attraction, distraction, addiction



One of the substantial issues that Don raised in relation to designs that are not user-centric is the experience of distraction and then, by extension, the development of addictive relations with external systems.



The company with the most current patent applications, in Australia, is a maker of poker machines and more importantly, poker machine games. They have more applications than our leading scientific body, CSIRO. The designing of addiction is a massive financially rewarding design field.



Don talked about the importance of curiosity which here, I would subsume into the category of attraction. We must first be, at a minimum, attracted to something before we can determine it is curious, novel, interesting etc.



Attraction, in it most immediate form, can be determined as interruption. That is, our cognitive systems are radically open to interruption. If this were not the case, we would have been wiped out by predators thousands of years ago. People taking amphetamines are able to stay focused on a spider’s web for hours which is amusing but dumb and dangerous.



When we drive, we need to ensure that we don’t lock onto something. We have to keep shifting our attention to open us up to novel events in the world around.



This system, of openness to attraction, makes us vulnerable to designed forms of attraction that are seeking our attention so we buy this that or the other. Much current design research is aimed precisely at this commercialization of desire. Why does my eye fall on this pink and gleaming thing? It must be talking to me. It must be a part of my lost wholeness. I will buy these cornflakes rather than those cornflakes.



If we strip all items of aesthetic attractors, we would be faced, as consumers, with decisions based on technical information such as sugar content, or on mere history (I like this one last time I bought it). This would be truer user centred design.



The problems with dopamine reward systems and poker machines are an elevated example of what we are doing to ourselves through attraction-based design. We know how these systems work and yet we are doing nothing to prevent  the social injuries these designs promote. If the same levels of addiction were being caused by chemicals in the workplace, we would have banned these things years ago.



So, yes, I support Don’s concerns but I don’t think they are designers’ concerns unless we require designers to be professionals with the ethical responsibilities of doctors.



No more sexy Porsche 911s – they lead to wealthy young men dying in accidents, or worse, killing strangers.



 keith







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