What of the designers making it easier for people to pay their taxes? The designers making the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves just a little more enriched and fulfilling through intelligent product design?

It's fascinating to me how so much (digital) product design being output these days is the kind of material that will accrue little to no societal value in the long run. Whatever happened to pushing the human state forward?

Just a question for all ya'll out there — are you fully aware that the products you design often rest within massive server infrastructures that waste huge amounts of energy/physical resources? Energy that could be used for purposes other than the Nth messaging platform that's going to "change it all"?

There are so many societal sufferings caused indirectly by the type of work we all commit ourselves to day-to-day, and it's sometimes hard to reconcile the work I love with the pain that is brought upon the world as a result of it. The redesign of mass enterprise tools IBM has been pursuing recently isn't the sexiest work, but it makes me happy to know i'm affecting the shitty existence of cubicle workers in faceless buildings for the better. There's that at least.

—

Responsible industrial designers are by nature aware of the supply chain and materiality of the work they put out into the world, but I find it incredibly rare to find digital product designers who fully grasp the nature of the semiotic waste they put out into the world.

No matter what type of designer you are, always be aware of the shit you put out into the world and how it will affect millions of people in this increasingly interconnected world.

/rant