We’ve all heard stories of how UX has been used for good, but what happens when it backfires, or worse, is purposely used for evil? UX Designers have the power to entice and motivate you in a number of directions — and while maybe not always purposefully evil, the effects can be the same. This talk will go over examples of good and evil UX — so you know what to avoid in the future!

1. UX Design,
Friend or Foe?

2. Jeremy Johnson
@jeremyjohnson
Vp of customer experience
www.jeremyjohnsononline.com
www.projekt202.com

4. Someone’s
workday

5. MeUSER

7. 8 hours a day
Providing for family
Status of peers
Trying to get promoted
Trying to do a good job. . .

9. “it dawned on everyone that it just wasn't
humane to have great UX in your private
life and nauseating mazes of software to
fight against at work.”
https://www.zdnet.com/article/enterprise-apps-need-to-be-as-simple-and-intuitive-as-consumer-apps/

13. 490

14. 490What’s this?

15. 510

17. https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/gaming-factory-can-data-make-manufacturing-fun-again
“Jeff Lowe, global product manager, explains
that if the average is 27 seconds, but one
operator is only hitting 32 seconds, that’s an
opportunity to increase production.”

18. https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/gaming-factory-can-data-make-manufacturing-fun-again
“Now imagine if a plant manager took that one
step further, streaming that dashboard to the
plant common area or lunchroom, showing how a
specific user or shift was performing versus other
teams, individuals or even themselves. “

19. https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/gaming-factory-can-data-make-manufacturing-fun-again
“Secretly, the plant is the real winner, as
everyone is more engaged, sharing in a common
goal, and possibly even having fun.”

21. “Disney was replacing A system with an
electronic tracking system that monitored
their progress in real time.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90260703/the-dark-side-of-gamifying-work?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner

23. Dagn! Naiara 20 10 15
Caelia Saburo 30 12 20
Beatrix Pankaj 15 7 10
Arda Samanta 2 15 7
Frederick Iraklis 5 7 8

24. “Each laundry machine would also monitor the
rate of worker input, and flash red and
yellow lights at the workers directly if they
slowed down.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90260703/the-dark-side-of-gamifying-work?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner

25. Friend or foe?
Feedback loop?
Good?

26. “The workers called this ‘the electronic whip’.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90260703/the-dark-side-of-gamifying-work?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner

27. “We saw a higher incidence of injuries,”
“Several people were injured on the job.”
“The formerly collegial environment degenerated into a race”
“The laundry workers competed with each other, and got upset
when coworkers couldn’t keep up.”
“People started skipping bathroom breaks.”
“Pregnant workers fell behind”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90260703/the-dark-side-of-gamifying-work?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner

28. You can positively or
negatively effect
someone’s (around)
2,000 hours a year

30. “High-value assassination targets are called ‘jackpots’.
Anyone caught near a jackpot during an airstrike is called
‘bugsplatter’. When drone pilots retire or transfer, they’re
given a scorecard of kills. “
“this framework risks the total dehumanisation of the
targets of drone warfare. “
https://www.fastcompany.com/90260703/the-dark-side-of-gamifying-work?partner=feedburner&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feedburner+fastcompany&utm_content=feedburner

33. Friend or foe?
Should we
gamify life
and death?

35. Influencing people

36. “Over 50% of
shopping is
unplanned”http://www.likecool.com/How_IKEA_Tricks_You_Into_Buying_More_Stu"--Video--Gear.html

37. Impulse
shopping

38. Gruen Effect

39. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-gruen-effect/
“Gruen argued that good design equaled
good profits. The more beautiful the
displays and surroundings, the longer
consumers will want to stay in a shop.
The more time a shoppers spend in a store,
the more they will spend.”

40. “The Gruen Transfer is the few minutes
after you walk into a store where the
stimulus confuses your brain and
hypnotizes you into buying more.”
https://curiosity.com/topics/the-gruen-transfer-hypnotizes-you-into-buying-more-curiosity/

41. What if you could
literally be
hypnotized?

45. “You can steer
consumers to
different areas…”
http://www.likecool.com/How_IKEA_Tricks_You_Into_Buying_More_Stu"--Video--Gear.html

48. Increase Impulse
shopping
One GOAL:

49. Friend or foe?
Should we influence people
to spend more money?

50. https://blast.com

53. “Organic compulsion loop”
“The other way to get new stuff is to pay real
money to buy a mystery box which gives you a
% chance to win the thing that you need.
Because it’s the core way to get the new thing
you need you are forced to engage with that
system to progress in the game.”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-great-uiux-put-clash-royale-top-grossing-charts-zo-burton/

54. Saving money = good!
Pushing you to games that are designed to
take as much money from you as possible…?

55. Friend or foe?
Lesser of two evils?

56. Dark patterns

57. “The role as a designer, or even as an
engineer has become more influential and
powerful than ever. The work we do
makes an impact and naturally brings up
the discussion around ethics, responsibility,
and accountability.”
https://uxdesign.cc/when-does-good-user-experience-become-evil-fd9e3bf82559

58. https://postfunnel.com/5-naughty-conversion-dark-patterns-to-avoid-in-2018-what-to-do-instead/

59. “In a nutshell, dark UX takes everything
we ever learned about the psychology
of human-centered design and uses it
against the user.”
https://uxplanet.org/sinister-ux-how-to-recognize-and-avoid-dark-ux-patterns-95acdb15767f
Emily Stevens

60. https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern

62. Fake hair!
Fake dirt!

65. Engagement

73. What if… Your job was
to get more engagement?

75. Friend or foe?
Should we influence people
to spend more time?

76. Machine learning

77. https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/2/8315897/facebook-on-this-day-nostalgia-app-bringing-back-painful-memories

78. https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2018/05/haunted-your-dead-friends-will-facebook-ever-let-us-mourn-peace
“Facebook had gone out of its way to
encourage me to reconnect with one of my
good friends despite his recent, tragic
death. The experience was jarring,
heartbreaking, and bizarre.”

79. https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/zmvzj9/facebooks-on-this-day-brings-bad-memories-back-to-life
“The problem is, not everyone wants to see
their smiling ex's face. I had an emotionally
abusive relationship with my own ex...”

81. https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/07/01/google-mistakenly-tags-black-people-as-gorillas-showing-limits-of-algorithms/

83. https://www.wired.com/story/machines-taught-by-photos-learn-a-sexist-view-of-women/
“Virginia computer science professor
noticed a pattern in some of the guesses
made by image-recognition software he
was building. “It would see a picture of a
kitchen and more often than not associate
it with women, not men,””

84. https://www.wired.com/story/machines-taught-by-photos-learn-a-sexist-view-of-women/
“. . .text collected from Google News
reproduced gender biases well documented
in humans. When they asked software to
complete the statement “Man is to
computer programmer as woman is to X,” it
replied, “homemaker.”

85. amplifying
what’s
already there

86. https://medium.freecodecamp.org/why-we-desperately-need-women-to-design-ai-72cb061051df
We need women to design AI
“Siri and Alexa remain either evasive,
grateful, or flirtatious, while Cortana and
Google Home crack jokes in response to the
harassments they comprehend.”

88. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/microsoft-terminates-its-tay-ai-chatbot-after-she-turns-into-a-nazi/

89. https://chatbot.fail

90. Design for the fringe case.

91. How could this go wrong?

92. Friend or foe?
Should we leave our
experiences to ML/AI?

94. A little copy and color
never hurt anyone

95. https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/dark-patterns-how-ux-design-tricks-you-into-giving-away-your-privacy

96. https://uxdesign.cc/stop-calling-these-dark-design-patterns-or-dark-ux-these-are-simply-asshole-designs-bb02df378ba

97. https://postfunnel.com/5-naughty-conversion-dark-patterns-to-avoid-in-2018-what-to-do-instead/

98. https://postfunnel.com/5-naughty-conversion-dark-patterns-to-avoid-in-2018-what-to-do-instead/

100. https://econsultancy.com/13-examples-of-dark-patterns-in-ecommerce-checkouts/

101. https://econsultancy.com/13-examples-of-dark-patterns-in-ecommerce-checkouts/

102. https://econsultancy.com/13-examples-of-dark-patterns-in-ecommerce-checkouts/

103. Friend or foe?
Can we (mis)direct people
via copy and color?

104. Society

105. “When I was a kid, it felt like they made something
new every day. Some gadget or idea. Like every day
was Christmas. By six billion people, just try to
imagine that. And every last one of them trying
to have it all.”
https://www.moviequotesandmore.com/interstellar-quotes/

107. https://maketimebook.com

109. What is one small shift that you have made
about the way you spend your time that had
the largest impact on your quality of life?
“For me it was deleting apps on my phone—
Gmail, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, even
disabling Twitter.”
Q.
A.
https://freedom.to/blog/jake-knapp-how-to-make-time-for-the-things-that-matter-every-day/

111. https://medium.com/time-dorks/the-distraction-free-iphone-or-why-im-happier-since-i-disabled-safari-80f8d525b0d8

113. Phone addiction

114. “when they were in “withdrawal,” and felt physiological
symptoms, like increased heart rate and blood pressure. They
also felt a sense of loss, or lessening, of their extended self—
their phones.”
“The CDC had noted a rise in the rates of both over the years
2010-2015, and found that girls were particularly at risk: Their
suicide rate rose by 65% in those five years. The number of girls
with severe depression rose by 58%.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/12/11/phone-addiction-is-real-and-so-are-its-mental-health-risks/#5132a77713df

115. politics

116. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/03/facebook-haunted-by-its-handling-of-2016-election-meddling.html

117. “The company says their work with data and research allowed
Mr Trump to win with a narrow margin of “40,000 votes” in
three states providing victory in the electoral college system,
despite losing the popular vote by more than 3 million votes.”
“When you have a massive propaganda effort to prevent people
from thinking straight, because they’re being flooded with false
information and you have people who are searching.. trying to
make sense of it. But every search engine, every site they go into
is repeating these fabrications. Then yes It affected the thought
processes of voters.”
https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump-data-firm-cambridge-analytica

118. Friend or foe?
Should we be responsible
for societal effects of
what we create?

119. Everything is
designed. Even if
it’s unintentional.

122. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/hawaii-missile-warning-set-o"-by-bad-design.html
“Note that you are not looking
at Craigslist in this photo. This
is the actual interface that
the real government uses to
alert its citizens of likely
nuclear catastrophe.”

124. https://medium.com/hh-design/don-t-blame-steve-harvey-bad-design-caused-the-miss-universe-fiasco-e55d33f4218a

125. 3rd Place
2ND Place
1st Place

127. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/30/18037872/texas-voting-machine-hart-eslate-voting-ballot-switch-problems
“The Secretary of State’s office has
admonished voters to fill out their ballots
slowly, emphasizing that “the voting
machines are not malfunctioning” and that
the issue was purely “user error.””

128. Friend or foe?
Should we improve our
voting systems

129. “I fight for the Users!”

130. Improve Someone’s workday
Influence someone to Make a good decision
Include more diverse data set
Be honest
& Improve the world.
You caN. . .

131. Ux needs a
to be friend.

132. So get to it!
@jeremyjohnson www.jeremyjohnsononline.com
www.projekt202.com