Ethics in design: pick your ethical potion
In my previous article on Design Ethics I wrote about bringing consciousness to the act of designing knowing our virtues and how they impact what we output into the world.
It is beneficial to understand that there are plenty of ethical approaches that can be applied and followed within a decision making framework. However lets start by recalling what ethics is not as framed by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
Ethics is not the same as feelings.
Ethics is not the same as religion.
Ethics is not the same thing as following the law.
Ethics is not the same as following culturally accepted norms.
Ethics is not science.
How can we make ethical decisions and then continue to evolve and guide ourselves, team members and the solutions we create in an ever demanding convenience landscape?
For practical purposes a Project’s Ethical Contract or in some instances due to public administration requirements I’ll call it Project’s Ethical Manifesto is firstly a pre concept framing tool of thought. However It doesn’t stop there, it will have expertize — business, design, data, development, systems architecture, security — increments that will be the guiding principles agreed upon to materialize whatever we’re working on. And should be revisited from time to time whenever there is a new relevant input or divergence.
I would like you to understand that when I write about a project I am taking into consideration that any project is a multi system co creation.
The understanding of the decisions that sustain the applied framework — the Project’s Ethical Contract — must involve administration decision makers, business, managers, designers, developers, quality and test and any and all team members that will participate in the concept, roadmap and construction of the project. Not understanding the decisions and the drivers behind what sustains that Ethical Contract will inevitably result in expensive rework and results which are not aligned with the project’s virtues and roadmap goals.
Will this lead to repeating oneself explaining the thought process and having to schedule walkthroughs with any new member that comes onto the project?
Most definetly. And before you think about the impact that has on a project timeline, I have to remind you again that all projects must account for onboarding time for new members. Leaving someone to deal with the novelty of a project that is ambitious enough to have an ethical contract cannot give itself the luxury of not doing so. The business cost down the roadmap will accumulate and pop up as a very hard to deal with debt. And if you’re working on a sustainability, healthcare and community oriented project even more so.
A direct benefit of these Ethical Contract walkthroughs is that team members once they are behind and genuinely support the virtues in place for that project will contribute with new knowledge, insight and predisposition to understand how what we’re creating can perform better in their fields of expertize.
It directly benefits autonomous conscious decision making aligned with a project’s virtues and will also bring forward to the discussion blind spots that weren’t once taken into consideration.
Also, there is something interesting that can occur when starting the ethical contract: We might come to the early observation that a project’s baseline virtues are so out of line with human rights/sustainability principles/impact in a society that based on that thought process alone the decision to stop that initiative or completely reevaluate it’s purpose is brought to the frontline of commercial and steering conversations.
The preferable mindset while creating, conducting, guiding and editing the contract should be one of honesty, sensitivity, representation, consent and permission, do no harm, data safety and mindfullness of time.
Yeah but, how?
Start by identifying the ethical issues clearly present in this project — having created a stakeholders map will help you understand what can those issues be — , gather facts, evaluate alternative actions, choose an option for action and test it, implement it and reflect on the outcome. These steps can be used in alignment with Standford’s Design Thinking methodology which can be an added benefit to some projects, not all. Use it wisely.
While framing the initial outline of the Project’s Ethical Contract it is always good to ask:
What are the virtues we want our presence/project to have.
What are the virtues we want to transmit while using the product.
What are the main ethical goals that we are not willing to compromise, no matter what.
Use a collaborative tool of choice to register — I favor Miro — , organize and clarify communication amongst stakeholders and then pick your main ethical potion to guide your frame of thought, reflection and test:
Rights
Are we respecting human rights?
Choices
Are the people affected by this product be able to make their own choices?
Justice
Do the impacts of this product allow for a fair distribution of benefits and burdens?
Common Good
Are we doing our part to look out for the common good in this situation?
Utilitarian
Will the product produce the best outcomes for everyone affected?
Virtue
Does this action represent the kind of person I am or want to be?
Does this decision represent the kind of organization we want to be?
Does this decision represent the kind of work I want to be participating in?
I will be ellaborating how we can apply these potions in a future article.
What I’ve outlined here is more of a starting point after you’ve done inner work. This is not to be done overnight and quite frankly it takes time to mature in receiving, understanding and perfoming let alone implement in an agile work method.
It requires a deeper understanding of yourself and confidence in what you’ve learned. Not certainty, because questioning is an integral part of ethics and to be certain can hinder insightful knowledge. And this plays a very big part in c-suite and administration acceptance whom are very often afraid of “blank pages”.
What I do feel is that, after so many years working in and with design, I care too much about how businesses are miscunducting themselves due to convenience and therefore impacting our world as it is not to do something.
I hope that by writting these articles and sharing these nuggets of information they can be seeds of future resolutions that benefit all.
Meanwhile I share with you an interview to Kirk Hanson, senior fellow and former executive director at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics about Hanson’s recent book, and the ethics of corporate misconduct.
