Global Village Idiot: How software colours the social dynamics of behaviour

Digital, tech and software companies will lead the way in changing social behaviour, since they have the deepest reach. While they are leading such change, I hope they do not start implementing universal defaults too frequently without adequately researching adverse effects on digital habits on social and psychological behaviour and performance and related impacts

Darkness falls across the land

Interface is something that one stares at for long hours across months and it has a significant impact on our feelings and psychology which in turn has an impact on our moods which in turn affects performance in terms of quality and timelines. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOT)

The midnight hour is close at hand

Creatures crawl in search of blood

To terrorise y’all’s neighbourhood

And whosoever shall be found

Without the soul for getting down

Must stand and face the hounds of hell

And rot inside a corpse’s shell...

Last week this Rod Temperton lyric (immortalised by the voice of Vincent Price) in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” started playing itself in my head - in auto-repeat - as I switched on my work computer, waited for updates to be installed and then found dark theme magically appear on my Microsoft Outlook. I like dark theme, except when I don’t. And there’s a science behind it.

I am the kind that sets preferences and then doesn’t fiddle with anything since I like to focus on my work and not on prettying up my workplace, interface or surroundings or ‘personalising’ anything. To be precise, once I have set a preference, I won’t revisit it at all because it has nothing to do with my efficiency. Till the software decides to affect my efficiency by overriding my preferences.

So, what’s the science behind my preference setting? I evaluate designs in stress-test mode, especially colour schemes on interfaces. This is because an interface is something that one stares at for long hours across months and it has a significant impact on our feelings and psychology which in turn has an impact on our moods which in turn affects performance in terms of quality and timelines.

Historically, in the device space, there were light-on-dark colour schemes on screens because of how computer screens evolved (from cathode-ray oscilloscopes and oscillographs). Dark-on-light colour schemes emerged when word processors were developed to give the ink-on-paper feel. My experience with computers started sometime in the early 1980s and till the mid-1990s, I was primarily working with green or off-white coloured text on black backgrounds. If you have seen Matrix, you’ll understand why the classic green text falling on a black screen is a comfort. But am also very comfortable with the black and dark colour on a white background that emerged as normal from the mid-1990s till now.

What I can’t stand is badly designed colour schemes on interfaces or themes. What’s a badly designed colour scheme? One that doesn’t take into account what happens when one is staring at the colour scheme beyond 15- 20 minutes and one that doesn’t account for the impact of the colour choices on all the existing visual assets in a digital workspace and one that doesn’t account for the psychological impact of all this. It usually takes a few minutes for me to get upset with a unilateral change but the underlying stress factor is the bad design which will lead me to redo my entire digital workspace.

I use dark theme as a preference on my Apple devices and that’s because Apple doesn’t release nor allow any developer to release any design changes unless it meets stringent standards. I use light themes on non-Apple ecosystems because the design standards are different and they require me to do the work (waste my time) to adjust my environment. In my experience, Apple seems to respect my time and so goes that extra mile to ensure that dark or light colour schemes do not affect my productivity due to the lack of adequate stress testing on their part. From a data perspective, I can switch from light to dark theme on an Apple device as a matter of preference at any given moment without hurting my eyes or my mood and just get on with my work. On non-Apple devices, it’s absolute stress because the particular blue on the particular dark grey isn’t thought through and starts hurting the eye or it doesn’t go with my corporate signature line colours which are affected because of the theme change. And I think this is because device manufacturers and software companies tend to be more democratic in their responsibilities and leave the choice to users.

Dark themes use less energy and that’s why they are a better-informed choice (an informed choice is different from a personal preference). But what I expect from technology and software companies is that they draw the lines of what are their responsibilities and what are mine. I am paying for and using their productivity software to produce work not for me to spend my time adjusting their product.

To illustrate choice and preference, I love Microsoft Office software (especially PowerPoint), but in the Apple ecosystem instead of in the HP or Dell ecosystem with Windows environment. (FYI: I use Office in all three environments regularly, so I can state this as a comparative analysis). The same applies to games and apps.

But thankfully, all is well that ended well. For now. Microsoft on Dell allows me to change my preference which is what I did after 15 minutes of living with their dark theme. What I don’t understand is why they decided to install dark theme as default and make me change my preference? I would rather prefer they inform me about the option, leave it to me to take a tour and then change my preference instead of changing it for me. I voluntarily change to an energy-saving dark theme on most software if the dark theme design quality is going to lead me to be efficient. If it doesn’t, I will fight it till it is mandated by law because I spend more time doing my work on badly designed digital environments which means I use as much if not more energy as I would on a dark-on-light theme.

As we go deeper and deeper digital, tech and software companies will lead the way in changing social behaviour, since they have the deepest reach. While they are leading such change, I hope they do not start implementing universal defaults too frequently without adequately researching adverse effects on digital habits on social and psychological behaviour and performance and related impacts. We may not have much choice in expensive ideal ecosystems which design responsibly, but there is no dearth of choice in badly designed alternatives. And increasing market share in that kind of democratic setup will be nothing short of facing the hounds of hell - for consumers and sellers.

Sanjay Mukherjee, author, learning-tech designer and management consultant, is founder of Mountain Walker and chief strategy advisor, Peak Pacific. He can be reached @ thebengali@icloud.com