by linaprima -

LS Impulse #4 TED Talk – A brief history of rhyme

For this impulse, I watched  the TED talk A Brief History of Rhyme by Baba Brinkman — a rap artist known for creating concept albums based on unexpected themes such as The Canterbury Tales or Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. His approach blends performance, historical research, and linguistic analysis, making the talk an unusual mix between literature lecture, hip-hop seminar and even a small comedy show, he then proceeded to explain his unusual approach:

Brinkman began by explaining the evolution of rhyme from its simplest forms, for example the classic “car, far, star” or “house”, “mouse” type of end rhym towards more complex structures like as mosaic and multi-syllable rhymes. What I actually found fascinating was how he connected contemporary rap techniques to much older literary traditions. He did a lot of research and pointed out that The Canterbury Tales already experimented with rhythmic and rhymed structures, and that 17th-century works like Hudibras used extended multisyllabic rhymes that would later influence comedic verse. Even Don Juan from 1819 contains rhyme patterns that, according to Brinkman, resemble what we today associate with classic hip-hop rhyme schemes: “Oh ye lords of ladies intellectual; / Inform us truly, have they not henpeck’d you all.”

One of his key points was that multisyllabic rhyme traditionally appeared in humorous contexts. Historically, these rhyme patterns were used to create irony or satire rather than emotional depth. The only exception Brinkman found was a moment in Lord of the Rings where such rhyme structures appear in a serious, almost solemn tone which is a rare example where polysyllabic rhyme escapes its comic roots. He argued that modern rap has pushed this evolution further, showing that complex rhyme structures can carry serious emotional meaning. Tracks like “I Ain’t No Joke” by Rakim demonstrate that rappers use rhyme not only for performance but for vulnerability and identity but they  often feel the need to defend the genre against accusations of “not being serious.”

Brinkman also contrasted rap with contemporary poetry. While poets have mainly or often moved away from rhyme in favour of expression or free verse, hip-hop has kept rhyme alive by constantly reinventing its structure. According to Brinkman, rap is one of the last art forms where formal rhyme is still being innovated. The talk concluded with Brinkman performing a freestyle using increasingly complex multisyllabic rhymes based on the phrase “broken glass,” which made the linguistic theory suddenly very concrete and audible.

Ok but what does this have to do with communication design?

This talk sparked a new line of thinking for me: how does rhyme function visually? If rhyme in language is based on repetition, rhythm, and pattern recognition, could similar mechanisms exist in visual communication? And if so, how complex can these visual “rhymes” become before they lose recognisability? Brinkman’s distinction between simple end rhymes and mosaic/multisyllabic rhymes made me wonder whether design also has equivalents from clean, obvious visual parallels to more layered, subtle echoes in form, colour, structures or spatial rhythm.

For communication design, this raises questions about how humans perceive repetition, pattern, and variation and how these can influence emotional response or memorability. The talk made me realise that rhyme is fundamentally a cognitive tool that guides attention, builds expectation, and creates satisfaction when the pattern resolves. This is therefore extremely relevant for visual research.

Relevance for my potential Master’s thesis

I have already been thinking about researching how rhyme structures influence the recognition of visuals and this talk strengthened that idea. Brinkman’s historical framing showed that rhymes communicate not only through sound, but through structure. This makes it even more interesting to explore whether “visual rhymes” could work in a similar way:
– Are simple repetitions (the visual equivalent of “car–far–star”) more memorable?
– Can complex, multi-layered visual parallels function like multisyllabic rhymes?
– Could this influence how people engage with activist or feminist visual communication?

For a Master’s topic that connects design, maybe activism, and perception, exploring rhyme as a cross-modal phenomenon  from sound to image  could be an interesting direction and I feel like it could be fun researching this topic.

Links

Ted Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t4F83aHAXU

Baba Brinkmann https://bababrinkman.com/

by arinze.onyebuchi -

IMPULSE #4: Lunch with Prof. Baumann (with some good Kebap!)

This impulse is a bit different from the others because it is not a book or a talk, but a lunch meeting with Prof. Konrad Baumann that helped me put much sharper edges around my thesis idea. The conversation was essentially my first “real” check-in with someone I would like to supervise my thesis, and it forced me to articulate my motivations and what I actually want to achieve with “effective ethical design” and digital footprints. Instead of staying in my own head, I had to explain why this topic matters to me and where I see it sitting inside UX practice and the wider industry. That alone made this meeting feel like an important impulse.

We started by reconnecting threads from a previous class discussion, where we had talked about our interests in the UX field and the kinds of industry problems we care about. For me, those questions brought back the same themes: ethical design, dark patterns, privacy, and how users are often left in the dark about their data trails. This lunch was like a continuation of that exercise, but one-on-one and more honest. Saying my thesis topic out loud and contextualising it in front of someone with experience in this area made my intentions feel more “real”, and it also exposed where my thinking was still a bit vague or too broad.

I really liked how he brought up concrete cases and pointed me toward resources, including earlier advice I had heard about noyb (Neuerungen bei Datenschutzfällen), a privacy organisation that regularly takes companies to court over data protection violations. These cases are basically “real-life stories” of where digital products and services crossed lines in how they handled user data. That was a helpful reminder that my thesis is not just theoretical; it sits in a landscape where regulators, NGOs, and companies are already fighting over what is acceptable, from tracking to dark patterns to consent models.​

Afterwards, Prof. Baumann shared an interesting ORF article that discusses current tensions and developments around privacy and digital rights in Austria and Europe. Even without quoting it directly, the article makes it clear how much is at stake: from weak enforcement to high-profile cases against platforms and tech companies, it shows that “privacy by design” is not just a slogan but something that either happens in concrete interfaces or does not. For my thesis, this is a useful anchor, because it links my academic work to a living context of laws being tested, companies being challenged, and users being affected.​

What I take from this impulse is both emotional and structural. Emotionally, it reassures me that I am not chasing a “nice sounding topic” but something that sits at the intersection of UX, law, and real harms users are experiencing. Structurally, it pushes me to frame my thesis more clearly around a few core questions: How can interaction design make digital footprints visible and manageable in everyday interfaces? How can ethical constraints and legal requirements be translated into practical patterns instead of abstract guidelines? And how can designers avoid repeating the kinds of behaviours that end up in complaints, lawsuits, or investigative articles about privacy abuses?​

For my next steps, this meeting gives me three concrete moves. First, to keep mapping real cases (like those collected by noyb and highlighted in media coverage) as examples of what “unethical design” looks like in practice, and why better interaction patterns are needed. Second, to use those cases as boundary markers when I prototype: if a pattern smells like something that has already led to a complaint or enforcement, it is a red flag. Third, to stay in close conversation with Prof. Baumann as a supervisor, so that my thesis stays grounded in both design practice and the evolving legal and ethical landscape.​

Link to the ORF article Prof. Baumann shared (in German), which anchors this impulse in current debates about privacy and data protection:
https://orf.at/stories/3410746/​

For broader context on enforcement and complaints concerning privacy violations in Europe, especially involving companies like Clearview AI, this overview from Reuters and noyb helps show how data misuse is being challenged at a legal level:
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/clearview-ai-faces-criminal-complaint-austria-suspected-privacy-violations​
https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-recognition-company-clearview-ai​

Finally, this Austrian consumer-focused article on dark patterns and manipulative web design provides a very concrete list of deceptive practices and explains how new regulations like the Digital Services Act aim to limit them, which connects directly back to my thesis interest in ethical interfaces and user autonomy:
https://www.konsumentenfragen.at/konsumentenfragen/Kommunikation_und_Medien/Kommunikation_und_Medien_1/Vorsicht-vor-Dark-Patterns-im-Internet.html​

Disclaimer: This blog post was developed with AI assistance (Perplexity) to help with structuring and phrasing my reflections.

by tarek.marzouki -

IMPULSE #2: Design Patterns for AI Interfaces

With more tools adopting AI — generative text, code assistants, smart search, content creation — there’s a rush to “add AI” to every product. Without good UI/UX, many of these additions end up confusing or frustrating users. The patterns from this talk offer a more sustainable, user-centric approach to AI integration. As a UI UX designer working with a product team trying to explore AI features, these insights help avoid common pitfalls during research and practice.

The traditional chatbot (a blank text box, open prompt) is often insufficient; it places too much burden on the user to guess what to ask for, how to phrase it, what input format works. Instead, AI UIs should provide structure — templates, guided inputs, preset actions — that shape user intent and make the AI’s capabilities and limitations clear.

Structured Input & Output UX

  • Input UX: Rather than free-form prompts, designers can use structured templates, presets, or guided flows so users don’t need to “guess” how to phrase their request. This improves usability and broadens the accessibility of AI tools to non-expert users.
  • Output UX: AI responses — often long, verbose, or ambiguous — should be presented in a digestible way. Use of rich formatting (e.g. collapsible reasoning traces, style lenses, ranking, color-coding) helps users find value quickly.

Why These Patterns Matter and What They Solve

Lowering friction and cognitive load: Many people don’t know how to “talk to AI.” Structured inputs/templates reduce the intimidation and guesswork.

Making AI more reliable and trustworthy: By clarifying what AI can (and can’t) do, and giving users control (via refinements, options, transparency), designers can avoid “hallucinations,” miscommunication, and user frustration.

Delivering value quickly and predictably: Well-designed AI interfaces help users get useful results with minimal effort — increasing adoption and satisfaction.

Supporting diverse user types: Not everyone is a “power user.” Good patterns make AI accessible to novices while still serving experienced users.

First results from AI often need tuning. Good AI interfaces let users refine — through follow-up prompts, filter buttons, adjustment sliders (e.g. “temperature” or style), or iterative flows — to get closer to what they need. This is more powerful than expecting a single perfect answer.

Rather than isolating AI in a separate “assistant” screen, embed AI features where they feel natural: side-panels, overlays, inline suggestions, context-aware widgets — wherever they support the user’s task flow. This makes AI feel like a seamless extension, not a tacked-on add-on.

Disclaimer: AI was used to fix any grammatical mistakes and for better phrasing.

Design Patterns For AI Interfaces — Smashing Magazine

Design Patterns for AI Interfaces by Vitaly Friedman

by tarek.marzouki -

IMPULSE #1: Creating an effective & beautiful data visualisation from scratch

It is amazing to me personally that this talk was almost entirely about introducing one
of the most underrated coding language in data viz, D3.js, which is a lang that should
be a staple in every team that wants to create bespoke charts and design beautiful yet
functional dashboards from scratch and proudly enough my master’s thesis main topic
is about a SaaS that has a dashboard that will be created entirely by the unpopular D3.js.

I was and will be involved in designing all the components needed for the dashboard and also in the appropriate research to find out how to develop those components on a web app level which is was done later by a fellow full stack developer.

What is the talk about

  • The talk shows how to build a unique, effective — and “beautiful” — data visualization from nothing but a blank browser window, using D3.js.
  • The goal isn’t simply to produce a standard chart, but to think creatively and intentionally — using “out-of-the-box thinking” and code — combining design sense with technical implementation.

Nadieh’s background: she trained in astronomy, worked in data science, but found her passion in data visualization. Over time she developed a distinct style of data-driven “data art” rather than generic graphs.

Data → Story → Visual

A recurring theme: good visualizations start with a story — or a question — not just with data. You ask: what insight or narrative do you want to reveal? That shapes how you approach the data and what kind of visual you will build.

Nadieh emphasizes that often the best question emerges after a bit of data exploration — so the “question” evolves.

Before designing, you have to understand what the data actually contains: its type (quantitative, categorical, etc.), structure, quirks, what’s important — and who will be reading the visualization. This affects choices like chart type, level of detail, labels, readability.

Not all charts fit all data: pick a visual representation that expresses clearly what you want to communicate — trends, distributions, comparisons, relationships, etc. Sometimes that means abandoning “standard” charts in favor of more creative or custom visuals.

Because people are visual, design elements matter. But they must serve the data, not overshadow it. Use color thoughtfully (e.g., for differentiation, accessibility), maintain consistent palettes, use spacing, hierarchy, alignments to make it easy to read.

Nadieh’s own work often uses vibrant palettes and custom design touches — she argues that if you’re building by hand (e.g., using D3 + SVG), you can push beyond default library charts to create something truly expressive yet still accurate.

Why This Talk Stands Out

This talk offers something beyond standard data-viz best-practices or template-driven dashboards: it’s about treating data visualisation as a creative process, a blend of design, storytelling, and coding.

Seeing the creation from an empty browser to a full chart helps demystify the building process — it shows that you don’t need heavy software or prebuilt templates to produce something expressive and meaningful. You just need data, a clear purpose, and willingness to think visually + code.. This talk is inspiring to me on many levels because my research is based on creating meaningful data visualizations rather than just “reports” or “dashboards”

Disclaimer: AI was used to fix any grammatical mistakes and for better phrasing.

https://slideslive.com/39043157/creating-an-effective-beautiful-data-visualisation-from-scratch?ref=folder-188701

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/data-visualization/6-tips-for-creating-effective-data-visualizations

https://pixelpioneers.co/blog/designing-data-visualisations-an-interview-with-nadieh-bremer?utm_source=chatgpt.com

by jakob.schnurrer -

First literature Research – Impulse #4

The last three blogposts where all about my intentions and the reasons for picking open source as the topic of my masters thesis, this one is about first steps, I took in researching about open source and how this influenced the next steps, I want to make.

During the “Proseminar Master Thesis” course, we were tasked, to gather some sources we could use for our thesis in the future. Two books and an article. Skimming through those texts really changed my view on open source. Especially the impact of UX work on open source projects interested me.

1. Working in Public

Reading Working in Public felt like having someone open a curtain. I always knew open source was built by volunteers, but the book made me understand just how much work, coordination, and emotional labor goes into maintaining a project. I was especially struck by the part that explained how most projects start small and private, and how everything changes once people begin to use them.
The sections on hidden costs and funding were honestly eye opening. Until now, I never really questioned how open-source creators manage to keep projects alive despite having almost no resources. This book made me more aware of why people burn out, why documentation suffers, and why newcomers have such a hard time finding their place.

2. Producing Open Source Software

Where Working in Public explained what is going on, Producing Open Source Software finally gave me how. This book was far more structured, and honestly much easier to navigate. For the first time, I read concrete advice on where design can fit into an OSS workflow, especially the points about improving documentation, lowering the “activation energy,” and funding dedicated UX roles.
The most influential part for me was the idea that newcomers should write beginner tutorials. That simple thought made me reflect on my own homelabbing struggles: of course the docs feel hard, because they’re written by experts.
This shifted my thinking from “What UX problem should I research?” to “Maybe the onboarding experience of designers in OSS is the problem.”

3. Untold Stories

The third text, Untold Stories, finally backed many of my assumptions with research. UX professionals do help OSS projects. Their contributions are valuable. And still, hardly any of them participate.
The paper helped me understand why: the culture, the tools, the developer-first mindset.
What surprised me most was how differently UX people write issue reports: more factual, more user-centered, more structured. It made me think that maybe designers don’t need to force themselves into OSS spaces—they just need to show the value of this way of communicating.
It also strengthened my idea that UX needs its own “space” within OSS—something that current platforms don’t provide.

Accompanying Links

Link to the book “Working in Public” (sadly no free download): https://press.stripe.com/working-in-public

Link to the book “Producing Open Source Software”, which is free to download: https://www.producingoss.com

Link to the article “Untold Stories”: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706599.3720063

Ai was used to formulate this blogpost (ChatGPT)

by florian.prasse -

Impulse #4: The Role of Playtesting in Game Development

Understanding Users before Building a Game

Game development today involves more than programming and visual design. The process has expanded to prioritize player experience, usability, and comfort. As a result, user research and structured game testing have become established parts of development rather than optional additions. Developers collect information about potential players’ expectations, preferred interaction styles, and prior gaming experience. These findings help define the core direction of the project, informing mechanics, interface design, and accessibility considerations.

The Role of Continuous Playtesting

Playtesting follows throughout production. During testing, participants play the game while developers evaluate how easy it is to understand controls, complete objectives, and maintain engagement. Feedback may take the form of performance metrics, interviews, or surveys. Insights gathered from testing lead to adjustments in difficulty, interface structure, pacing, and overall design. By repeating this cycle of testing and refinement, developers aim to reduce friction and improve player satisfaction prior to release.

VR as a Special Design Challenge

Virtual reality development highlights the importance of this approach. In VR environments, issues such as motion sickness, spatial confusion, and physical fatigue can occur if design choices are not aligned with human perception and comfort. Prototypes are therefore tested early, often using basic shapes or limited interaction, to observe how players move, react, and navigate. These observations allow developers to refine interactions before expanding the experience. The overall purpose of these processes is to ensure that the final product functions as intended when experienced by diverse players. Testing with real users helps identify challenges that may not be visible to designers or engineers working closely with the system.

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-understand-user-needs-in-virtual-reality?srsltid=AfmBOopOKeH_8sjLighvBVX2mjNCNtP7S0dj0D1mwOKBO1bDZp9lVcOC

UX Quality in Video Games

As I learned more about UX design and testing, I began to view video games very differently. Instead of only enjoying them as a player, I now pay close attention to how mechanics are introduced, how controls feel, and how smoothly the experience guides me from one action to the next. I’ve noticed how a well-designed game teaches its systems without overwhelming the player, while a poorly designed one creates confusion or frustration through unclear feedback or awkward navigation. My own play experiences have become a source of learning — I can sense when a game’s UX supports my immersion, and equally when it breaks it. Understanding the development behind these decisions has made me appreciate how much careful thought goes into balancing challenge, flow, and usability. Games have essentially become case studies, helping me recognize what makes an interaction feel right, and inspiring ideas for how those same UX principles can be applied in design work beyond gaming.

Source: https://uxplanet.org/how-video-games-can-develop-your-ux-design-skills-e209368330ac

by jakob.schnurrer -

Voluntary Service & Open Source- Impulse #3

Continuing from the last blogposts, where I talked about what got me interested in open source as a master’s thesis topic: homelabbing. In this post, I want to talk about an intrinsic motivation, that kept me moving towards this.

Voluntary work is part of my day to day life. Since 2014, I have been part of the scouts, first as a child now as a guide. Once a week I run meet-ups for children form 7 to 10 years old, where we go out into the forest, play and teach them to be come a valuable part of society. Doing work like this takes much more time, than one would think, there is planning those 2 hour sessions, preparing before the kids come and cleaning up after they leave. There are weekend camps and a big summer camp to organise, the groups home needs to be tidy and there even is a course a scout leader must take, learning about communication and pedagogy. I give a huge part of my free time to the scout movement, and all for no pay.

In addition to big voluntary movements like the scouts, there are small communities like the “UX Graz” Community, which organise a meet up for people interested in UX design, every third Tuesday of the month. Everything is organised and run by volunteers. Every meet up is held at a different company, which provides the location, food and drinks, and there are two parts in every meet up, first there are some talks and second networking. For people attending it is completely free. Free food, free drinks, free knowledge transfer and free new contacts. (I have recently joined the organising team swell, so this is my second voluntary work.)

In my mind, there are a lot of parallels between voluntary work and open source. A small amount of people does work or creates something, that benefits a lot of others. And the work these people do is often overlooked. They act in the background often earning nothing more than respect and thanks from others. Especially in these times, it is hard t have a job, that doesn’t pay you money, next to your regular day job. Due to different reasons most people cant’t afford to work for free, still there are a bunch of people who do.

I hope to find a reason for people to work for free. In my opinion voluntary work provides a lot to society. Although sometimes I feel like the work volunteers do is under appreciated, especially youth organisations. Although to be fair, open source doesn’t mean free and open source projects aren’t always maintained by volunteers who aren’t getting paid. What drives people to give away their product for free? How can the value of voluntary work be communicated? Looking into the psychological and social aspect of people doing work just for the benefit of others, is something I would want to get into more.

Accompanying Links

A link to the UX Graz Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/uxgraz/

A link to the website of the Austrian scout movement: https://ppoe.at

by florian.thausing -

Impulse no4: DIY Urbanism – 99% Invisible

Recently I listened to the 99% Invisible episode “The Help-Yourself City,” and it was much more interesting than I expected. The episode explores DIY urbanism: the little illegal-but-kind-of-understandable interventions people make in cities when official systems fail them. Things like residents painting their own crosswalks because the city won’t, placing traffic cones to reserve parking spots, building unofficial benches in their neighborhood, or taping up handmade signs to guide confused pedestrians.

An interesting point that was made was that people reshape their environments not out of rebellion (okay, sometimes out of rebellion) but mostly out of necessity. They see a problem, feel unheard, and then just decide to fix it themselves. And suddenly the city becomes this playground of small, improvised design decisions made by people who would never call themselves designers.

Listening to this made me realize how often design is treated as a top-down discipline. We create systems, UIs, layouts, streets, signs, apps — and expect users to adapt. But this episode flips the table: users constantly adapt our designs by bending them, hacking them, “misusing” them. The city becomes a reminder that “user behavior” isn’t just something to accommodate; it’s something to learn from. These tiny interventions show what people actually need, beyond what official planning claims to provide.

The creative impulse I took from this was that design should invite appropriation instead of resisting it. If people are modifying their surroundings, there’s a gap in the design. And that gap isn’t a failure — it’s a piece of insight.

For my own work I should more often ask myself: How could people misappropriate my work? How could they “co-design” it? How can I create systems that allow for bending, customizing, hacking — or at least acknowledging that this will happen anyway. The city doesn’t fight back when someone zip-ties a DIY sign to a lamppost. It just absorbs it. Maybe more digital products should behave like that, too: more porous, more flexible, more willing to be reshaped.

There’s also something philosophically beautiful about the idea that design doesn’t end when we’re done designing. The world edits it afterwards. And maybe the best designs are the ones that tolerate — or even encourage — these edits.

by florian.thausing -

Impulse no3: Slow Design for Meaningful Interactions

A while ago I saw a youtube video about a survival guide to the brainrot apocalypse (https://youtu.be/6fj-OJ6RcNQ?si=RnQvDCDZ1GuJucp7) and it had an interesting section which talked about replacing doomscrolling with reading about fallacies and scientific articles. That’s how and why I came across and read this particular paper: “Slow Design for Meaningful Interactions“.

It left me thinking about a design philosophy I usually associate with niche craft projects, not mass-produced consumer products. The authors explore how the principles of Slow Design — a movement rooted in slowing down, creating awareness, and fostering more reflective, meaningful engagement — can be applied even to everyday appliances like a juicer. At first, this seems counterintuitive: mass-produced objects are designed to be efficient, convenient, and fast. But the paper argues that slowing down the right parts of an interaction can actually increase product attachment and ultimately lead to more sustainable behavior.

Slow doesn’t mean forcing the user to waste time. Instead, it means enriching the moments that are already meaningful. For a juicer, the meaningful moment isn’t the cleaning or the storing — it’s watching the fruit transform into juice and feeling connected to the process. The study reveals that people enjoy activities that slow them down when they choose them, like preparing coffee on a quiet weekend morning, paying attention to small details, or creating something with their hands. That insight became the backbone for reinterpreting the original Slow Design principles into more actionable ones: reveal, expand, reflect, engage, participate, evolve, and a new one — ritual. These were then used to redesign a juicer in a way that makes the user more involved, more aware of what’s happening inside the device, and more inclined to treat it as a long-term companion rather than something to eventually discard.

This made me rethink the moments in my own design projects where I rush to try to optimize everything. Friction is often treated as something to eliminate, but the paper reframes certain types of friction as opportunities for reflection, connection, or even emotional durability. It made me wonder where I can intentionally slow down an interaction — not to make it harder, but to make it more meaningful. A subtle animation that reveals a system’s inner workings, a gesture that requires a moment of intention, or a small ritual embedded in the interface could shift the user from passive consumption to mindful engagement.

by florian.thausing -

Impulse no2: “How Designers destroyed the world” – Mike Monteiro

Der Vortrag von Mike Monteiro war für mich nichts neues aber hat mich an einen wesentlichen grundsatz erinnert den wir alle mit uns tragen sollten im Design. Während viele Design-Talks sich um neue Tools, Trends oder Best Practices drehen, geht es hier um moralische Verantwortung und darum, dass Designer*innen oft vergessen, welche Wirkung ihre Arbeit in der echten Welt hat.

Monteiro startet seinen Talk direkt recht provokant: “Designer*innen zerstören die Welt nicht, weil sie schlecht designen — sondern weil sie nicht über die Konsequenzen ihres Designs nachdenken“.

„You are responsible for what you put into the world.“

Einer der stärksten Punkte im Vortrag war die Aussage, dass Design kein neutraler Akt ist. Jede Entscheidung die getroffen wird — sei es ein Button, ein Algorithmus, ein Interface oder eine komplette Plattform — hat reale Folgen:

  • Sie beeinflusst, wie Menschen handeln.
  • Sie beeinflusst, welche Informationen sichtbar werden.
  • Sie beeinflusst, wer Zugang bekommt — und wer ausgeschlossen wird.

Monteiro zeigt Beispiele von Unternehmen, die durch bewusstes Wegschauen oder blinden Gehorsam Designs entwickelt haben, die massiven Schaden angerichtet haben. Er spricht über Social Media Plattformen, die Hass und Manipulation verstärken. Über Dark Patterns, die Menschen in Abos oder Systeme drängen. Und darüber, dass all diese Systeme nicht zufällig entstanden sind sondern bewusst designed wurden.

Designer*innen haben mehr Macht, als sie glauben. Und zu oft geben sie diese Macht freiwillig ab. Monteiro kritisiert, dass viele Designer*innen „Professionalität“ als Ausrede nutzen. Sätze wie “Ich mach nur was der Kunde will” oder “Ich bin nur Designer, ich entscheide das nicht” sind nur Ausreden die es einem ermöglichen ethische Verantwortung abzugeben. Architekt*innen würden auch keine einsturzgefährdende Gebäude entwerfen nur weil der Kunde es so will.

Ein Gedanke, der wichtig ist sich immer wieder in den Kopf zu rufen ist, dass Design immer politisch ist. Monteiro sagt ganz klar: “Wenn wir etwas bauen, das Millionen an Menschen benutzen, dann gestalten wir Strukturen, Verhalten und Systeme mit.”
Und damit nehmen wir Einfluss auf unsere Gesellschaft.

Einer der wichtigsten Impulse aus dem Talk: “Designer*innen dürfen — und sollen — Nein sagen.”

  • Nicht jeder Auftrag ist moralisch vertretbar.
  • Nicht jeder Kunde hat gute Absichten.
  • Nicht jedes Produkt sollte existieren.

Monteiro ruft dazu auf, sich bewusst zu machen, für welche Art Welt man arbeiten möchte. Und sich bewusst dagegen zu entscheiden, Dinge zu bauen, die Menschen schaden, ausbeuten oder manipulieren. Er sagt auch: “Wir brauchen weniger Designerinnen, die Dienstleister sind — und mehr, die als verantwortliche Expertinnen auftreten.”

Was mir wieder klar geworden ist, ist dass ich viel öfter über die Konsequenzen meiner Arbeit nachdenken sollte. Nicht nur über das Interface, die Experience oder die Conversion Rate, sondern auch darüber welche Verhaltensweisen ich mit meinem Design fördere, welche Menschen ausgeschlossen werden und welche Probleme durch mein Design in der realen Welt entstehen könnten.