Project

MBTI Catfish

An interactive experience that questions how personality tests like MBTI shape the way we see ourselves. Inspired from Myers-Briggs Personality test.

Roles

Researcher, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Wireframing, Prototyping

Timeline

8 months

Tools

Figma, Illustrator

MBTI Catfish

If a personality test can fit you into four letters, what parts of you had to be left out?

We’ve come to rely on tools like the MBTI to define who we are, to find clarity in chaos. But what happens when those four letters become a mask—flattening your complexity, reinforcing social expectations, and selling identity as a product?

My thesis project questions the subjectivity of the MBTI because of its widespread use and uncritical acceptance in both everyday life and institutional settings. In a time where people are searching for quick ways to define themselves — the MBTI offers a sense of certainty and belonging.

But beneath its neat categories lies a subjective framework shaped by cultural bias, commercial interests, and oversimplified psychology. In today’s algorithm-driven world, where identity is increasingly packaged, branded, and performed, it’s crucial to question how these systems influence how we see ourselves and others. By surfacing these hidden dynamics, I hope to prompt deeper reflection on how identity is formed—and encourage people to reclaim the complexity that often gets flattened by typologies like MBTI.

View Live Prototype

Context

Overview

MBTI Catfish is an interactive website that challenges the way classification systems like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) shape how we understand ourselves—and each other.

Often used in educational, professional, and social contexts, psychometric tools offer users a sense of identity, clarity, and connection. But beneath their popularity lies a deeper concern: how these systems simplify complex selves, reward conformity, and reinforce systemic biases.

Aimed at young adults in transition—between adolescence and adulthood, school and career—this project explores how tools like MBTI influence identity formation, self-perception, and interpersonal dynamics. Rather than presenting fixed answers, the model offers space for reflection. Through interactive storytelling and critical prompts, users are invited to reconsider who they are beyond the categories.

Framework

The format is an interactive website that leans onto the existing interface to develop a sense of familiarity and trust with the audience. As the questions progress the user begins to reflect on the questions and their answers through various cues from the system. The system employs various repetitive and confirmation bias to question the audience's certainty in their answer.

By reimagining the format and function of personality assessments, this artefact sheds light on the invisible structures that shape our sense of self. It advocates for a more nuanced, flexible, and culturally aware engagement with identity—one that embraces growth, contradiction, and change.

Research

Initial Research

This project began with a personal curiosity: Why do so many of us rely on tools like the MBTI to define who we are? And what are the deeper implications of trusting these simplified systems of identity?

Grounded in critical inquiry, the research began by examining the historical, psychological, and sociocultural foundations of classification systems like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Drawing from social identity theory, self-categorization theory, and developmental psychology, I explored how these tools influence identity formation—especially in young adults navigating transitional life stages. I also examined the commercialization and institutionalization of psychometric tests, and how they intersect with capitalism, conformity, and validation culture.

This research expanded into cultural case studies (e.g. MBTI in South Korea), critiques of objectivity and bias in self-assessment tools, and personal reflection on my own interactions with MBTI.

Challenges

At the outset of my research, I struggled with defining the direction and critical stance of my inquiry into MBTI and similar classification systems. My initial research questions were grounded in an interest in how tools like the MBTI shape identity and social interaction, but I hadn’t yet fully unpacked or challenged the foundational assumptions of these tools.

Specifically, I hadn’t clearly articulated whether I believed MBTI influences behaviour and identity or whether our behaviours and social interactions shape the results we receive. This tension revealed a deeper challenge: I needed to critically examine the validity and subjectivity of MBTI as a framework, rather than treating it as a neutral or universally accepted system. My early approach risked taking pop-psychology at face value, without first interrogating its empirical credibility, cultural origins, or the power dynamics embedded in its widespread use.

This feedback prompted a pivotal shift. I began to frame MBTI not just as a personality tool, but as a constructed system that reflects and reinforces cultural norms, commercial interests, and societal expectations. From there, I could better define what I truly wanted to explore: not whether MBTI is right or wrong, but how its form, function, and perceived authority influence how we see ourselves—and how we are seen.

Analysis

While the Myers-Briggs Personality Test is a tool useful for providing insight into identity formation and self-reflection, caution should be exercised in internalizing these models due to the risk of over-reliance, oversimplification, and self reduction (Bowker & Star, 1999). These systems can also lead to larger systemic issues like marginalization, stereotyping, and exploitation, when implemented and institutionalized without further reflection of its implications. Critical evaluation of the model and subjective nature of the questions posed includes recognizing overlooked aspects — such as how results shift as our identity evolves, understanding that the test reflects self-perception rather than an objective analysis, and to take caution with the results received.

Research Question

How do classification systems like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) perpetuate exploitation and marginalization through underlying structures and systemic biases, and what are the broader implications of their institutionalization in professional and educational settings?

Design Process

"..an interface that begins familiar and slowly dissolves into absurdism, contradiction, and self-reflection"

Ideation

In the ideation phase of my project, I’m developing an interactive website that critically deconstructs the MBTI framework using absurdism as both a visual and conceptual strategy. By disrupting the familiar questionnaire format with contradictory prompts, satirical pop-ups, and gamified elements that “break the fourth wall,” the experience challenges users to reflect on how personality systems shape identity in limiting ways.

Visually, the site will use chaotic, disorienting design elements to critique the illusion of order and clarity offered by MBTI. As users progress, I’ll introduce randomized letter types to emphasize the arbitrariness of fixed labels. The experience culminates in a transparent breakdown of their responses, encouraging users to question the logic behind personality categorization and recognize the complexity of identity beyond simplified systems.

Features

Glitching
Gamification
Absurdism

User Testing

Goals

Assess whether users recognize and understand the critique of MBTI.
Observe how users emotionally and cognitively respond to the shift from structured to absurd design.
Determine whether the interactive cues (e.g., pop-ups, glitch effects, satirical tone) encourage deeper reflection or cause confusion/disengagement.
Evaluate how transparent or manipulative the algorithm feels to users by the end.
Test the effectiveness of the end reveal (e.g., randomized or absurd result) and whether it lands as a critique or joke.

Prompt

"This is a new version of the MBTI test that promises to offer a deeper reflection of who you are. Try taking the test and explore the experience as you normally would. Be honest in your answers.”

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges in my process was determining how—and when—to visually disrupt the system without losing user engagement or diluting the critique. Implementing moments where the interface "breaks" or shifts often felt like a delicate balancing act: too subtle, and the disruption goes unnoticed; too extreme, and it risks alienating or confusing the user. The pacing of these interruptions and maintaining a balance between familiarity and disruption became a central design tension.

My intent was to critique the MBTI model by first mimicking its recognizable format, then gradually unraveling it through visual absurdism, satirical prompts, and system breakdowns. However, it was difficult to determine how much of the original MBTI structure to retain in order to build trust and familiarity—while still subverting it meaningfully as the experience evolved.

Incorporating elements like glitches, pop-ups, randomness, and intentional grid-breaking posed another challenge: how to integrate distortion and interruption without compromising the clarity or focus of the critique itself.