Slanty Design

Russell Beale argues in his article titled, “Slanty Design” that designers must move beyond only emphasizing usability and UCD approaches to be able to address and incorporate the intricate and broader goals of both consumers and businesses when designing potential products. He describes a design approach, which he calls ‘Slanty Design’, that emphasizes the importance of understanding what users should, and should not, be able to do with a particular product as well as how to evaluate and limit undesirable, or unexpected, side effects within these designs. Additionally, Beale argues slanty design can effectively help designers create a system or product that encompasses wider goals, such as business and stakeholder goals, rather than only focusing on being as usable, or user-centered, as possible, which could lead to unexpected and undesirable side effects.

He provides several examples throughout the article such as the U.S. library’s desks, iPod Shuffle, and Google’s Gmail that demonstrate how a ‘slanty’ design approach can be both effective in integrating the user-centric goals and values of its consumers by allowing them to do ‘wanted’ things (e.g. play music, send emails, work at as desk), but also the business or stakeholder goals by limiting ‘unwanted’ user side effects (e.g. deleting emails, eating at the desk). However, while these examples demonstrate the benefits for both consumers and stakeholders, I believe that slanty design can easily be implemented by companies, and viewed by potential users, as a greedy or dark UX practice focused more on manipulating users to benefit their own financial and business goals, rather than wanting to provide a valuable and beneficial user experience. Furthermore, Beale’s example of a slanty designed baggage claim did demonstrate how user needs of obtaining baggage could be met without the unwanted side effects of crowding around the carousel. However, I do not believe this design idea effectively incorporated a ‘clean usability’ approach because of the several unforeseen consequences (e.g. accessibility issues) that could arise in this type of design concept.