In the tech world, we often fall into the trap of describing software as a “utility”—like a digital hammer or a faster filing cabinet. But after over a decade in UX research, I’ve learned that this comparison is dangerously incomplete. When we introduce a new platform into a workplace, we aren’t just handing someone a new instrument; we are introducing a new “personality” into the office.
As a society, we’ve well moved past the illusion that technology is a neutral force. However, we should also reject the idea that technology designers are puppet masters who can force people to act in specific ways. The reality is more of a constant, messy conversation. This is what we call the social shaping of technology. We build the tools, but then we—the people using them—decide how to interpret, ignore, or even “hack” them in ways the original creators never imagined.
If we want to build better workplaces, we have to understand this dance between the code and the culture.
The Performance of Connection
Communication tools are the clearest example of this mutual shaping. Take the rise of instant messaging apps like Slack or Teams. These tools make “instant reach” possible. The design intent is usually efficiency, but the social result is often a new, unspoken rule of being “always on.”
I’ve sat in countless interviews where employees describe a sense of “digital performance.” One person once told me, “I feel like I need to perform on camera, not just talk.” This is a profound shift. The software didn’t force them to feel this way, but the specific way video calls are built—seeing your own face, the lack of natural background noise, the forced eye contact—created an environment where “looking busy” became a survival strategy. When we design these tools, we aren’t just moving data; we are managing human anxiety.
The Partnership: Our Minds and AI
The conversation around AI is currently dominated by two extremes: it will either replace us or be our perfect assistant. Both views are too simple. In my research, I see a “partnership” forming where the human and the machine are constantly adjusting to one another.
When someone uses AI to summarize a meeting, they aren’t just saving time. They are often delegating a piece of their critical thinking. But this is where the human side can push back: advanced users often use AI’s mistakes as a spark for their own creativity—using the “wrong” answer to help them realize what the “right” answer actually looks like. The technology sets the baseline, but the human determines how high we can go. The risk isn’t just “automation”; it’s the potential loss of the effort required to have original ideas. Responsible design means building AI that prompts us to think more, not less.
Scattered Info and the Erosion of Trust
Collaboration isn’t just about sharing documents; it’s about sharing a common understanding. When a team’s work is scattered across five different apps, the cost isn’t just lost time—it’s lost trust.
Earlier in my career, I studied a team where information was so disorganized that people were unknowingly doing the exact same work as their colleagues. Interestingly, the frustration didn’t come out as a complaint about the software. Instead, it showed up as office tension. People started assuming their colleagues were being secretive or lazy.
This is where the social shaping perspective is vital:
- The Technology: Information is scattered across too many apps.
- The Human Response: People lose track of what the rest of the team is doing.
- The Cultural Result: A breakdown in team trust and morale.
We cannot fix a broken culture by only fixing the “buttons,” but we can certainly damage a culture with a disorganized digital workspace.
Beyond Features: Design as a Social Choice
Every design choice is, at its heart, a guess about how people will behave. When a product team decides that “Public Notifications” should be the default setting, they aren’t just making a technical choice; they are making a social one.
In one project, we found that public error logs made users feel exposed and embarrassed, leading them to avoid the tool entirely. By switching to private feedback, we didn’t just “fix a feature”—we changed the feeling of the organization. We moved from a culture where people felt watched to a culture where they felt safe to experiment.
The Path Forward
As we move further into the era of AI and remote work, we must stop asking “What can this tool do?” and start asking “What kind of person does this tool encourage me to be?”
Technology is not a wave that simply washes over us, nor is it a script we follow blindly. It is an environment we live in. For those of us building and researching these tools, our job is to ensure that the “digital architecture” we build respects the complexity of the humans living inside it.
If we design with the understanding that people will always shape our tools as much as our tools shape them, we can create a future where technology doesn’t just make us faster—it makes us more intentional.