Stop spoon feeding your users, shifting design paradigms for data empowerment

 

On my last entry we had a chance to comment about Web 3 and how it aims to return some measure of data control and information flow back into the hands of the users. However, what I believe is one of the biggest challenges Web 3 brings forth resides in one of it's core tenets. Decentralization.

From a security stand point, decentralization is awesome. Rather than having all the information reside in one central place, it's distributed amongst the participants of the network and each participating node polls each other to verify the integrity and validity of all the data.

The issue with this model is that in order to join the network, each user must configure their own node.

What's wrong with a little work?

We as users have become very accustomed to having to exert little to no effort when installing a new application or joining a new service. No matter the task, every step of the building process is expected to run with little to no input from the user.

This is actually rather impressive and shows the great lengths to which product designers and developers have gone to automate the operation of their offerings, but also causes an outrage from users whenever they're required to do something beyond clicking an "I accept" button.

 

I've accepted your terms, now do your thing!

 

Big tech corporations are acutely aware of this mindset and they're using it to push increasingly invasive measures in the name of data privacy and security. Like videogame organisms asking for biometric data from their users in order to enforce age restriction limits on games. However, more often than not, these companies have been victims of hacks or data breaches where the financial information of their users has been exposed. This makes trusting them with something as valuable and permanent as biometric data seem completely absurd.

In short, and going back to my previous post, if we want to rein back the amount of control big tech has over our data, EVERYONE needs to be involved, and the best chance we have is by helping the most people we can understand how their data is used.

Design as a tool for involvement

In order to start working towards a more involved user base, I believe we should start designing our services and offerings to involve our users a little more. Providing them with opportunities to tweak and configure their preferences while sprinkling in guidance on how their choices modify their experience.

 

Working together is way more satisfying

 

This doesn't mean sending every user to a command line or server interface, we can still make the more complicated operating parts simple by providing a simplified interface that more users can interact with after some light studying or going through a FAQ. 

I understand this method may not be necessary for every service in existence, but I believe the more we can push our users to feel comfortable with being more hands-on with their tech, the less they may feel the need to be completely reliant on a third party to manage the services they use to communicate and transfer information.

I'd be interested in reading out some thoughts on this idea. "Design is used to make things more accessible" is something I'm 100% in line with, but accessibility should not always mean "remove every obstacle".

If this resonates with you, leave a comment or reach out! And in the meantime, Let's keep creating!