Design For

Time Well Spent

Distracted? What if technology was designed to help us spend our time well?



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The Manifesto


We live in an attention economy, where products or websites win by getting our time. What starts as a competition for our attention, devolves into a race to the bottom of the brain stem to seduce our deepest instincts.

We're left constantly distracted.

Either we connect, but constantly get sucked in. Or we unplug, but lose out on all the benefits of technology completely.

We need to restore choice.

We believe in the possibility of better design, that lets us connect without getting sucked in. And disconnect, without missing something important.

And we believe in the possibility of an economy that’s built to help us spend time well, where products compete for net positive contributions to our lives.

Let's start that conversation now.


How You Can Make a Difference



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Designers


Develop the UIs of the Future
We're assembling a gallery of interfaces and design techniques that treat people with respect.
Watch a video on redesign technique
View a Draft Curriculum for Design Schools
Join the community of designers doing redesigns

Establish Guidelines for Time-Respectful Products
This is a chance for a fresh start in designing the apps, games, and websites we use every day. We’re assembling a cross-industry team to build Human Interface Guidelines for the 21st century.
Join our community of designers

Hippocratic Oath for Designers (coming soon)
Doctors have a Hippocratic Oath for medicine. We're working to draft a 'Hippocratic Oath' for designers.

COMPANIES & DATA PEOPLE


Share your Company's Metrics and Impact
Does your company measure net positive contributions to human life? We'd like to create a coalition of companies who measure their success in new ways.
Tell the world about your metrics

Shape New Data Infrastructure for the Internet
We hope to create the largest open database of user reviews—open, structured data about what people use and whether they consider it time well spent in the long run—and offer APIs for evaluating companies, products, and URLs by Time Well Spent rather than popularity.

or Get in touch

Advocates & Writers


Develop a Brand & Certification
Have experience launching new certifications like Organic or LEED? Feel good brands like Livestrong or RED?
Participate in a Strategy Meetup or Get in touch

Build a Social Movement
As parents and as individuals, many of us are concerned about how distraction impacts our human capacities for presence, reflection, focus, and the ways we relate to one another. Help us focus these concerns in productive directions.
Get in touch

Collaborate with Academic Research or Funding
We're working with academic researchers in behavioral economics, ethics, economics and psychology, and more. If you think you can help, get in touch


Get Involved

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?


What makes a product designed for Time Well Spent versus Time Spent? Here are several distinctions.

Today

With Time Well Spent

Design Goal

 We design to keep users active and hooked, while helping them complete tasks. We design to help users live their life and spend time well, while gaining their loyalty and business.

Ability to Disconnect 

 We expect users to be connected 24/7. If they want to disconnect, they can turn off their phone. We empower users to disconnect without missing important.

Quality of Attention

 We slice people's attention into frequent short bursts of attention; who's to say short bursts are worse than long and continuous uses? We treat people's attention as sacred, and empower people to focus their attention for continuous sessions while minimizing task-switching and interruptions.

Success Metrics

 We measure success by number of transactions (clicks, sales, time spent, or daily use). We measure success by net positive contributions to people's lives, while minimally using their time.

Business Model

 Engagement Advertising: maximize how much time people spend with our service. Hybrid: Paid, Subscription, or non-engagement based Advertising (e.g. Search Advertising).

Framing of Choices

 Disempowering choices that relate to what business cares about. Empowering choices that relate to what people care about in their lives.

Humility & Greenwashing

 Mission Statements. Mission Questions.

Respect

 Users are sheep we can influence with conversion funnels. Users are people whose time, attention, relationships and lives are sacred.

Explanation of People's Choices

 Users choices reflect their own free will. People's choices reflect the menu, situation and context into which they are put.

Responsibility

 It’s the user's responsibility to get the most out of the product; no matter how hard or easy it is. It's our responsibility to make it as easy as possible for people to get the most out the product.

Psychological Externalities

 It's users' responsibility to reduce anxieties and compulsions that come from using our products. It's our responsibility to reduce anxieties and compulsions that come from using our products.

9 MINDFULNESS TIPS


How can we live more mindfully with technology today?

On iPhone:

  1. Create a Tools-Only Home Screen
    Limit your home screen to the top 4-6 tools you use frequently to get things done. Move all other apps off the first page and into folders.
  2. Open Other Apps by Typing
    Typing filters out unconscious choices while keeping conscious ones. Open apps by typing their name.
  3. Keep Only Two Pages of Apps
    With six pages of apps, we find ourselves swiping back and forth through them mindlessly. Keep to two pages, the first with tools and the other with folders.
  4. Turn Off Notifications, Except from People
    Only get notifications when people want your attention, not businesses or machines.
  5. Keep the M&M's, but Hide the Wrappers
    Colorful icons are designed to trigger us to use apps unconsciously. Put these on the second or third page inside folders, and open them by typing instead.
  6. Stop Leaky Interactions
    Set your Alarm or Camera without unlocking your phone so you get kicked out automaticaly afterwards. Swipe up on the lock screen to quickly access.
  7. Reduce Phantom Buzzes with Custom Vibrations
    Create your own unambiguous vibration pattern to distinguish between when people need you vs. a machine. (Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages > Sounds > Vibration > Create New)
  8. Buy a Travel Alarm Clock and Charge Outside the Bedroom
    Waking up to check our phone sets our day off to a bad start. Get a separate alarm clock and leave your phone outside to charge.
  9. Know your Bottomless Bowls and Slot Machines
    Know which apps are bottomless bowls (trapdoors) and slot machines (constant checking) for you. Move them off the first page of apps.
Learn More

ABOUT US

We're a community of design thinkers, philosophers, social scientists, entrepreneurs and technologists who care about having technology designed to help us live free and fulfilled lives.


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This talk was deeply inspired by Joe Edelman's work on CouchSurfing's metrics and  Designing for Human Values, Gloria Mark's research on the Cost of Interruptions, Linda Stone's work on continuous partial attention, Damon Horowitz's Call for a Moral Operating System, Jonathan Harris' essay on Modern Medicine, and the B-Corp movement.
More resources to be posted soon!