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What's your response to the article's point that a platform, any platform, already changes your behaviour? This is the focus of the discussion - do people know

What's your response to the article's point that a platform, any platform, already changes your behaviour? This is the focus of the discussion - do people know what they want? If, as the authors write, desire emerges from interaction with a platform, then there's no sense in talking about "what people want". There's no sense in even trying to criticize manipulating what people want. Particularly on browsing platforms, like social media or online shopping, what the user wants to be presented with is not a single, well-defined goal; even when restricted to just one user. Platforms always editorialize, even if it is unintentional. Platforms are already a moral authority, even if just by reinforcing norms. Technologists who say "I'm neutral, I just listen to the data/user/profits/shareholder/specification" fail to recognize that software acts on people, and being willfully blind to what influence you have is not absolving you of influence.

malvosenior 7y ago
> What's your response to the article's point that a platform, any platform, already changes your behaviour? I strongly disagree with it. Especially when it comes to mate selection, people have a lifetime of experience on which to draw from to make a decision. > Platforms are already a moral authority, even if just by reinforcing norms. I don't agree that "reinforcing norms" (aka giving people what they want) is a moral position unless that position is: We'll let your users decide for themselves what's best for them. > Technologists who say "I'm neutral, I just listen to the data/user/profits/shareholder/specification" fail to recognize that software acts on people, and being willfully blind to what influence you have is not absolving you of influence. Everything acts on people. Every input you take in is processed and your brain decides what to do with it. By staying as neutral as possible, you let the end user make the decision on their own. I also don't think this sort of manipulation is even effective.
- ivanbakel 7y ago
  >I strongly disagree with it. Then how do you otherwise explain the article's claims that desire (as expressed by user actions) can and does change even over the short time of using a platform? Platforms which guide users through an experience (as UX designers aim to do) can then have some influence on the user. >(aka giving people what they want) How do you define this? The article says that the assumption that people approach dating or hookups with a rigid desire is wrong - so is "what they want" how they feel before they use the application? Why are changes in desire invalid? Are services based on discovery (shopping/advertising/social media/etc) immoral for not giving you exactly what you ask for? >By staying as neutral as possible, you let the end user make the decision on their own. But you're presupposing that neutrality is possible. That's exactly what the article argues against - a platform is an active influence on its users, even if that influence isn't deliberately designed.
  - deleted 7y ago
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  - malvosenior 7y ago
    If you limit someone's selection, then yes they have no choice but to take the "best" option of what you've offered them. The question is are you limiting that selection because you're trying to help them find what they like and thus filtering out what you think they wouldn't like. Or are you limiting selection because you want them to like what you like so you strip away everything that you don't like. The first is fine (although can be achieved with varying degrees of success). The second I would consider immoral but at the very least it's bad UX. I think the best option is to offer suggestions based on what you think someone may like but also offer access to the raw data/all data so they can decide for themselves with 100% transparency. For a dating site example, imagine that someone puts in that they're only looking to match with people greater than 6 feet tall. That could be viewed as either discriminatory or personal preference. If the platform views it as personal preference then they go ahead and filter out all people under 6 feet tall. If they view it as discriminatory, they continue to show the user people under 6 feet in hopes that they'll "learn the error of their ways". My argument is that the platforms have no business doing the later.
    - ivanbakel 7y ago
      Your example is meaningless because the article doesn't make any kind of argument for that situation. It suggests that those filters should be more difficult to use, or completely absent - but not that they should be present and ignored. This also wasn't the direction of your original objection against "data manipulation, user interface decisions, hiding of opinions". More generally, the article doesn't agree with your general idea that "what they like" is a well-defined concept, or that a platform is able to get a good idea of what it is. Giving a user the power to search for specific preferences doesn't mean that a platform will be able to return the best results for that user - just the results that have been searched for. What that means for the authors is that a preference search isn't necessary or meaningful to have.
      - 7y ago
mindslight 7y ago
> Technologists who say "I'm neutral, I just listen to the data/user/profits/shareholder/specification" This is not being neutral - these are all justifications for changing user behavior based on the interests of the company. The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy). Then every individual is better able to opt out of choices made for them, rather than the current state of outrage groups pushing companies to adopt their team's desired policies for everyone.
- ivanbakel 7y ago
  >This is not being neutral Then what is? >The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy). The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience - and the reason those have become so popular is because believing you could make a product without feedback from how your users wanted to use it turned out to be a much worse approach. Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software. Designing something for end users involves pruning choice paths.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    > Then what is? Every paradigm carries inherent biases, but if you simply present it as-is you're at least not exacerbating them. Once you go down the road of "optimizing", you're moving away from neutrality. > The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience Um, analytics are a large part of what is feeding this trend of opinionated software that pushes users into behaving certain ways. Analytics optimizes for the company's goals - the users' goals can only be subservient to that. > Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software You're shoehorning my argument in order to use an old ignorant put down of Free software. Yes, Free software has been outpolished by surveillance as a service - invasive control is inherently more lucrative, attracting capital. Now that centralized services are moving from "acquisition" to "imposition", their downsides are becoming a lot more apparent. When the community is bundled with the software, Melcalfe's law restricts competition between softwares - likely leading to two attractors, the most popular option and the fed-up dissenters. While not being an ubermensch programmer means that you cannot make your own software that perfectly reflects your preferences (ie nobody can), the point is being able to choose between a plurality of competing software options that are better able to match them.

malvosenior 7y ago

> What's your response to the article's point that a platform, any platform, already changes your behaviour? I strongly disagree with it. Especially when it comes to mate selection, people have a lifetime of experience on which to draw from to make a decision. > Platforms are already a moral authority, even if just by reinforcing norms. I don't agree that "reinforcing norms" (aka giving people what they want) is a moral position unless that position is: We'll let your users decide for themselves what's best for them. > Technologists who say "I'm neutral, I just listen to the data/user/profits/shareholder/specification" fail to recognize that software acts on people, and being willfully blind to what influence you have is not absolving you of influence. Everything acts on people. Every input you take in is processed and your brain decides what to do with it. By staying as neutral as possible, you let the end user make the decision on their own. I also don't think this sort of manipulation is even effective.

ivanbakel 7y ago
>I strongly disagree with it. Then how do you otherwise explain the article's claims that desire (as expressed by user actions) can and does change even over the short time of using a platform? Platforms which guide users through an experience (as UX designers aim to do) can then have some influence on the user. >(aka giving people what they want) How do you define this? The article says that the assumption that people approach dating or hookups with a rigid desire is wrong - so is "what they want" how they feel before they use the application? Why are changes in desire invalid? Are services based on discovery (shopping/advertising/social media/etc) immoral for not giving you exactly what you ask for? >By staying as neutral as possible, you let the end user make the decision on their own. But you're presupposing that neutrality is possible. That's exactly what the article argues against - a platform is an active influence on its users, even if that influence isn't deliberately designed.
- deleted 7y ago
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- malvosenior 7y ago
  If you limit someone's selection, then yes they have no choice but to take the "best" option of what you've offered them. The question is are you limiting that selection because you're trying to help them find what they like and thus filtering out what you think they wouldn't like. Or are you limiting selection because you want them to like what you like so you strip away everything that you don't like. The first is fine (although can be achieved with varying degrees of success). The second I would consider immoral but at the very least it's bad UX. I think the best option is to offer suggestions based on what you think someone may like but also offer access to the raw data/all data so they can decide for themselves with 100% transparency. For a dating site example, imagine that someone puts in that they're only looking to match with people greater than 6 feet tall. That could be viewed as either discriminatory or personal preference. If the platform views it as personal preference then they go ahead and filter out all people under 6 feet tall. If they view it as discriminatory, they continue to show the user people under 6 feet in hopes that they'll "learn the error of their ways". My argument is that the platforms have no business doing the later.
  - ivanbakel 7y ago
    Your example is meaningless because the article doesn't make any kind of argument for that situation. It suggests that those filters should be more difficult to use, or completely absent - but not that they should be present and ignored. This also wasn't the direction of your original objection against "data manipulation, user interface decisions, hiding of opinions". More generally, the article doesn't agree with your general idea that "what they like" is a well-defined concept, or that a platform is able to get a good idea of what it is. Giving a user the power to search for specific preferences doesn't mean that a platform will be able to return the best results for that user - just the results that have been searched for. What that means for the authors is that a preference search isn't necessary or meaningful to have.
    - 7y ago

mindslight 7y ago

> Technologists who say "I'm neutral, I just listen to the data/user/profits/shareholder/specification" This is not being neutral - these are all justifications for changing user behavior based on the interests of the company. The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy). Then every individual is better able to opt out of choices made for them, rather than the current state of outrage groups pushing companies to adopt their team's desired policies for everyone.

ivanbakel 7y ago
>This is not being neutral Then what is? >The real answer is to separate dataset (aka community) from software (aka policy). The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience - and the reason those have become so popular is because believing you could make a product without feedback from how your users wanted to use it turned out to be a much worse approach. Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software. Designing something for end users involves pruning choice paths.
- mindslight 7y ago
  > Then what is? Every paradigm carries inherent biases, but if you simply present it as-is you're at least not exacerbating them. Once you go down the road of "optimizing", you're moving away from neutrality. > The result of that would be software that doesn't aim to serve the user. This is exactly what software was like before the current trend of analytics and user experience Um, analytics are a large part of what is feeding this trend of opinionated software that pushes users into behaving certain ways. Analytics optimizes for the company's goals - the users' goals can only be subservient to that. > Instead, you're proposing to make all software so powerful that the user is in complete control of all choices, which is really another way of suggesting that the user become a programmer of their own software You're shoehorning my argument in order to use an old ignorant put down of Free software. Yes, Free software has been outpolished by surveillance as a service - invasive control is inherently more lucrative, attracting capital. Now that centralized services are moving from "acquisition" to "imposition", their downsides are becoming a lot more apparent. When the community is bundled with the software, Melcalfe's law restricts competition between softwares - likely leading to two attractors, the most popular option and the fed-up dissenters. While not being an ubermensch programmer means that you cannot make your own software that perfectly reflects your preferences (ie nobody can), the point is being able to choose between a plurality of competing software options that are better able to match them.