It’s Time for Digital Products to Start Empowering Us
We’re accepting utility in exchange for disempowerment. It’s not a fair trade.
The digital world, as we’ve designed it, is draining us. The products and services we use are like needy friends: desperate and demanding. Yet we can’t step away. We’re in a codependent relationship. Our products never seem to have enough, and we’re always willing to give a little more. They need our data, files, photos, posts, friends, cars, and houses. They need every second of our attention.
We’re willing to give these things to our digital products because the products themselves are so useful. Product designers are experts at delivering utility. They’ve perfected design processes that allow them to improve the way people accomplish tasks. Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly clear that utility alone isn’t enough.
Quite often, our interactions with these useful products leave us feeling depressed, diminished, and frustrated.
We want to feel empowered by technology, and we’ve forgotten that utility does not equal empowerment.
Empowerment means becoming more confident, especially in controlling our own lives and asserting our rights. That is not technology’s current paradigm. Instead, digital products demand so much…
