exposé in the New York Times about Greyball, a tool at Uber designed to purposely deceive authorities. Authorities who were looking out for the safety of Uber’s riders. No one at Uber has yet to go to jail. But the stories are the same."
Your job asking you to use your phone is not a software problem.
The software designers who implemented an update that results in discriminatory practices for people with socioeconomic disadvantages and acting puzzled when their users point this out is a software problem and an ethics in design problem.
The subject of this article is about how the ethics of design and implementation are treated as secondary at best, pointless inconveniences at medium, and obstacles to intentionally obliterate at worst. You coming in to say "but maybe software isn't the problem, and users are the real villains!" reminds me a lot of the Facebook employee who shouted at the author.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 12:39 PM on February 21, 2018 [9 favorites]
This applies specifically to the Silicon Valley design ethos. It is much needed but I did want to say that it shouldn't be held up as the lens to assess designers elsewhere or focused on other industries or geographies.
I don't know, it's been my experience that even in small market jobs you'll be asked to do some ethically dubious things, even totally disconnected and uninformed clients independently discover dark patterns and such on their own and there's always a sales rep saying yes, we can do that.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:01 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't know, it's been my experience that even in small market jobs you'll be asked to do some ethically dubious things, even totally disconnected and uninformed clients independently discover dark patterns and such on their own and there's always a sales rep saying yes, we can do that.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:01 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
When Gmail refuses to help users dealing with the firstlast@gmail.com vs first.last@gmail.com problem
What problem is that? They're the same email address.
A funny thing about that is that a new user can (and often does ) register with a mixed-case variation, and while it lets them register that address, all of the email they have gets sent to another.
For example,
I am first.middle.last AT gmail.com.
Recently, someone registered for an email address of
FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com
And then used that email address to register for a bunch of things, including an online portal for their health care provider, as well as a cable TV provider/
I am now getting their emails, addressed to 'FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com' sent to me , with a helpful explainer of "yes, this is your email address" popup in gmail.
To be clear: emails sent to FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com DO come to me, but that user was able to register. I am unsure if that user will be able to reset their (my) account due to this, and every attempt I have made to engaage google support about this has resulted in two results:
- A link to a KB article explaining to me that this is impossible, and explaining that punctuation is ignored (much like the comment above) and telling me not to worry my little head about it.
- A link to the password reset page for forgotten password recovery
I use the fact that punctuation is ignored to track where spam comes from . I know that works, so i get it.
I also know that the statement is true, as written.
But I also know that firstlast@gmail.com and First.Last@gmail.com are the same as far as actual mail delivery...but not always for mail account CREATION.
/end derail
-- edited because i apparently can't type, or spell.
posted by das_2099 at 1:05 PM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
What problem is that? They're the same email address.
A funny thing about that is that a new user can (and often does ) register with a mixed-case variation, and while it lets them register that address, all of the email they have gets sent to another.
For example,
I am first.middle.last AT gmail.com.
Recently, someone registered for an email address of
FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com
And then used that email address to register for a bunch of things, including an online portal for their health care provider, as well as a cable TV provider/
I am now getting their emails, addressed to 'FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com' sent to me , with a helpful explainer of "yes, this is your email address" popup in gmail.
To be clear: emails sent to FIRST.middle.LAST AT gmail.com DO come to me, but that user was able to register. I am unsure if that user will be able to reset their (my) account due to this, and every attempt I have made to engaage google support about this has resulted in two results:
- A link to a KB article explaining to me that this is impossible, and explaining that punctuation is ignored (much like the comment above) and telling me not to worry my little head about it.
- A link to the password reset page for forgotten password recovery
I use the fact that punctuation is ignored to track where spam comes from . I know that works, so i get it.
I also know that the statement is true, as written.
But I also know that firstlast@gmail.com and First.Last@gmail.com are the same as far as actual mail delivery...but not always for mail account CREATION.
/end derail
-- edited because i apparently can't type, or spell.
posted by das_2099 at 1:05 PM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
das_2099: Are you sure someone _registered_ the same username with caps, or maybe someone registered a different username, but have been putting yours in by mistake.
I had a similar incident a while back where someone signed up for PayPal in the UK with my gmail address, only using the @googlemail.com domain. I wrote up what happened here, but TL;DR: PayPal's security folks were confused, and it turned out the person in the UK had merely fat-fingered their own email address.
FWIW, something similar happened a year or two later where I got someone's welcome emails for Netflix... in France. That eventually resolved itself.
posted by SansPoint at 1:15 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
I had a similar incident a while back where someone signed up for PayPal in the UK with my gmail address, only using the @googlemail.com domain. I wrote up what happened here, but TL;DR: PayPal's security folks were confused, and it turned out the person in the UK had merely fat-fingered their own email address.
FWIW, something similar happened a year or two later where I got someone's welcome emails for Netflix... in France. That eventually resolved itself.
posted by SansPoint at 1:15 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
The software designers who implemented an update that results in discriminatory practices for people with socioeconomic disadvantages and acting puzzled when their users point this out is a software problem and an ethics in design problem.
Isn't the problem here that the employer refuses to provide the employees with the equipment they need to do their jobs (i.e., a work phone)?
posted by airmail at 1:30 PM on February 21, 2018
Isn't the problem here that the employer refuses to provide the employees with the equipment they need to do their jobs (i.e., a work phone)?
posted by airmail at 1:30 PM on February 21, 2018
But my reading of his text is that the scope he puts on the designer responsibility is so large it has to include all of the software engineering that goes into the product since there is no known way to specify what a sufficiently large software project will do other than coding it and declaring the code 'the design'.
Yeah, that's something which perked up my interest here... one consequence of even just contemplating licensing of designers is that the subset of handwavy definitions of design which seem to tend towards "Design is everything! I have to be the authority on everything!" might get carved down a bit once people realized that persisting with such an expansive definition would mean that they'd have to be certified as knowledgeable about everything and be legally responsible for everything before they could become a licensed designer.
posted by XMLicious at 1:51 PM on February 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Side note to the thread, but I'd echo what SansPoint said: gmail does not allow two addresses that are the "same" (ignore capitalization, periods are ignored) to be created, but people very often supply an email address to websites that is not their own. My email address is first.last@gmail (or firstlast@gmail, if you want to be technical) and people sign up for things with my email address all the time.
As far as the fpp goes, software development, especially when it's done for "internal" purposes -- which is a joke, because any company of sufficient size has contractors or temporary employees on the network -- very often has security and non-happy path testing at the bottom of the list. Which is ridiculous, because while opportunistic criminals outside your network might attack your website, the people who can do the most damage *will* find a way inside.
As far as testing, people very seldom test this way: Here's the stated purpose of this software tool. How can I use it in ways that are not the stated purpose? Can I do so maliciously? Is there any way to see how people use it in practice, and does that align with our ethical and legal standards?
posted by mikeh at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
As far as the fpp goes, software development, especially when it's done for "internal" purposes -- which is a joke, because any company of sufficient size has contractors or temporary employees on the network -- very often has security and non-happy path testing at the bottom of the list. Which is ridiculous, because while opportunistic criminals outside your network might attack your website, the people who can do the most damage *will* find a way inside.
As far as testing, people very seldom test this way: Here's the stated purpose of this software tool. How can I use it in ways that are not the stated purpose? Can I do so maliciously? Is there any way to see how people use it in practice, and does that align with our ethical and legal standards?
posted by mikeh at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Without resorting to the level of comparing you to guards at Japanese internment camps, I’d argue there are paychecks not worth earning.
I had one of those in the late '80s, during the Junk Bond Boom/Bust. My employer was a high-profile life-insurance/annuity company that used the well-above-market returns on Junk to sell a 'most-value-for-your-dollar' product (especially good when you had to buy financial products for SOMEBODY ELSE's benefit). We were even closely associated with Michael Milken, who had started the craze by seeking out and selling the "undervalued" junk, which we used as a justification when their values soared with the rest of the junk and had no excuse when they crashed (a major reason Milken went to jail was his obsession for finding the "best" product to sell led him into Insider Trading; that and the evil ambitious Rudy Giuliani made his rep by busting a money man NOT working in N.Y.C.) . For a brief time, we actually stopped writing checks on Monthly Annuities, some of which the recipients relied on as their sole income. So, to handle the flood of angry and/or desperate phone calls, everyone in the home office was put on complaint answering duty for a few weeks (I was a Data Analyst in the Commissions Accounting department, usually far removed from anything that caused the crisis). It was a most unpleasant duty since there was nothing reassuring we were allowed to tell them (finally the State of California stepped in and checks went out). A few months later, I was part of the 3rd round of reorganization/downsizing layoffs and departed with a small 'golden parachute' (it was more 'bronze', but the largest severance I ever received) and a big load of guilt. My next job was with an Engineering firm doing Environmental Cleanup Work that gave me the soul-saving feeling that I was part of something unequivocally good. But today I can't think of very many "Silicon Valley" entities that are NOT giving off the same kind of smell my insurance/annuities employer did.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:11 PM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I had one of those in the late '80s, during the Junk Bond Boom/Bust. My employer was a high-profile life-insurance/annuity company that used the well-above-market returns on Junk to sell a 'most-value-for-your-dollar' product (especially good when you had to buy financial products for SOMEBODY ELSE's benefit). We were even closely associated with Michael Milken, who had started the craze by seeking out and selling the "undervalued" junk, which we used as a justification when their values soared with the rest of the junk and had no excuse when they crashed (a major reason Milken went to jail was his obsession for finding the "best" product to sell led him into Insider Trading; that and the evil ambitious Rudy Giuliani made his rep by busting a money man NOT working in N.Y.C.) . For a brief time, we actually stopped writing checks on Monthly Annuities, some of which the recipients relied on as their sole income. So, to handle the flood of angry and/or desperate phone calls, everyone in the home office was put on complaint answering duty for a few weeks (I was a Data Analyst in the Commissions Accounting department, usually far removed from anything that caused the crisis). It was a most unpleasant duty since there was nothing reassuring we were allowed to tell them (finally the State of California stepped in and checks went out). A few months later, I was part of the 3rd round of reorganization/downsizing layoffs and departed with a small 'golden parachute' (it was more 'bronze', but the largest severance I ever received) and a big load of guilt. My next job was with an Engineering firm doing Environmental Cleanup Work that gave me the soul-saving feeling that I was part of something unequivocally good. But today I can't think of very many "Silicon Valley" entities that are NOT giving off the same kind of smell my insurance/annuities employer did.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:11 PM on February 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's interesting to me that Monteiro uses architects as an example— although there is a licensure and registration process (pro), the AIA is widely felt to be ineffectual as a professional organization, falling well short of what a union could/should do especially wrt backing up its members. I think even the AARP is stronger.
posted by a halcyon day at 4:47 PM on February 21, 2018
posted by a halcyon day at 4:47 PM on February 21, 2018
Apropos to this: the Ethical Design manifesto.
posted by acb at 5:09 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 5:09 PM on February 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Without resorting to the level of comparing you to guards at Japanese internment camps, I’d argue there are paychecks not worth earning. An ethical framework needs to be independent of pay scale. If it’s wrong to build databases for keeping track of immigrants at $12 an hour, it’s still wrong to build them at $200 an hour, or however much Palantir pays its employees. Money doesn’t make wrong right. A gilded cage is still a cage.
This bit, in combination with fond memories of the Office of Government Ethics' heroic Gordon of Khartoum "we're not going down without a fight" defiance before they were absorbed and became just another swamp monster within the present U.S. government, is making me think: in the latter sort of case described above, might a good way to move forward be to try to make it fashionable for people up for the $200 ⅌ hr. positions to demand an analysis of the prospective job by a professional ethicist? To not only provide professional ethicists with some custom and opportunities to see into the operations of tech companies with their ethics-glasses on, but to compile a corpus of professionally-written analyses on different sorts of jobs, products, and sub-industries.
posted by XMLicious at 12:37 AM on February 22, 2018
maybe we just need to take the concepts of how InfoSec teams are aligned to an organization and apply that a new field of digital design security that aligns to the design group.
"Product Design Security" or something...
Holy shit I'm a Sr. Security Engineering Manager. I was literally trained to be a graphic designer and spent the first half of my "employable years" as a designer...Maybe I'm inventing a new career for myself lol.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:11 AM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
"Product Design Security" or something...
Holy shit I'm a Sr. Security Engineering Manager. I was literally trained to be a graphic designer and spent the first half of my "employable years" as a designer...Maybe I'm inventing a new career for myself lol.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:11 AM on February 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
Annika, in today's IoT vulnerable sensor driven everything is wifi and is that your toaster making out with the microwave oven era, you've hit the nail on the head of which stage in product development issues of security need to be integrated.
posted by infini at 7:54 AM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 7:54 AM on February 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
me: Bobbi could have sued Facebook, and perhaps even a designer personally, for outing her without permission
praemunire: In most states, there is no such cause of action even for someone doing so deliberately and maliciously.
If there are no professional practices issues, that is the problem. If however, a professional engineer/designer has signed off on a software change, and that software change deliberately or not causes a breach of their ethical conduct, then there's cause to go after that designer. Breaches don't have to be intentional. If it happens, and it was on their sign off, then they're potentially liable or could suffer professional sanctions. In this case, the designer might have to go in front of their board and might well be fined or prohibited from practice for some time for violations of ethics with regard to privacy. That might be enough in this case; there might not be any need for a civil suit, though that would depend on the case.
In that event, most practicing professionals I know carry some form of insurance to cover "accidents and omissions" as it's called in my neck of the woods. Corporations who hire professionals assume this responsibility too.
posted by bonehead at 10:47 AM on February 22, 2018
praemunire: In most states, there is no such cause of action even for someone doing so deliberately and maliciously.
If there are no professional practices issues, that is the problem. If however, a professional engineer/designer has signed off on a software change, and that software change deliberately or not causes a breach of their ethical conduct, then there's cause to go after that designer. Breaches don't have to be intentional. If it happens, and it was on their sign off, then they're potentially liable or could suffer professional sanctions. In this case, the designer might have to go in front of their board and might well be fined or prohibited from practice for some time for violations of ethics with regard to privacy. That might be enough in this case; there might not be any need for a civil suit, though that would depend on the case.
In that event, most practicing professionals I know carry some form of insurance to cover "accidents and omissions" as it's called in my neck of the woods. Corporations who hire professionals assume this responsibility too.
posted by bonehead at 10:47 AM on February 22, 2018
Mod note: A couple of comments deleted; please cut out the personal attacks/squabbling.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:50 PM on February 23, 2018
posted by taz (staff) at 11:50 PM on February 23, 2018
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posted by loquacious at 7:16 AM on February 21, 2018 [4 favorites]