GoKawiilEvery time I give a talk on design, someone finds me afterward. They wait out the handshakes and the business cards, and then they ask a version of the same question. How do I make THEM do things the RIGHT WAY?
(this happens with other disciplines too, but it ALWAYS happens when I talk to designers.)
I never have a good answer. Sometimes I talk about persuasion, sometimes social capital. But only recently I feel comfortable enough to say it is a cursed problem (more on that in a bit, keep reading.)
I teach a class called Design for Behavior Change. But let me tell you a secret: all design is behavior change.
I don’t care if it’s a book cover or a poster, an advertisement or a social media site. Everybody’s trying to change something. A huge percentage of the time, the thing they want to change is your wallet. If you are a designer, this is your fate. I know we talk all the time about beauty and balance, gestalt and saving the world. But most of us are just trying to get people to buy stuff.
Which means that taking a design job is committing to change people in whatever direction the company wants. And if the company is a public one, what it wants is shareholder value. You can tell yourself you’re user-centered. You can tell yourself you’re making users’ lives easier, and on good days that’s even true. You can’t deny that the user research, the accessibility audit and the beautiful empty state are all in service of a number that has nothing to do with whether anyone’s life got better.
B corps are better. As long as they stay B corps. (Look at Etsy.) Nonprofits are the honest version, almost restful in their clarity. You are definitely committed to behavior change there. It’s just that the behavior might be a social good… It also could be in service to fundraising. If you think money is icky, don’t be a designer. Money is oxygen for organizations.
Fact: you never know who is really a mission-driven company until you’re on the inside. When I was at LinkedIn in the early days, it was very much a mission-driven company. Before LinkedIn you had to decide to quit and start job hunting to improve your lot in life. LinkedIn let great jobs find you instead.
I’m not sure LinkedIn is still a mission-driven company. When I’m on the feed I feel like I’ve left Twitter for somewhere just as annoying and less authentic. It does have a lot fewer Nazis, which is nice.
Disappointed optimists
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