The Social Contract Theory

The Social Contract Theory was first formulated by Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan and later added to by Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to it, the society should strive to develop a set of rules that make sense to everyone (making people follow them voluntarily). For instance, driving on the right (or in some places, left) could be a common example - drivers keep to the right not for fearing the police but to avoid confusion and possible crashes.

This theory can be applied in IT ethics. User Interface and overall User Experience is crucial in Web Design. Good product should be easy and understandable to use, otherwise users won't be happy to use it. Consumer will prefer a product that is easy to use and doesn't require any special training. Apple is very famous for concerning about user experience, starting from packaging, ending with small animations that guide you what to press. 



A good example of developed set of rules, that make sense to everyone in IT is websites' headers. Everyone is used to the fact that it is at the top, at the left part is home page and important stuff and at the end of the line are less important pages. On mobile everyone is used to the sidebar and having to press some button to slide it out. 

Another good example of user interface that everyone is used to are hotkeys. Everyone is used to the fact that F5 is used to refresh something, Ctrl+C to copy something, Ctrl+V to paste something, and most importantly Ctrl+S to save something. I wouldn't use an operating system that uses any other button for saving, copying or pasting. Everyone knows what these hotkeys do, and an attempt to change these habits to 'be different' would just look completely moronic.




Overall, Social Contact Theory is very important in IT and to provide good user experience you should follow several rules. 



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