the plauge of overdesign

why smart devices make us want to throw them out a window, and why anyone thought that they were a good idea in the first place.

In 2017, a Google affiliate company, Sidewalk Labs, embarked on a project to make a district in Toronto the world’s first proper “smart city,” including a range of embedded screens and sensors. This project did not come to fruition, following vast amounts of local resistance, concerns over data protection, and the COVID-19 pandemic. But the response to this smart city, and the surprise of the builders of this smart city at this response, can tell us a lot about the nature of technology.

In recent years, the anticipated rise of smart devices has largely fallen flat. Many people simply don’t like them.

But this isn’t just about smart devices - overdesign is everywhere. Take Spotify, for example. What on earth is a personal DJ AI? I want it to play my music and create playlists. I don’t want it to do everything. Similarly, social media platforms are becoming overly complex. Despite increasing usage, there's a growing demand for a return to simpler, chronological feeds with clear endpoints. For instance, Instagram's shift to short-form videos has met resistance from many users, including high-profile celebrities.

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the importance of co-design & user autonomy

It's easy to find yourself in a bubble when you make a living from understanding and building technology. You might ridicule those who don't desire the latest tech, making it difficult to grasp why people sometimes respond negatively to new technology. It's tempting to think, "They're just technophobes. I know better."

However, this isn't best practice. As designers, we should always respond with curiosity. When someone reacts negatively, instead of judging them, we should ask why. What's causing this response?

When I examined my frustration and those of my close friends and family, I observed an issue with control. Like many others, I want to feel in control of my digital experience. Too much automation can make us feel like we've lost that control.

There's a fine line between tolerable and excessive automation. This line varies from person to person and community to community—which might explain why people sometimes have such strong adverse reactions to new technologies.

This is why all technology should be bottom-up—designed for and with the communities they're situated in. In a good design team that co-designs with its users and avoids assumptions, intensely adverse reactions like the one seen in Toronto shouldn't happen. These reactions are preventable with good, empathetic design.

the Paradox of Automation and hidden labour

The Paradox of Automation says that the more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the human contribution of the operators. Humans are less involved, but their involvement becomes more critical.

Automation can be somewhat of a false promise. It promises us less work and that we don’t have to do the same repetitive tasks repeatedly, but this is an oversimplification. As the paradox of automation indicates, this is linked to hidden labour. Creating automation requires a lot of labour - programming, designing, and many more skills. And that’s not to mention the constant upkeep through things like content moderation and human intervention in specific cases.

So this “overdesign” also requires a lot of labour—behind every smart tool, every overdesigned interface, is a legion of people who have created this tool. But you rarely hear from them, and when you do, it is usually the person in charge, creating an illusion as if they created this all on their own. This is an all-too-common problem in design and technology—the Myth of the Hero Designer.

The myth of the hero designer is that one individual, armed with creativity and brilliance, is solely responsible for crafting groundbreaking solutions. This seductive narrative is often reinforced by public recognition and design awards, with the praise lavished on perceived “design heroes” who have an army of juniors doing most of their work.

Design is a collective effort. Solutions emerge from research, collaboration, and an understanding of people and systems—not from a single genius. The problem with this myth is that it overlooks the reality of design work, which involves feedback, iteration, and input from various stakeholders. It also isolates the designer, forcing them to deliver something “revolutionary” independently, which can distract the designer from creating real impact in the world, making them compete with their peers instead of truly collaborate with them.

Good design is messy and rarely the product of just one person’s vision. The myth of the hero designer not only promotes an unrealistic expectation but also marginalises the crucial contributions of others. What’s worse, it can foster a culture where ego trumps empathy, leading to designs that might look clever but fail to address the real, complex problems they’re meant to solve.

This problem is replicated in technological development, too — how many of the world’s most impressive technological advances have legions of unrecognised labour behind them? From Babbage to Altman, this problem haunts us in all aspects of design and technology. The labour required to collect, collate, and use all this data that designers are unwittingly convincing their users to hand over is rarely discussed.

why is tech Like That?

Capitalism in the digital age thrives on surveillance and the data provided by this surveillance. This data surveillance is enabled by clever, persuasive design techniques that make this data collection appealing to users. Whether it is being pushed to post more on your favourite social media sites constantly or to buy the newest fridge with some ridiculous screen attached, this design's ultimate goal is not to help users but to harvest data.

I want to point out that this is not a conspiracy; capitalism is functioning as intended. These processes of design culture do not happen because a secret cabal sits down in a room, rubs their hands together, and goes, “How can we manipulate young designers today!” - it is a naturally occurring process whereby people need to create and gain capital to survive. Still, they must justify how they do this to themselves for their emotional well-being. Everyone should read Doppelgänger by Naomi Klien for more perspective on this.

So, the process that happens in this case for designers and developers alike to justify their role in this data harvesting is twofold:

1. Technosolutionism: the idea that technology can solve most of humanity's problems and that technological development is inherently good.

2. Computational Theory of Mind: The human mind works just like a computer. This serves to justify the persuasive design techniques that enable mass data collection by insisting that we can turn it off - our pesky emotions do not control us, and human willpower is King.

I have spoken about both of these issues before, but it is helpful to re-emphasise the role of design and tech cultures in data collection when discussing overdesign. This is because, as designers, we are taught that we are “helping” users by creating the slick screens that draw them in and harvest their data—when this isn’t the idea. Designers, for the most part, are not aware of this.

Overdesign is a problem with design culture, but to solve that culture, we need to acknowledge and examine the root of the problem—excessive data surveillance.

That is not to say that data surveillance is always bad—it can be helpful, as can design. In many cases, however, it goes too far. This is where the concept of Elimination Design comes in. This concept is introduced in Design Futuring by Tony Fry. This approach uses design methods to encourage us to ask ourselves: do we really need this? The idea is to eliminate things we genuinely don't need while keeping what adds real value to our lives, all in pursuit of a more ethical and sustainable technological future.

do computers need to be “useful”?

One of the most important skills a designer can have is the ability to question everything. When considering the complex relationships between humanity and technology in society, we question whether computers actually need to be “useful” in the first place. What if technology could go beyond this and become something more?

This is what the work of Matt Nish-Lapidus explores. Through poetry, code, and language, he brings to life societal conversations about technology into a new sphere, encouraging us to question the very basics of technology. What if technology can simply serve beauty? What if not every single thing needs to solve some invented problem in the name of data harvesting/ “ For my design practice, engaging with work like this is vital. It challenges me in a way that typical design & technology theory does not, which hugely positively impacts my mindset and creativity. I would strongly encourage exploring works like those found in Neural Mag and the Set Margins publication “Provocations on Media Architecture”.

Suggested Reading & Links

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/07/google-sidewalk-labs-toronto-smart-city-abandoned

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/23/toronto-smart-city-surveillance-ann-cavoukian-resigns-privacy

https://www.setmargins.press/network/matt-nish-lapidus/

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/UomNuAEACAAJ?hl=en&kptab=getbook

https://neural.it/

https://www.setmargins.press/books/provocations-on-media-architecture/

http://emenel.ca/