Designing for Respect

Chapter 2. What We Can Do: Design Principles for a Respectful Future

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Lao Tzu

We’ve looked at a number of examples of what not to do, but what should we do instead? What single steps can designers take?

Pretend your UI is human

If we were to follow only one rule to establish ethical and respectful UX, this would be it. Many of us have seen the skit in which Google is replaced with a real person. Joking aside, the general concept of imagining that the UI is human provides a useful litmus test for whether an interaction is respectful. If this was a human interaction, would you tolerate it? Don’t worry, in case you have forgotten about how to achieve a civil human-to-human conversation, here are some guidelines:

Be polite

Don’t be demanding. Use language that a user expects. Say hello, please, thank you, and goodbye.

Listen and respond

Don’t make users wait excessively while you “load” the answer. Provide many avenues for them to communicate with you: text search, messaging, chatting, and voice control.

Tell the truth

A user will always find out if you are lying, so save everyone time and be transparent. Consider the Comcast example of only providing an Upgrade tab. The functionality to make other service changes is there, but you have to dig.

Put users before trends

Whether or not you agree with the iOS Alarm UI example, the idea that designers sometimes forget the user’s needs in favor of supporting a design ...