Findings from Ethics in Design
I asked designers how their work affect they users — and what ethical conflicts they have had. We need to take action.
Working with digital designs and free-to-play games, it is hard not to encounter issues that tap into the realm ethics. The examples are plentiful across industries. Social media notifications cause continuous interruptions to user workflow and make them invest their time suboptimally. Conversion hungry subscription services make it easy to opt-in, and far harder to find a way out of the email list. Competitive free-to-play games are notorious for being pay-to-win — but where is the fun in that?
It is not easy to balance the interests of user and the business. Without some gentle pushing the users may choose competitor products instead. Yet, too aggressive approach may have both intended results, such as increasing the number of subscriptions, but also unintended consequences on the user experience. In some cases, it may even lead to outright annoying, frustrating, misleading, and ethically unsound solutions.
As a discipline, we are only awakening to discuss and analyze these issues. If we don’t take a proactive stance in tackling them, others will.
To understanding this topic better, I turned to Finnish digital design professionals. Through a questionnaire, I tapped to their shared understanding on how they perceive ethics in their line work, and their experiences in ethical conflicts.
Sharing the questionnaire in social media in April 2018 yielded in total 53 answers from UX designers, service designers, business designers, and product designers alike. The participants represent equally organizations of all sizes from small shops to large corporations, and they work across industries with digital products. 10% work in entry-level positions, 60% as experts, rest as freelancers, and middle and senior management.
Designers value ethics
Let’s start with an overview of the designer attitudes on ethics. They can be summarized in three bullets:
- 95% of the respondents find ethics personally important
- 60% of designers find they have good understanding on ethics
- 46% of the designers find their organization consider ethics sufficiently
Ethics are perceived positively practically unanimously. None of the respondents — though we have to bear in mind that the participants may have been somewhat self-selected— had negative attitude to the topic.
Most respondents were passionate about the topic. As one designer writes: “If one does not consider ethics an integral part of the design profession, they shouldn’t be designing anything whatsoever.” A design researcher finds ethics should be considered more: “All companies should think more about individual and social impact and needs, as well as the impact on society.”
The respondents found ethics fundamental to their work. Yet, many found room for improvement. They were curious about the topic, they would like to understand it better, and develop their personal skills in it. Some designers were interested in changing the culture in their organization to pay more attention to the topic as digital design integrates more closely with other disciplines:
“I think this is a very important topic that usually arises when a professional field (such as design) matures, or the product/service ecosystems we help create mature. We as designers now have more say due to the increasingly holistic nature of our work by bridging business drivers and user needs and translate those to designs for systems, products and services. We are there defining what the business should be instead of just carrying out plans that are scoped without regarding the users best interests.”
There is a need for designers to grow their competency in the topic as their work becomes more strategic. To tackle these issues, a sound understanding on ethics is required.
Positive impact beyond the user
Ethics is more than words. Considered practically, design may have both positive and negative impact. To complicate the matter, the impact may differ depending on the viewpoint: user, payer, environment, the business itself, or society at whole.
When asked to describe the positive impact of their work two key themes emerge. Firstly, the designers consider their impact on the end-users interacting directly with the service itself. They also reflect on how their design impacted the society more broadly.
Many designers considered the impact on the users. Most prominently, their work seeks to facilitate the life of the user by saving their time and effort. Some designers worked with projects that sought other positive impact on the user. They mention aims to improve user’s health, connect them with others, and help them manage their life.
Many participants considered their designs serve also the society more broadly. They highlight how their designs promote financial inclusion, facilitate learning, and promote awareness on environmental issues. A designer working with the public sector describes: “My designs serve democracy and knowledge in society in general. They make information available to all and spread information to all. In addition they make government services more accessible to citizens.”
Ethical challenges: all shapes and sizes
The respondents were also asked to consider the potential negative impact their services may have on the user and society.
The most notable issue mentioned regards how the user was affected by the act buying itself. Some designers find their services advocate and encourage excessive consumption. This, in turn, was related to negative environmental effects, as one product designer writers: “[my designs] possibly increase climate change by increasing consumption”.
Environmental issues was not limited to consumer behavior. A designer working in heavy industry reflected his work: “there’s always the somewhat open issue if making the process more efficient is going to increase or decrease environmental effects.” Another respondent considered it troublesome to promote companies who use fossil fuels in excess.
Accessibility and inclusivity was another considerable issue in designers’ reflections. Some found their designs may not be created equally for everyone because there was not sufficient time to consider the variety in users.
The respondents also criticize the digital medium itself. Some found the designs encouraged excessive use: “consuming more media content instead of taking care of social relationships”. Another designer considered the digital design may not serve everyone equally: “the designs may exclude some citizens if they don’t want to use digital services.“ For this reason, some propose bearing in mind that there are also other solutions: “More physical solutions in the users’ environments instead of always turning to their smartphones”.
A few designers considered the message embedded in the design. It may be the design unintentionally favors some audiences over others. One respondent calls sensitivity to this regard: ”We should focus more on inclusivity and diversity to tackle structural inequality. We should be able to pay more attention to the representations and language we use in both our work and its end result.”
These examples showcase the variety of ethical considerations designers face. Having knowledge in the key issues helps designers proactively identify and tackle them.
The causes of ethical conflicts
The tension between the positive and negative impact creates ethical conflicts. 83% of the respondents had at one point or another experienced a conflict between business drivers and how users were affected by the design. 55% have had to compromise on their ethics as designer in their organizations.
The key reason for the conflict related to business ambitions. Designers have had to content for solutions that were suboptimal for the users. As one designer explains: “I’ve had to yield to my customers prioritization of features of the service, although I do not agree that the priority serves best the end-users”. However, the details of these business reasons remain obscure in the designer answers which calls for more research.
Some designers found the ethical challenges fundamental to the business they were working with. A notable minority — 13% — had worked with clients whose business practices they did not agree with. Some found them unethical, others were even more direct in their words: “In my previous company I had to do design for a company that I didn’t believe in and actually thought that their business is harmful for people.” explains one experienced designer.
Choosing the right project is fundamental. Only 57% of the designers currently worked with an organization whose causes they believe in. This is worrisome.
Naturally, there are economical factors to consider. Not all designers are in a position where they can freely choose the clients they work with. Sometimes you have to either accept the conflict, or find another client. Most often there is middle ground where the designer can negotiate to make the best out of the situation and build a sound solutions for the users.
Three ways forward
Once you become aware of the ethical considerations in the project, ethics in design becomes a skill in negotiating. It requires taking into account the scarce project resources, the interests of the user, and business considerations. The task of the designer becomes to align them. I propose three approaches:
1. Models and tools that facilitate sound ethical reasoning
One of the most pressing problem with ethics is that it eludes us. It is multifaceted and complicated, difficult conceptualize, and easily divides opinions. One reason for this is that we lack shared vocabulary and models to describe ethical factors.
We need to work to build a vocabulary in ethics in design. Only these tools help us identify, analyze, and reflect the broad range of ethical issues that face design including but not limited to equality, sustainability, accessibility, and usability.
These tools may help align designer’s ethics and company values. This, in turn, facilitates work and allows critical discussion regarding designs: Do our designs meet the standards we are setting for ourselves? At the end of the article, I provide a list of tools you may find useful in your work.
2. Per case consultations
Too often designers are left to figure these complicated issues on their own. Companies should have an internal forum or a contact person that helps in ethical matters.
Sometimes, it may be helpful to discuss the case with a professional who doesn’t have a stake in the project. Consultation may help map out challenges, clarify the limitations of responsibility, and negotiate conflicting interests.
3. Public discussion and debate regarding ethics in design
“In digital product development, there’s really no vocabulary or discussion around ethics of the design. It just doesn’t factor in. Business whose mission is not “saving the world” in one way or another tends to remove itself from ethical considerations. I think bringing ethics into the discussion would be highly beneficial for the entire industry, both heavy industry and digital product development.” writes an user experience designer.
There is growing interest in how designs affect us. The media has been actively writing about the debates about privacy of information and addictions in recent months. We need to continue this discussion: raise awareness on unethical practices, and celebrate the best.
All too often these discussion are held without designer participation. Designers could take a more active stance in commenting and writing about these issues — they are the professionals after all!
To base our argumentation on empirical evidence, we can also work to support academic and applied research in the themes.
In conlusion
We need more discussion, tools, and reflection to ensure our solutions are ethically sound — because there are always tempting short-cuts to increase conversion and engagement. Being well-versed ethics in design we can provide the best results on the brand, users, business, and society long-term, not only in this quarter.
Lauri Lukka is a Helsinki-based psychologist, service designer, and writer who works with digital designs and games.
A warm thank you to UX Hel (Jukka Ylimaula, Teemu Niskanen, and Yves Florack) for their help, and to all those who gave their thoughts in the questionnaire.
Handy references and tools for you:
Ethics for Designers provides toolkits for designers to evaluate and discuss the reasoning behind digital designs.
Dark Patterns collects and describes unethical practices in design. If you are unsure if business drivers can hurt user experience, take a look.
The Academy of Design Professionals provides an independent effort to describe an ethical code of conduct in design.
Mike Monteiro makes a striking case for ethics in his blog
