Steps for designers to foster confidence in the age of mistrust.

Trust is in short supply these days. Yet in the most unlikely places, a designer can learn from another expert how to be a better designer and design for trust.

This serendipitous moment happened with a conversation of two experts over the topic of trustworthiness. As Rachel Botsman observed, the decline of institutional trust is probably now a 25-year trend, but it rapidly accelerated over the last two years, particularly in the military, judges, and law. And possibly design too.

Much of mistrust stems from uncertainty about which information to trust. So far, there are at least two types of mistrust:

Explicit Deception

They are in a world where scams and hacking have implored creative methods to deceive people. Whether it is through phishing emails, deepfake calls, or website lookalikes, if the intention is to take away something from the original owner, deception usually follows.

Victims falling under this category can be identified, and immediate actions can be catered to either recover the loss, mitigate further damage, or prevent future attacks from happening.