No User-Centered Design

I've written previously about how some companies are not focused enough on making sure that the designs of their products are user-centered. They're simply not paying attention to the user and as a result end up creating bad designs. Users then suffer through confusing, unintuitive, and frustrating experiences. For companies like these the solution is pretty simple — hire UX researchers and designers — and support them in doing their work using well-known user-centered design practices. I’ve spent my entire career and my writing focussed on getting companies to adopt user-centered design practices.

Company-centered design

Somewhat shockingly, there are other companies that appear to intentionally do the opposite of user-centered design and instead practice what I’m calling company-centered design. Please don’t take from the image on the right that I’ve revised my book and endorse this practice. I didn’t and I don’t. I abhor it.

These companies purposely make designs more difficult to use to trick or otherwise force users to do what the company wants them to do.

I’m sure you experience the results of company-centered design everyday because the products the companies that practice it develop are used by pretty well everyone everyday. You may just consider these annoyances but when you look at the motivation that the company has to design things the way they do, you’ll realize that it isn’t simply bad design, its insidiously intentional company-centered design to further the strategic intent and bottom line corporate objectives.

Intentional bad designs are often called dark patterns. However, these are typically applied during the purchase, upgrade, or cancellation parts of the user experience. However, company-centered design is more pervasive, intentionally focussed on the day-to-day use of the product.

Motivation

Let’s explore some examples of company-centered design. The company that takes company-centered design to olympic levels is Meta with their Facebook and Instagram properties. Meta is so afraid of TikTok that it has been doing everything it can to change the platform to be just like TikTok with short-form video content. Meta has also tried to take advantage of Elon Musk’s destruction of Twitter, now X, that it launched Threads and have been doing everything they can to get users on Instagram and Facebook to use it.

User experiences

What do users want from social media companies? Simply to connect with their friends and to reach other connections to broaden their network of friends. So, people don’t come to social media apps for the apps; they come for the people on them. You would naturally think that social media companies would want to satisfy those users’ desires but they often do the opposite.

Instagram started out as just a photo sharing service and Facebook a way to update friends on what you’re up to with text and the occasional photo. However, with Meta wanting it’s two properties to compete with TikTok, it forces users to move from text and photos to videos.

How does it influence users to change what they want to do on their platforms? They limit the reach of what a user posts if the user just does what they themselves want to do, which is usually posting photos. They encourage users to post reels by providing greater reach to their followers and beyond. See the post analytics versus the reel analytics to the right showing that the reel leads to 56% more views and a dramatic increase in reach to non-followers.

A post as a reel with Instagram's advertisement "Watch more reels" obscuring the post.

This encouragement to use reels leads users to do unnatural things just to satisfy the company’s desire to have users use reels including simply sharing posts and photos as reels. However, that also makes some of the resulting reels unusable and unreadable, as shown in this image with Instagram’s encouragement to watch more reels obscuring the actual post.

Threads injected into the Instagram feed

Meta also encourages the use of Threads by intentionally embedding Thread posts in the Instagram and Facebook feeds. I’ve tried Threads but don’t want Threads yet Meta insists on subjecting me to Threads posts in my Instagram feed. This is of course Meta’s own advertising but they add that to the rest of the ads that earn them money. A random sampling of my Instagram feed shows that out of 10 posts, 4 are ads. The frequency of ads in the feed has also been going up steadily. A similar random sampling of my Facebook feed indicates that fully 6 out of 10 posts are either external advertisers’s ads or Meta’s own Threads, reels, and connecting with other people ads. Only 4 out of the 10 are actually what I want to see. Meta only allows you to reach a small proportion of your followers unless you pay them for you to reach more by boosting a post which is in essence turning them into a sponsored ad. And of course, ads are another example of company-centered design.

Feedback from other users

I mentioned to my followers on Instagram that I was writing this blog post and asked them for their examples of Meta/Instagram not being user-centered.

Here’s a sampling of their comments:

Constant ads, reels are out of hand, no customer support for bugs n issues with the app - ive sent reports so many times nothing happens .. also they take down silly posts for provocative content but when actual provocative content is reported they do nothing. It's so longer a personal space anymore also, all business and it’s no longer a personal space.
The top issue should be the censorship and suspending accounts without reason and having no one to dispute it with. They need to knock off censorship of all kinds…..especially ones they claim are misinformation which has since come out as truth.
Also urls should be clickable links.
Not being able to see who unfollows you.
I miss the photos only days - could live without reels/videos.
I follow accounts that I interact with….like, comment, save etc but then they just disappear from my feed. Sometimes something will make me remember them and I’ll look up their account and they’ll have been posting regularly!
My complaint is always one that I share with a lot of people, I think - it’s that you can’t rearrange your posts.
I can go on for a whole month.
ADS. SO OVER ALL THE DAMN ADS.
Too many ads. No way to filter so I am sure to see posts by my actual friends. Almost no engagement anymore (I have 1700 followers and get less than 20 interactions usually)
It’s annoying that when you write a URL it doesn’t become a live link.
My complaint is that when I try to tag animal rescues to save a dog from euthanasia or pledge money to save that animal they flag my account for tagging others and frequently remove comments with pledges in them. All of this hurts the animals we are trying to save.
If you’ve got a problem with your account there’s no one to talk to!!
I also gave up on increasing followers. Years ago. Followed all the “tips” and never increased enough to notice. The little guy is just a cog in this big wheel now, of “influencers”, ads, and click bait.
They allow accounts that want followers and views by showing severe animal torture. Even if it is in the rules that animal cruelty is forbidden, they do nothing when you report them. They even temporarily block the whistle blower's account.
I would like to know “fact checkers” credentials and evidence. It’s all so vague.
Too much stuff in my feed from pages I don’t follow, and especially I feel like the mysterious algorithm is not showing my posts to my actual followers…ie lack of engagement even though I’ve tried some new things to try and improve this.
The only recent complaint is their lack of community standards when it comes to antisemitic posts, or posts deemed deliberately offensive to the Jewish race. I made a recent complaint, and they twice said it didn't go against their community standards. The post involved a very poor use of the swastika on an Israeli flag.
Honestly, I haven't got any complaints. Which is weird, as I am a natural born cynic!

Concluding thoughts

I thought we should end on a positive note with someone who is actually happy. All these comments reinforce to me that Instagram is listening more to their Meta bosses than it’s users. I didn’t ask a similar question on Facebook because I’m now rarely on it but I am on Instagram a lot. And I acknowledge that it’s a business but I truly believe that they’ve gone overboard on company-centered versus user-centered design.

Just a quick comparison before we finish up with LinkedIn, my preferred social media platform. Out of 10 posts, only one was an ad, my followers regularly grow with whatever content I post, and they don’t force me to do anything unnatural in order to connect with and grow my followers.

We continue to use these platforms because we want to connect with our friends despite the company-centered design practices which of course further encourages the company to do even more of it.

Let me point out that Meta isn’t the only company practicing company-centered design. They’re just in my view that the most pervasive users of it.