Designing for evil

As more people find community on the Web, designers need to use patterns and principles that protect our users from harassmentor worse. Brandon Harris discusses how our design decisions can make life unpleasantor even dangerousfor users of community tools. Brandon offers best practices for user safety and describes ways we can provide protection for our users.

One of the darker issues that continually bubbles to the surface of our increasingly social and communal Internet society is the concern for the safety and comfort of the users of the products we create. Many social tools are designed, built, and deployed with little or no thought about how users of these applications may find themselves the victim of aggressive, anonymous harassment—or worse. Brandon Harris discusses how our design decisions can make life unpleasant—or even dangerous—for users of community tools. Brandon also talks about best practices for user safety and describes ways we can provide protection for our users. As designers, it is our job to impart as much joy as possible to the experiences we create. But even more so, it is our responsibility to implement safety mechanisms in them.