It's time we create with conscience.
1. Build in healthy boundaries
Put an end to infinite feeds and focus on building stopping queues for our users. Give them the control they need to personalize the software they use everyday.
Preferences
Preference centers, especially for notifications, are great because they give users control over how and when they’d like to be notified.
“Load more”
Implementing a “Load more” button is a much healthier & usable alternative to the bottomless bowls of infinite scrolling.
“All caught up”
Social media feeds are notorious for presenting users with an endless amount of content. Messaging to the user that they’re virtually “caught up,” brings ease to our innate need to reach the end.
2. Encourage well-being
As technology becomes woven into everything we do, it should always aim to improve life, not distract from it. Digital well-being is crucial to our mental health and relationships with our personal and social selves. Build in patterns that educate and promote digital well-being into the tools our world relies on.
Screen Time
Companies like Apple and Google are investing in building in digital well-being experiences into their native platforms.
Snooze
Hitting “snooze” is now trendy! Apps like Bumble and GMail have implemented this feature that allows users to virtually hit “pause” on specific actions.
National Day of Unplugging
Many companies participated in this day long event committed to encouraging people to spend a day off or way from their devices.
3. Anticipate unhealthy behaviours
Despite what we choose to believe, the tech we’re creating can have a negative affect on our users physical and mental well-being. It’s important that we account for these unhealthy behaviours such as mental illness, addiction, exclusion, or oversharing. We should seek out opportunities to create a positive impact.
Depression
Is your product stimulating or elevating or triggering symptoms of depression?
How might someone with a mental illness use your product to hurt themselves?
Exclusion
Is your product accessible to all user groups, regardless of disabilities, culture, education level, and language?
Could your product be used to exclude certain groups?
Addiction
Does your product promote long term use?
What’s the worse case scenario for users susceptible to addiction?
4. Empower change
We need to collectively take on the forces stealing our attention and compel them to change. Prioritization of the mental and emotional well-being of users, and the associated impacts on society, will someday be baked into the product development process. And we can each do our part to help make that happen.
Develop your playbook
What are your personal values when it comes to design?
What if we designed tech to minimize stress and create a calm state of mind?
Do you want to live in the world that you’re designing?
Establish an ethics framework
Play into your organization’s principles
Build ethics discussions into your product development lifecycle
Get buy in for your ethical playbook
Change how we measure success
Shift the narrative away from engagement
Make your metrics focused around the health of your users
Life-time, not screen time!