Dear Designer
Dear Designer: Bad Work Is Always Your Fault
You’re bound by a responsibility to your users, not by your boss’s directives
Dear Mike,
I work at a large company. Decisions are made way above my pay grade. I’m able to influence small things, but not the larger picture, even when I know decisions we’re making are unethical — such as using what I know to be a dark pattern to keep our users from unsubscribing. I certainly don’t want to get fired. If the decision is coming down from management, can I even be held responsible?
— A designer
Dear Designer,
I completely understand how hard it is to get a job. I don’t want you to get fired either. You probably worked hard to get where you are. You probably went through multiple interviews. You probably got asked a ton of questions by a ton of people. You might have even taken some sort of test to get the job. And I bet there were other people applying for it as well. So congratulations on making it through all of those hoops. You got a job as a designer.
Now you gotta do that job.
The job of a designer is complex. It’s a profession, and like most professions, it’s defined by the profession itself, not by the people who hire…
