Design is its own field of understanding that stands alongside others like religion, philosophy, art, and science. While the field of design might be informed by others, it is distinct. In practice, design focuses on the organization or arrangement of objects -- which might include phones, atoms, the earth, mineral deposits within the earth, people, emotions, etc. -- as well as the interactions among those objects, and finally the aesthetics that emerge from those interactions. In its pursuit of these aesthetics, design seeks to create a representation of some thing-itself. In the creation of these imperfect re-presentations, design, in effect, creates metaphors that emerge from interaction with and among objects.

Aesthetics and metaphor are inextricably tied together. Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset asserts that “the esthetic object and the metaphorical object are the same [emphasis added], or rather that metaphor is the elementary esthetic object ... [and] satisfies us precisely because in it we find a coincidence between two things that is more profound and decisive than any mere resemblance.” A well-designed object is beautiful because, in it, we find a coincidence between the thing and some concealed truth. 

This conception of design is in contrast with concepts laid out in the book Nudge (2009), where authors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein open the text by describing a cafeteria menu full of unhealthy choices: would it be better if healthier choices in the menu were displayed more prominently, thereby encouraging its readers to make better choices? Thaler and Sunstein argue yes. In this context, objects are reduced down to their core components. A menu is a piece of printed paper with food items, prices, a restaurant name, and descriptions of food on it. A person is the sum total of their choices: food preferences, savings accounts, marital status, eye color, and a dark sense of humor.

Yet metaphor, and hence aesthetics, explain something about the thing itself that reducing a menu down to a list of options, or a person down to their characteristics, does not.

Choice architecture (the mechanism through which nudges occur) is a method developed by Thaler and Sunstein, economics faculty at University of Chicago and law faculty at Harvard University, respectively. The concept relies on the cognitive biases and heuristic frameworks that lead to “irrational decisions.” One example of this is demonstrated with the marshmallow experiment conducted out of Stanford in 1972. In this test, children are offered one marshmallow, and told they can have it immediately or wait 15 minutes to receive a second. Most children opted for the former, though the latter is clearly the better option. In this irrational decision-making framework, a choice architect might step in to, say, present the two options in a way to make the latter seem more appealing to the child (perhaps by showing them a picture of a child crying when they don’t receive the second marshmallow). This intervention is called a nudge.

Choice architecture proposes novel nudge interventions to counter those decision-making processes. Unlike other forms of intervention, however, the authors propose to provoke these mediations through a method they call libertarian paternalism. That is, interventions that have an individual’s best interests at heart, but do so in a way that respects the individual.

Choice architecture has also been adopted across many disciplines -- including design -- where the concept has received much attention in fields ranging from the development of mobile devices to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The theory has seen international adoption by institutions like the World Bank and nation-states, as seen in Great Britain’s Nudge Division. With such widespread adoption it seems almost inevitable that our entire designed world will soon be full of nudge-like interventions. 

This paper makes the case that choice architecture and design have inherently incongruent aims and, therefore, can never wholly work together. We will show that choice architecture is a scientific theory first and that design is, orthogonally, a practice in aesthetics. We will then discuss the various incompatibilities between science and aesthetics, and close with further areas of research on this topic.