5. The Critical Engineer recognises that each work of engineering engineers its user, proportional to that user's dependency upon it.
In other words, the design of a product affects its users' behavior. This can happen with or without the participants' knowledge and is nearly impossible to avoid. As a designer, this is a fact that I must constantly contend with. Recognizing these behavioral nudges and understanding how to shape them is a key skill for those in my trade.
One common example of this is the scrolling interaction on mobile phones. Scrollable pages often lack clearly defined bottoms. As a result, users are disposed to lose track of time and spend longer on an app or site than initially intended. Since we are highly dependent on smartphones, this interaction of 'endlessly scrolling' through a given feed has become a mainstay in contemporary culture and raised questions about the role technology can and should play in our lives.