Ethical Design: What is it?
Issue 01
Hello and welcome to the first Just Asking newsletter! Thank you again for signing up, and for following along on our learning journey as we discuss ethics in user experience (UX).
Here’s some context about our process. We will each have about two weeks to answer a question in letter form to one another, and each “letter” ends with a new question for the other to answer.
While we may not reach definitive answers, we are using these prompts as thought starters to drive our discussion and spark new ideas and questions—and to point towards resources that have helped us along the way. Again, we are not experts and are using these to help us learn; if you have any advice or considerations for us, please let us know!
In this issue we will try to answer these two questions:
What is ethical design? (Answered by Caro)
What does it mean to be intentionally ethical in design? (Answered by Karina)
Without further ado, please read our answers below!
Dear Karina,
To be honest, I’m not sure what “ethical design” is. I’ve been researching online for a couple of weeks now, and this term doesn’t seem to have a concrete definition (that I can find). While I couldn’t find a definition, I did find a few sources that have created a set of principles/code of ethics to follow.
One is from Mike Monteiro, author of Ruined by Design. In this book, Monteiro points out how in other industries—from journalism, to medicine, to law—professionals have a code of ethics to follow, and how remarkable it is that designers do not. He defines his own code of ethics, and two principles stood out to me most:
Designers are responsible for the work they put into the world.
Designers owe the people who hire them not just their labor, but their counsel.
(If you’re interested in the full list it can be found here and can also be found in the book.)
The reason these two stood out to me were because of the idea of accountability. As UX designers and researchers, we are making things that will affect people (for better or worse). While that seems obvious, many of us do not question the work we are doing, and we diminish the role we play in the consequences.
As employees, in larger organizations especially, it’s easy to feel like you aren’t having much of an impact. The voice inside our head might say, “What could I really do?” or “But it’s always been done this way.” We tell ourselves, “No one is going to listen.” The excuses go on and on. This type of thinking minimizes our responsibility. We owe it to our employers to question existing systems and processes, and evaluate the impact of the work we are doing from multiple points of view, not just the economic one—even if it is the most typical metric of success in a business setting.
This leads to the next part of my thought process. When designing within the business context, what are the driving motivations or desired outcomes, and who is dictating these decisions? For example, a business that seeks to maximize economic gain establishes core metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track financial progress early on. And the who behind these desired outcomes historically has been white men for the most part. As designers, we must work with these overarching goals in mind, but at what cost or detriment to our company's/product's long-term sustainability, and more importantly, our users? In order to have more ethical design, we need to reevaluate what success looks like and who takes part in defining success.
Many times, ethics is an afterthought, or a reaction to something negative that has occurred or been made public. I can think of a few examples, but on the top of my mind given recent events is Twitter’s response to Donald Trump. Traditionally Twitter has measured its success by reporting monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAU). This means the goal is to have as much activity on the platform from as many users as possible. The more tweets, retweets, and replies they can get, the more activity and data they can sell to advertisers. For some time now, Twitter has had problems with "bots," or automated accounts programmed to act like regular Twitter users, but they have been slow to correct the issue from a product perspective. While I am not in the room making decisions at Twitter, the conflict of interest is evident. What is more important, increasing mDAU or preventing potential manipulation? According to the metrics of success, it’s increasing mDAU. According to Sparktoro’s fake followers audit, 71% of Donald Trump’s Twitter followers are fake. These bots and fake accounts sway not only online conversations but also real-world events. Recently, Twitter has double-downed on banning these bots, but again in reaction to negative recent events.
Could situations like these be avoided if ethical considerations were included in the business objectives? We need to change the lenses we use to define what success is, and make them more well-rounded so they not only include the economic lens, but also the ethical one. Ethics can no longer come as an afterthought; it must be a driving factor from the beginning.
Question for next week, Karina: How can we make ethics one of the key lenses dictating design decisions, and what does being intentionally ethical look like?
Dear Caro,
This is a question I’ve been wrestling with ever since I started and completed my master’s degree in Social Innovation a few years ago. I can’t say I know for sure what it means to be intentionally ethical in design. When I think of ethics, I usually ask, “What do we mean by ‘ethical?’”
Like you pointed out, the word ethical is usually tied to something reactive. It’s mentioned when something needs to be addressed because of a specific event that occurred. But what if we think about it as a state of mind? Something that is baked into the process? What comes up for me is something more holistic than just an afterthought.
I learned human-centered design through the lens of participatory design and community-oriented design. This kind of process can become like community organizing because you, the designer, are not the expert. You are the guide and facilitator that accompanies a community to build up the resources and capacity to solve their own problems. Those resources can take the shape of many things, processes, or people, but the point is that it comes from the community. In this sense, you work with a community, not for a community.
Since my time there, I’ve done many projects, mostly at and for private companies, and the distinction between empathetic design and intentionally ethical design has begun to clear up for me. Being intentionally ethical in design is the practice of design justice—designing to actively give power back to those who we want to help.
Last year, I participated in a 36-hour design sprint benefiting a local organization. The local organization we worked with that weekend was launching an app meant to help youth in extended foster care between the ages of 18-21. The app helped find and secure safe, stable, and suitable housing in their city. We were helping them with branding, research, and some light service design. Personally, I was excited to do my part to help prevent more homelessness, but I was also skeptical. Whenever an app is involved I always want to roll my eyes because it usually tends to be the go-to, and only, solution.
As we spoke to the community, what we found was that the app really spoke to them. What was the difference between this app and the countless other ones that are produced to solve “a problem?” Those who came up with this idea are from the same community the app was serving. The people who were in charge of bringing this idea to fruition did not have more than 7 degrees of separation from the audience they were trying to serve. The audience was in the room, and they were empowered to build, give feedback, and suggestions.
Going back to the practice of design justice, intentional ethical design means you not only understand and have empathy for your audience, but you are also opening up your process to empower them. You want them to guide you in building a solution that truly respects their experience.
Design has always been exclusive in its own right, which I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. However, when we’re talking about how design affects society and our environment, I think it’s also very important for us to take a step back and ask how can I, the designer, make sure I’m not taking power away from those who will be affected by the design? How can I restore some of that power and give it back to the community I’m trying to help?
The book Design Justice by Sasha Costanza-Chock speaks directly to this idea. How do we open our field up to marginalized communities who are affected by us, and have them lead the way? After all, aren’t they the experts? Shouldn’t they be leading us instead of us leading them?
To say the least, this is so vastly different from what I experience everyday working at a private company. Unfortunately, the bottom line is that to be completely and intentionally ethical most of the time is not in your company’s best interest, and can serve against their drive to create the product in the first place. Revenue comes first.
As you mentioned, Caro, success is usually defined through an economic lens. I think as we grow as designers and have more prominent voices in our teams, we can build this ethical mentality from the ground up. Our responsibility goes beyond the deliverable we are asked for. We may not be able to change what we work on, but we can influence the process of how we do it. What happens if we open up our design processes to non-designers and allow them to design alongside us and, dare I say, lead us? And, what happens if we define success in a more holistic manner?
So I ask you this, Caro: How could the idea of design justice help shape the future of human-centered design in private industries?
Where do we go from here? In the next issue of Just Asking, we will continue this conversation, and take a stab at answering the questions posed in this installment. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to comment on this post. You can also send us an email at justasking@substack.com.
Thanks again for joining us on this journey. We’re glad to have you here!
I loved reading this. Very thoughtful observations, Caro + Karina! I especially appreciated the emphasis on defining terms...When I talk about “inclusive design”, I think I’m getting at the same ideas you describe as ethical, participatory, community-centered. It really helps to get the language aligned.
A question for a future newsletter: If you assume ethical inclusive design practice is centered on power shifting back to communities, and then acknowledge that communities generally have relationships with place (like geography or physical location), how do globalized international companies engage with community-centered practice?