5 ms·

We need to start shaming the actual UX experts and engineers who build these systems, rather than letting them hide behind the ranks of the giant evil megacorps

by saurik 2y ago

We need to start shaming the actual UX experts and engineers who build these systems, rather than letting them hide behind the ranks of the giant evil megacorps they empower.

badsectoracula 2y ago
You should also shame the developers who implement what said UX experts design, the managers who force the developers to implement said designs, the product owners who ask the UX designers to come up with ideas that end up with those designs, the finance gremlins who create these incentives for the owners of these ideas, etc and at the end of this recursive floodfill blame algorithm you'll probably end up covering most of the giant evil megacorp in question. Honestly i don't think you can put blame on any single individual - including the CEO - and have things change, this isn't a single player (or even single corporation, considering Microsoft isn't the only one doing these shady things) game.
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  > Honestly i don't think you can put blame on any single individual... IMHO this is actually the biggest problem with modern application development, no accountability at all and everybody hiding behind somebody else instead of admitting failure, so all one can hope for is a poor compromise that's the average of many opinions (each single one of them even probably good, but not when mixed with random other opinions). Funny enough, it's the same problem, everybody weaseling around a clear "No" ;)
- exe34 2y ago
  that's the whole point of the ceo, to have somebody to blame.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    And then the CEO gets replaced (with a fat bonus and an offer to work on another company a couple years later - if not right away) and the machine keeps on going.
- soco 2y ago
  Yes we can, and that's the only way things can change. I don't care whether that single individual was only a cog, because it was an essential cog to bring garbage over our heads. A cog with a name. Have you watched "Zone of interest"? It applies everywhere, unfortunately: regular people don't care that much about the evil they do.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    If you blame a single "cog", the cog will become the scapegoat for your very specific blame and get replaced while all the other cogs, screws and levers will keep on having the same incentives and the machine will keeps on moving forward all the same.
  - tocs3 2y ago
    It is not always a practical response, but just not using things that we do not like is also a way to make things change. Too often, as consumers, we accept bad behavior just because we expect it. It just teaches the companies (individuals, politicians, etc.) that they can keep pushing the things they want over what the consumer wants. Blaming a cog (for something the machine wants anyway) is tantamount to scapegoating. The machine will change out the part for one that more or less serves the same purpose.
    - soco 2y ago
      Let's not forget that the one doesn't preclude the other. There can be external pressure from customers, and internal pressure from cogs less and less enthusiastic about dark patterns. And at some point maybe maybe some regulation would step in, it's not unheard of.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Okay, imagine your computer downloads an update to, say, official MS Weather app. You launch it, and suddenly, there it is, a goatse, right on the main screen, as backdrop to the current weather. A quick search on-line tells you that you were not hacked, but this is, in fact, an official UI change from the last update. Who do you think should be shamed for this? The developers who put it there? The UI experts who said where to put it? The UX experts that came up with this particular image as a way to maximize engagement? The product owners who told the team to add some extremely gross visual shock image to the app to boost engagement, and who approved that particular choice? The QA team that let it through? I'd say: yes, all of them. You definitely can't put blame on a single individual here. There's lot of blame to be put on many individuals across the organizational structure. I picked an extreme hypothetical example to work like a contrast agent, to make it easier to see that there are parts of the org that are directly involved with some wrongdoing (vs. indirectly involved by e.g. setting incentives), and it's not absurd to want to put blame on all of them.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    I think you should read the entirety of my message because what you wrote is basically what i wrote. You can't blame a single individual - or even a few people - you can only blame some amorphous blob of humans, like the entire company. But by doing that the blame is so diffused that unless it is something as egregious as the extreme example you gave, it wont mean anything (and in practice the only reason it might mean something is because it might become news and affect some shares value or whatever - i.e. things wont change because the people that make up the organization you blamed are all convinced it is bad to put goatse in MS Weather but because of the indirect effect your blame had - and the people in there can always go and add goatse-like stuff in other products, perhaps in other companies).
- saurik 2y ago
  I did say "and engineers who build these systems"; and if you want to also blame managers, I'm all for that! I don't think your point about product owners merely asking for ideas (unless they asked for evil ideas) makes as much sense, though, and I don't even know who these "finance gremlins" are really supposed to be, but I am more than willing to believe some blame might fall on them as well. Regardless, though: at the end of the day blame must fall on an actual people, as it is people who make decisions and it is people who take actions and it is only people who can stop any of it. It is utterly ridiculous that even if we were to create a law that said it was illegal to create a dialog box that said "maybe later", somehow we would merely fine Microsoft and hope that disincentivizes the behavior while all the people who push on the law and continually test its boundaries in new products don't really have to worry about it themselves. FWIW, I actually will say I am more than a bit sympathetic to the argument that we should just blame everyone vaguely involved to the point where if we meet someone who works for these companies we should look at them with some side eye... but, the reality is that some people at whatever company we are talking about (here: Microsoft) are obviously more to blame for whatever evil decision we are dealing with than others, and so your attempt to pitch a tent so big that anyone not just merely vaguely involved with a decision but somehow in the entire industry should somehow be deserving of equal shame--and so we should oh-so-conveniently just not blame anyone at all--feels like a disingenuous attempt at distraction.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    My point is that blame wont do anything, if you blame one or a few people they'll become skapegoats and the company will keep on going and if you blame too many people the blame will become so diffused it wont matter. What needs to be done is to address the incentives that cause the above.
- CM30 2y ago
  Honestly, shaming these people might be the only way things do change. Make it utterly embarassing to work for a company that does evil or questionable things, so that those who prioritise money and power over doing the right thing in life actually have to live with the consequences of that. The fact is, too many awful things occur because people are happy to hide behind companies and organisations and say they "had no choice". The idea of "just following orders", which has been a sad human tendency for millennia.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    You'd first need to convince them they're not doing the right thing in life and people have a tendency to not learn when doing things right comes in conflict with their income. And you also have to deal with people becoming skapegoats for blame when even CEOs get hired just for that.
qwery 2y ago
> We need to start shaming the actual [individuals/regular people/employees] Yes, do call out bad practice when you see it. But please don't be hostile to (any/some of) the employees "who build these systems". They're doing their job/s. They're not responsible for the giant evil megacorp that employs them. They don't "empower" the corporation. It's obviously not that simple. What is simple is that Microsoft doesn't treat Windows users like vermin because some random UX guy said to. It's the other way around. The UX guy got told what to do. The engineers got told what to do. They all got told what the software was supposed to do and they tried to make the software to do what it was supposed to do, because that's what their job is. And for this one example, the imaginary UX guy actually made a more correct choice. The "maybe later" button is likely the best design given the constraints. The user isn't allowed to truly say "no, never", so presenting the negative option as "no" and then showing the dialog again a bit later would be a worse UX than the "maybe later" button which at least does what it says. Speaking of giant evil megacorps, maybe direct your hostilities towards them instead. Your issue is with them, the company. It's their software/behaviour.
- saurik 2y ago
  > They're not responsible for the giant evil megacorp that employs them. Of course they are! People aren't magically born hired to some giant company... they choose to--hell: they even fight to!--work there because they like making more money than they could at another job, in no small part as these jobs involve doing some evil things that extract more value from the world. > They all got told what the software was supposed to do and they tried to make the software to do what it was supposed to do, because that's what their job is. First off: who is telling them? Microsoft isn't some AI: it can't tell anyone what to do as it has no agency of its own... people had to make every single decision and take every single action that you are attributing to "Microsoft". They can't "all" be told what the software is supposed to do: someone--often someone low in the org chart, fascinatingly, but this sometimes could actually be someone high up--had to come up with the idea and do the telling. Second: no... just because "that's your job" isn't an excuse to just do whatever your boss wants you to do, even when you disagree with it; that is a ridiculous level of blame shifting. If you don't want to be held responsible and you somehow can't quit then you should at least be helping in protest of whatever you are finding yourself doing. > The user isn't allowed to truly say "no, never"... I mean, why not? Well, because someone, somewhere--a person, with a name, whether they were high or low in the ranks--decided it was more profitable to take agency from users, and then a scant handful of other people were willing to go along with that decision in exchange for everyone being paid their share of the spoils. (BTW: I would totally accept an argument that this button is a silly example to care deeply about. I'm not attached to the example myself: I was replying to someone else who cared about this and so am adopting this frame. There are much much worse decisions being made by Apple and Google these days.)
collyw 2y ago
I am sure they are more likely to listen to the person / company paying their wages.

by saurik 2y ago

We need to start shaming the actual UX experts and engineers who build these systems, rather than letting them hide behind the ranks of the giant evil megacorps they empower.

badsectoracula 2y ago

You should also shame the developers who implement what said UX experts design, the managers who force the developers to implement said designs, the product owners who ask the UX designers to come up with ideas that end up with those designs, the finance gremlins who create these incentives for the owners of these ideas, etc and at the end of this recursive floodfill blame algorithm you'll probably end up covering most of the giant evil megacorp in question. Honestly i don't think you can put blame on any single individual - including the CEO - and have things change, this isn't a single player (or even single corporation, considering Microsoft isn't the only one doing these shady things) game.

flohofwoe 2y ago
> Honestly i don't think you can put blame on any single individual... IMHO this is actually the biggest problem with modern application development, no accountability at all and everybody hiding behind somebody else instead of admitting failure, so all one can hope for is a poor compromise that's the average of many opinions (each single one of them even probably good, but not when mixed with random other opinions). Funny enough, it's the same problem, everybody weaseling around a clear "No" ;)
exe34 2y ago
that's the whole point of the ceo, to have somebody to blame.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  And then the CEO gets replaced (with a fat bonus and an offer to work on another company a couple years later - if not right away) and the machine keeps on going.
soco 2y ago
Yes we can, and that's the only way things can change. I don't care whether that single individual was only a cog, because it was an essential cog to bring garbage over our heads. A cog with a name. Have you watched "Zone of interest"? It applies everywhere, unfortunately: regular people don't care that much about the evil they do.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  If you blame a single "cog", the cog will become the scapegoat for your very specific blame and get replaced while all the other cogs, screws and levers will keep on having the same incentives and the machine will keeps on moving forward all the same.
- tocs3 2y ago
  It is not always a practical response, but just not using things that we do not like is also a way to make things change. Too often, as consumers, we accept bad behavior just because we expect it. It just teaches the companies (individuals, politicians, etc.) that they can keep pushing the things they want over what the consumer wants. Blaming a cog (for something the machine wants anyway) is tantamount to scapegoating. The machine will change out the part for one that more or less serves the same purpose.
  - soco 2y ago
    Let's not forget that the one doesn't preclude the other. There can be external pressure from customers, and internal pressure from cogs less and less enthusiastic about dark patterns. And at some point maybe maybe some regulation would step in, it's not unheard of.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Okay, imagine your computer downloads an update to, say, official MS Weather app. You launch it, and suddenly, there it is, a goatse, right on the main screen, as backdrop to the current weather. A quick search on-line tells you that you were not hacked, but this is, in fact, an official UI change from the last update. Who do you think should be shamed for this? The developers who put it there? The UI experts who said where to put it? The UX experts that came up with this particular image as a way to maximize engagement? The product owners who told the team to add some extremely gross visual shock image to the app to boost engagement, and who approved that particular choice? The QA team that let it through? I'd say: yes, all of them. You definitely can't put blame on a single individual here. There's lot of blame to be put on many individuals across the organizational structure. I picked an extreme hypothetical example to work like a contrast agent, to make it easier to see that there are parts of the org that are directly involved with some wrongdoing (vs. indirectly involved by e.g. setting incentives), and it's not absurd to want to put blame on all of them.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  I think you should read the entirety of my message because what you wrote is basically what i wrote. You can't blame a single individual - or even a few people - you can only blame some amorphous blob of humans, like the entire company. But by doing that the blame is so diffused that unless it is something as egregious as the extreme example you gave, it wont mean anything (and in practice the only reason it might mean something is because it might become news and affect some shares value or whatever - i.e. things wont change because the people that make up the organization you blamed are all convinced it is bad to put goatse in MS Weather but because of the indirect effect your blame had - and the people in there can always go and add goatse-like stuff in other products, perhaps in other companies).
saurik 2y ago
I did say "and engineers who build these systems"; and if you want to also blame managers, I'm all for that! I don't think your point about product owners merely asking for ideas (unless they asked for evil ideas) makes as much sense, though, and I don't even know who these "finance gremlins" are really supposed to be, but I am more than willing to believe some blame might fall on them as well. Regardless, though: at the end of the day blame must fall on an actual people, as it is people who make decisions and it is people who take actions and it is only people who can stop any of it. It is utterly ridiculous that even if we were to create a law that said it was illegal to create a dialog box that said "maybe later", somehow we would merely fine Microsoft and hope that disincentivizes the behavior while all the people who push on the law and continually test its boundaries in new products don't really have to worry about it themselves. FWIW, I actually will say I am more than a bit sympathetic to the argument that we should just blame everyone vaguely involved to the point where if we meet someone who works for these companies we should look at them with some side eye... but, the reality is that some people at whatever company we are talking about (here: Microsoft) are obviously more to blame for whatever evil decision we are dealing with than others, and so your attempt to pitch a tent so big that anyone not just merely vaguely involved with a decision but somehow in the entire industry should somehow be deserving of equal shame--and so we should oh-so-conveniently just not blame anyone at all--feels like a disingenuous attempt at distraction.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  My point is that blame wont do anything, if you blame one or a few people they'll become skapegoats and the company will keep on going and if you blame too many people the blame will become so diffused it wont matter. What needs to be done is to address the incentives that cause the above.
CM30 2y ago
Honestly, shaming these people might be the only way things do change. Make it utterly embarassing to work for a company that does evil or questionable things, so that those who prioritise money and power over doing the right thing in life actually have to live with the consequences of that. The fact is, too many awful things occur because people are happy to hide behind companies and organisations and say they "had no choice". The idea of "just following orders", which has been a sad human tendency for millennia.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  You'd first need to convince them they're not doing the right thing in life and people have a tendency to not learn when doing things right comes in conflict with their income. And you also have to deal with people becoming skapegoats for blame when even CEOs get hired just for that.

qwery 2y ago

> We need to start shaming the actual [individuals/regular people/employees] Yes, do call out bad practice when you see it. But please don't be hostile to (any/some of) the employees "who build these systems". They're doing their job/s. They're not responsible for the giant evil megacorp that employs them. They don't "empower" the corporation. It's obviously not that simple. What is simple is that Microsoft doesn't treat Windows users like vermin because some random UX guy said to. It's the other way around. The UX guy got told what to do. The engineers got told what to do. They all got told what the software was supposed to do and they tried to make the software to do what it was supposed to do, because that's what their job is. And for this one example, the imaginary UX guy actually made a more correct choice. The "maybe later" button is likely the best design given the constraints. The user isn't allowed to truly say "no, never", so presenting the negative option as "no" and then showing the dialog again a bit later would be a worse UX than the "maybe later" button which at least does what it says. Speaking of giant evil megacorps, maybe direct your hostilities towards them instead. Your issue is with them, the company. It's their software/behaviour.

saurik 2y ago
> They're not responsible for the giant evil megacorp that employs them. Of course they are! People aren't magically born hired to some giant company... they choose to--hell: they even fight to!--work there because they like making more money than they could at another job, in no small part as these jobs involve doing some evil things that extract more value from the world. > They all got told what the software was supposed to do and they tried to make the software to do what it was supposed to do, because that's what their job is. First off: who is telling them? Microsoft isn't some AI: it can't tell anyone what to do as it has no agency of its own... people had to make every single decision and take every single action that you are attributing to "Microsoft". They can't "all" be told what the software is supposed to do: someone--often someone low in the org chart, fascinatingly, but this sometimes could actually be someone high up--had to come up with the idea and do the telling. Second: no... just because "that's your job" isn't an excuse to just do whatever your boss wants you to do, even when you disagree with it; that is a ridiculous level of blame shifting. If you don't want to be held responsible and you somehow can't quit then you should at least be helping in protest of whatever you are finding yourself doing. > The user isn't allowed to truly say "no, never"... I mean, why not? Well, because someone, somewhere--a person, with a name, whether they were high or low in the ranks--decided it was more profitable to take agency from users, and then a scant handful of other people were willing to go along with that decision in exchange for everyone being paid their share of the spoils. (BTW: I would totally accept an argument that this button is a silly example to care deeply about. I'm not attached to the example myself: I was replying to someone else who cared about this and so am adopting this frame. There are much much worse decisions being made by Apple and Google these days.)

collyw 2y ago

I am sure they are more likely to listen to the person / company paying their wages.