Interaction18 — Designing for Privacy and Ethics

I had the pleasure of talking at called Interaction18, IxDA’s annual global conference. The conference is attended by top designers from large companies like Mircosoft, Facebook, and Mozilla as well as designers from high profile design consultancies like Cooper, Frog and Fjord. The conference attracts roughly 800 people, and approximately 300 people attended my talk.

My talk was titled “Designing for Privacy and Ethics”.

Using DEVELOP, as a case study, I walked the audience through the challenges and opportunities of designing for privacy and ethics.

When designing for Privacy and Ethics the following are my recommendations:

• Be mindful of the privacy paradox when talking to users
• Get up to speed with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• Work with Privacy Experts
• Allow sufficient time, as there is no rule book.

My full talk linked below and it expands on these recommendations.

Venetia Tay, who leads audience insights at Mozilla, preceded me with a talk titled “Designing for the conscious chooser”. Her talk is well worth checking out and is linked below.

It was a great opportunity to present, alongside someone with such an in-depth knowledge of user habits, opinions, and actions.

Her presented research explores Mozilla’s users’ offline/online behaviours and values, how it translates (or does not) into the actions they take on their everyday lives, both on and off the internet.

Interaction18 was an absolute joy to speak at. In the conference, there was a strong theme of speakers asking about, and presenting on, how to design for desirable outcomes.

It is certainly an interesting and challenging time to be designing technology. Everything is designed. Few things are designed well. But with conscious intention and application, anything can be well designed.