Measuring the wider impact and ethics of your designs

Have you ever thought about who, or what, disappears if your product is successful? Who loses their job? What industries or policies would be affected? What about, what would using your product “too much” look like?
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When it comes to design, everyone is so focused on reaching metrics and the direct impact you make. You can usually be focused on one metric you want to achieve or reach such as increasing daily active users, average session duration or expanding to different markets.

The reality is, once this metric has been achieved, people move on to the next. However, what about the longer-term and wider impact your product can have?
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​The Gig Economy

Airbnb for example has started to increase rent prices significantly for locals, increased the noise pollution or transformed peaceful quaint locations into tourist hotspots. I question and start to think, is this something people really thought about when deciding to scale the product? The consequences are quite severe for those affected.

Another example we can look at is UberEats and Deliveroo. They’ve scaled immensely during the pandemic, but at what cost? I’ve started to see local restaurants close down as they just can’t compete any more, the fees Deliveroo and Uber take are very high.

They don’t have the same economies of scale as a large chain restaurant. What about the increase in congestion on roads and pavements because of the delivery riders? Not to mention the health impacts of eating too much takeaway can have severe long-term effects on people.
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​Uber Promotions

Also UberEats has the most subtle promotions and marketing, the content they push at the top of the app are adverts, and it’s clearly not stated. This makes it even harder for your local restaurant to compete with smaller marketing budgets. The promotion costs are a drop in the ocean for a restaurant like McDonald’s. For me personally, UberEats has started to slowly kill the local high street restaurants and chains.