Design Is Never Neutral

> So, what can we do about it? Honestly, I don’t know. The work I’m doing with the Designer’s Resistance Toolkit didn’t stop mattering this week, but it did start to feel painfully small. And that’s a harder thing to sit with. That realization isn’t defeat. It’s what happens when you fully grasp the scale of what you’re up against. > But that reaction misses the point: the same corporate and technological systems that profit from our convenience are often the ones funding, enabling, or normalizing that harm. > > Then this morning it really hit me. I can’t control much, but I can control where my money goes, and I’ve been trying to stop it from directly supporting any of this. But as I tried to cancel my Prime, switch my phone away from AT&T, and find a different internet provider than Comcast, all companies profiting from the current situation, it became clear. Ethical design is relevant. Not just because unethical design supports a propaganda machine and helps divide us, but because unethical design is making the simple act of opting out of these systems almost impossible. > > The cancellation processes are abhorrent, and the stranglehold that we've allowed the likes of Amazon and Comcast to have on us is directly related to how easy, convenient, and deliberately hard to quit those systems were designed to be. > Using design to empower people to recognize that they deserve transparency and equity from any entity they interact with. Using design to bring us together and remind us that humanity, above all else, is our top priority.