Don’t Read This
While mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed last week, I stumbled across the following design meme.
Unfortunately, I am unable to credit the image to its rightful creator, but it certainly warranted sharing with the rest of the class. A non-scientific poll of 11 highly educated people, who are inarguably well-read on the key concepts in usability and design, resulted in every single one (including yours truly) “falling for it.” To be honest, I thought at least one or two of us would have read the top line first. Yet, even the most sophisticated users are prone to falling prey to their own psychology. It frankly never ceases to amaze me how often we make subconscious decisions or take automatic actions.
Leveraging our expansive body of knowledge on user behavior trends (like habituation, for instance) can be immensely beneficial from a usability standpoint. However, we’re also able to exploit this same understanding in order to obfuscate privacy and subvert security. Most, if not all, companies rely on some form of user analytics and market data to try to manipulate, or at least influence, a segment of the population. We can debate the merits of this system another time; let’s focus on user education, instead. I realize it may be a burdensome task, but industry and academia should both be being doing a better job of educating the general public as its user base. While I think corporations should bear the brunt of ensuring their users’ digital wellbeing, we must still hold ourselves accountable as consumers. This is especially the case when we are given the tools to keep our cyber hygiene under control.
One of the most effective ways to maintain online privacy is by changing the default settings of certain applications to the strictest options available, then actively modifying them on a case-by-case basis. For example, Facebook offers users the ability to select the target audience of any individual post. My default privacy settings are such that, without taking proactive steps, any content I share is only visible to my friends. If I want to reach more (or less) people, however, I can tailor the audience of my forthcoming post from Public to Only Me, and anywhere in between.
As technology evolved, the past several years has seen companies provide more control and granularity to their users. Even more recently, they have launched campaigns to better educate us on how to manage this increased autonomy. I can now see every single factor contributing to my advertising profile and adjust accordingly. So, if I don’t want to be targeted on Facebook based on my (objectively phenomenal) taste in music, I can simply exclude all artists’ pages I may have liked in the past, without having to forego the occasional post from my favorite band. In short, while the big tech companies certainly have a lot to answer for, its users have a lot more control than they like to admit.
