Digital Wellbeing by Design: Safeguarding End-Users' Time and Attention in UI/UX Practices

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

User interfaces, particularly those of social media, promote mindless usage through Attention-Capturing Damaging Patterns (ACDPs) like infinite scroll and content autoplay, prioritizing user engagement over digital wellbeing. Recent work suggests that a promising approach to realigning technology with users’ digital wellbeing is to prioritize it by design . Building on this idea, this paper explores how to support designers in identifying ACDPs and surfacing wellbeing-oriented alternatives. We first defined and assessed a multi-modal prompting technique to detect ACDPs in Figma prototypes and discover alternative designs that may promote mindful and active technology use, assessing its outputs with 4 experts in deceptive designs. Then, we integrated the prompting technique into a plugin for Figma, and conducted a formative lab study with 15 UI/UX designers to explore how such a tool may support early-stage reflection on ACDPs and its perceived fit with existing practices. Results suggest that the plugin can inspire designers to reconsider their choices early in the design process.