design as a labor of love
Leaps in technology in the past few decades have sanctioned the need for graphical user interfaces in a way that has turned designers into behavioural scientists. There are rules of perception and button placements that graphic designers have long known to be true, now legitimised by "laws" and equations of evidence. Every microsecond has been calculated to drive data-driven optimisation and user-centricity.
But just take something like amazon.com, and the dark pattern it takes you down when trying to unsubscribe from a service, and all that idealism about good design crumbles. It continues to be hailed a successful product, because it exceeds every metric of success we define. unfortunately, what we can measure becomes what matters (and grows) and as much as I hate the amazon experience, there aren't too many alternatives. Probably true for a lot of experiences we opt into everyday. To me, it reaffirms the idea that design is a labor of love; And since love is famously impossible to measure, well-designed products are rare to come by.
To justify my design choices is like having to explain a joke - if you've asked for an explanation, it probably doesn't work. One can optimise based on eyeballs and clicks - 'engagement' is the going metric - but the intangible value of what we find beautiful remains incalculable. “Beauty is not a thing, or a property of objects, but a measure of the emotional experience of awe, wonder, pleasure, or mere surprise that those objects may unleash.” [source] Beauty is an experience, of the beholder.
It's why digital experience design starts at empathy building — we have to fall in love with our users in a way. So a thing is designed to make the user love you back, and every digital product builds a personality in response. To me, there's integrity in the likes of letterboxd.com, or are.na, or even the come back of dumb phones - that refrain by design. Even if they cannot compete with the compulsive experiences of Instagram or Netflix, I'd call them good. Market-prescribed metrics of success are driven by incentives that may not have the user’s best interests in mind. And we all know the unhealthy patterns we fall into when slot-machine logic is applied to our digital experiences. To me, that's the responsibility of a designer - to design those invisible experiences and build things that empower - not pacify - users.
other beautiful reads on optimizing for feelings and love for the invisible work.