Subjectivity by design
How product decisions shape behaviour — and what they make of the user.
We are used to thinking that a product serves an already existing user: a person has needs, the product satisfies them. But more and more the reverse is true. A product does not find a ready-made user — it produces one. It forms habits, expectations, ways of feeling. This is subjectivity by design: a subject engineered alongside the interface.
01The interface offers a role
Every interface silently offers you a role. The feed offers you to be a consumer of an endless stream. The productivity dashboard, a manager of your own life. The profile with metrics, a brand to be monitored. These roles are not neutral; they train a particular relation to yourself. Work with a tool long enough and you begin to think in its categories even outside it.
A product does not find a ready-made user — it produces one.
02A metric that changes the one it measures
To show a person a metric is to change their behaviour. A step counter changes how you walk. A follower count changes what you publish. This is a well-known effect: measurement is not passive, it intervenes. Product teams know this and use it — sometimes deliberately, more often by habit. The decision «let's show the user their statistics» is always also the decision «let's nudge them to behave so the statistics go up».
03The entrepreneurial subject on screen
Most often products produce one and the same figure — the very one I write about in other texts. The user is encouraged to be proactive, to optimise themselves, to compete, to treat their life as a project with metrics. Gamification, streaks, ratings, goals — all of it is infrastructure that casts the person in the mould of a small entrepreneur of the self. Not because there is a conspiracy, but because this figure is convenient for engagement.
04The designer's responsibility
Hence a conclusion uncomfortable for the industry: in designing a product you design not only an experience but a subject. This is not a reason for paralysis — it is a reason for honesty. It is worth asking not only «is this convenient and engaging» but «what does it make of the person, which role does it impose, what does it train them out of».
I do not think products should stop influencing behaviour — that is impossible; influence is built into the very idea of an interface. I think the influence should be examined. Subjectivity by design happens either way. The only question is whether we design the subject deliberately or produce it as a side effect of chasing metrics.