Book description
Bad design is everywhere, and its cost is much higher than we think. In this thought-provoking book, authors Jonathan Shariat and Cynthia Savard Saucier explain how poorly designed products can anger, sadden, exclude, and even kill people who use them. The designers responsible certainly didn’t intend harm, so what can you do to avoid making similar mistakes?
Tragic Design examines real case studies that show how certain design choices adversely affected users, and includes in-depth interviews with authorities in the design industry. Pick up this book and learn how you can be an agent of change in the design community and at your company.
You’ll explore:
- Designs that can kill, including the bad interface that doomed a young cancer patient
- Designs that anger, through impolite technology and dark patterns
- How design can inadvertently cause emotional pain
- Designs that exclude people through lack of accessibility, diversity, and justice
- How to advocate for ethical design when it isn’t easy to do so
- Tools and techniques that can help you avoid harmful design decisions
- Inspiring professionals who use design to improve our world
Publisher resources
Table of contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Design Can Kill
- 3. Design Can Anger
-
4. Design Can Sadden
- The “Dribbblelisation” of Our Users
- Inadvertent Cruelty
- Self-Blame and Humiliation
- “Power User” Features
- Allowing for Abuse
- How to Prevent Causing Sadness
- Conclusion
- Key Takeaways
-
5. Design Can Exclude
-
Accessibility
- A Case for Accessible Design
-
Making
Your Service Accessible
- Don’t rely on color to convey information
- Pick high-contrast text colors
- Use alt text
- Avoid text embedded in images
- Provide context for hyperlinks
- Simplify your textual content
- Avoid automatic image sliders (or carousels)
- Design accessible forms
- Consider accessibility outside of the browser
- Treat internet access as a human right
- Inspiring Change Within Your Organization
- Diversity, Inclusive Design, Design for All
- Injustice
- Conclusion
- Key Takeaways
-
Accessibility
- 6. Tools and Techniques
- 7. What We Can Do
- 8. They Are Doing Good
- A. Companies, Products, and Links
- About the Authors
- Colophon
- Index
- Copyright
Product information
- Title: Tragic Design
- Author(s):
- Release date: April 2017
- Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
- ISBN: 9781491923566
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