“Desire by Design” Patrick Keilty

Keilty’s talk, “Desire by Design,” examines the strategic interface designs of online pornography websites that pull viewers into a trancelike “flow” that requires no complex cognition. Viewers constantly shift to new images, creating a process of browsing in which pleasure derives from the habitual and repetitious delay and deferral of satisfaction. Within this flow, viewers are absorbed in the process of browsing online, blurring the distinction between human and machine. However, in contrast to mechanistic understandings of design, which focus on feedback loops that minimize frustration and maximize satisfaction and efficiency, the design of pornographic video streaming sites is often labyrinthine, rambling and chaotic, creating an environment for wandering, browsing, and meandering. Such an approach to design recognizes a probabilistic interaction with interface and reveals interface as a cultural value system that finds expression in the graphical organization of information.