Ethics Kit in 2019
2018 was an interesting year for the tech industry.
It was also an interesting year for Ethics Kit (but in a more positive way). I met and continue to meet a lot of new people from all over the world. We all seem to share common goals and frustrations and are working towards the same outcome. Personally, I have found this to be energising and exciting and hope that this continues to gather pace in 2019.
After a lot of deliberation around what we wanted to do and how best to do it, Ethics Kit finally formalised as an entity in its own right and I began working on it (almost) full time in October. We are proud to be sponsored by The Federation, Co-op Foundation and Luminate Group which very kindly provides us with access to their co-working space and the vital legal support needed to help us with the transition into a social enterprise. I’m really looking forward to getting to know more people there, and have already begun collaborating with the wonderful Noisy Cricket. Watch this space :)
Finding our fulcrum
There are a lot of people talking about ethics in design at a philosophical level; what it means and what it should look like, which is essential for the development of our understanding of it in tech. From speaking to others and my own personal experiences, I’ve felt inspired to change the way I work and really make a difference… Until I get to my desk and realise that I’m not sure how to — then the despondency sets in again.
At Ethics Kit, our mission is to really understand how we actually design and develop products and services, so that we can understand why these problems are happening and what it is we need to improve — and then come up with a plan for how we can practically adjust— through positive incremental changes over time.
our mission is to really understand how we actually design and develop products and services, so that we can understand why these problems are happening and what it is we need to improve — and then come up with a plan for how we can practically adjust
This has given us a unique lens through which to view the problem of ethics in tech: One of transformation.
One aspect of this problem is a lack of understanding in our teams decision making processes. Even though many of us are focused on jobs or needs, we don’t really understand the wider context our users live in. We have little oversight into how what we make might be used by people who don’t fit into our personas. Living in a global economy and the advent of the internet has heralded phenomenal opportunities for growth, but has also introduced mind bending complexity into the systems and cultures we’re designing for.
Ethical considerations will only get you so far without greater knowledge of your users and their systems from which to consider them.
It’s difficult to talk about this, exactly because of this complexity. There is no silver bullet, or single definitive answer to this problem. A lot of the work has been done into conceiving better methods than we currently use to help us understand this complexity, but their efficacy remains to be proven in relation to collectively addressing this specific problem within the time frames we’re working to.
I think this is an interesting point. With an appetite for simplicity, we too often look for a silver bullet or a sure fire solution to our problems. This kind of thinking tends to lead to burying our heads in the sand. Whatever ‘ethics in tech’ is, it’s going to be something that we need to develop collectively and iterate over time. It will potentially change the shape and rituals of our teams. It will probably introduce new roles and skills, focused on developing this knowledge of the range of contexts we’re dealing with. This will be challenging and it will take time. But it’s certainly not impossible.
Another aspect of this problem is rooted in our teams diversity, culture and values. How we co-operate on an inter-personal level. How we identify and do cancel out our unconscious biases while understanding and celebrating our differences and resolving them productively. Additionally; how we understand the capabilities, culture and values of the people we are designing for, to better consider the impact of our decisions within their users context.
Central to this objective is the importance of a reflective cycle: discourse and practice, or do something and then talk about it. Do something and then talk about it. Do something… you get the idea.
Some of the tools in our kit are aimed at facilitating and supporting the creation of a team culture and environment to enable these processes. You can start trying some at your next retro if you wanted to. We also have (and will be adding more soon) tools to support impact (and potential impact) considerations of their work within the context of the cultures and values of the people the teams are designing for.
In an effort to achieve this, Ethics Kit is focused on the development and delivery of the following areas:
Communities for discourse
One of my priorities to complete before the end of 2018 was to get a forum up and running and invite our mailing list from ethicskit.org to it. I don’t have any experience of running communities and tend to lurk more than contribute to any I’m a member of, so I felt a little apprehensive about setting one up an running it.
I saw a lot of Slack communities popping up and was heavily inspired by lots of conversations with the amazing Kate Towsey of ResearchOpps fame. There were three things that held me back from launching straight into Slack:
- I’m already part of a lot of slack communities and wasn’t sure I needed another one
- I’m totally self funded at the moment and couldn’t afford the subscription once we hit 10,000 messages
- I really didn’t want to lose any conversations as, similar to Stack Overflow, their value could continue to be relevant long after they had taken place
So I set up a forum (for anyone under 30, it’s how we used to gather and communicate online before social media). I found a really great open source forum called Discourse and it was pretty straightforward to get it up and running.
So far, so so
I feel like I’m not really giving it as much time as it needs and also maybe people aren’t sure how or why to engage at the moment. I’m having conversations with people, which is great, but no-one else is really sharing anything or asking questions of each other. I need to dig more into this to understand what’s going on, I’ve just not had the time yet. I suspect its the “WTF is this?!” reaction to a forum, but I’m not sure — maybe its the wrong format.
In the meantime I’ve also begun working with Dan Zollman from Ethics of Design. Dan runs a Slack community where conversations are happening. They seem to be predominantly in the USA, but people from all over are now joining. It’s been great being a part of that and I’m already learning a lot from people in there and getting some great feedback on the tools.
I’m very much looking forward to developing this relationship with Ethics of Design over the coming year. It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves over time. One thing that we’re currently working on together (and we’ve had some successes with here in Manchester already) is local meetups. We’re currently developing a pack for individuals to help them get up and running with an event in their area.
Education for discourse and practice
We’re working with Hyper Island at the moment to help them with their Digital Experience Design and Digital Media Management Masters Programs in Manchester. Alongside this, we’re trying to develop a short course or curriculum for how people can bring these things together. Hyper Island is already streets ahead in terms of teaching the cultural aspects of ethical design, so is a natural fit to initially take this forward.
One of the main objectives I’d like to help people with alongside the cultural aspects required for change, is how we thread these tools together for use at the appropriate times within the design process and give people the confidence and ability to apply them.
It has been great hearing from people about how they are using these tools. Its something I’d like to build on and share among the wider community — sort of like a playbook for different methodologies or retros, etc.
Tools for practice
We’re constantly finding new tools to achieve specific aspects of what we believe is important at key stages throughout the design process. Some of the tools we currently have are still in their infancy and we rely heavily on feedback from the community to help us improve them.
I’d love to see more people coming forward with what has or is currently working for them and figure out how we can share and promote them openly through our toolkit in the future. You won’t hurt our feelings, we just want to consider as many perspectives as we can and try to get it right as quickly as possible :)
Tools as software
We’ve also been busy researching and designing our first software based tool. After receiving so many questions around informed consent, we’re creating something to help teams manage this properly within their pressured time frames. Alongside new opportunities to deliver consent, we’ve found new ways to increase participant transparency and remove pain from GDPR requests too.
Why software? One of the big problems with any transformation is the phenomenal effort required to make change happen. You need a strong shared understanding and confidence that what you are doing will have a positive effect inside the timelines and pressures you’re working under. If we become the tools that we use, then we can solve time and friction problems and guide people through better processes to support ethical design at the same time.
So why not open source it? Good question and one we’ve not arrived at lightly. We have two reasons: 1) The service we’re providing creates value for teams and organisations through increasing the quality and consistency of how they do consent, while saving them significant amounts of time. 2) Ethics Kit is a social enterprise and subscription based software will give us a recurring revenue stream for us to redirect into achieving our overall mission.
Most of the work done to date has been me on my own, but I’m delighted to report I’ve begun working with an incredible full stack engineer; Ben Aldred. I’ve worked with Ben previously at the Co-op and alongside considerable technical know how, also brings commercial experience and business acumen to the table. It’s exciting to think about what we could achieve in this space.
What does the next 12 months look like?
- Delivering our informed consent app; Consent Kit
- Continue to research and learn what an education program might look like and experimenting with how best to deliver it
- Continuation of supporting the community at ethicsofdesign.org and pushing for more local meetups happening globally
- Trying to share as much of what I’m doing and learning as possible
- Promoting as many people as I can who are working towards the same goal
Want to get involved?
If you’re at all interested in ethics in design and technology and want to get involved, setup a local community group in your area, interested in learning facilitating or teaching or just fancy a coffee and a chat then make yourself known! You can also find us on Twitter @ethicskit.
At the moment we’re active in Manchester (UK), Boston and New York (USA) and Mumbai (India). Let’s get more cities on that list in 2019.
