These are designers that do not understand themselves to be in the center of the system. Rather, they understand themselves to be participants, shaping the systems that interact with other forces, ideas, events and other designers. This essay is an exploration of what it means to participate.

Dark patterns, while well-known in UX, are not widely understood among our users. A better framework might be coined disrespectful design, or design that employs tactics that disregard the autonomy, dignity, and priorities of users.

It’s even worse than how the terms “user research” and “user testing” are thrown around interchangeably. They are not interchangeable. The former is the process of learning about the people who are the intended users of a system, and the latter is evaluating the system itself against established criteria by having people interact with it.