Designing with a Conscience
Practical approaches to ethics in design at Interaction 23
Designers want to build digital products and services that are useful, usable, do no harm, and are good for society and the planet. But how do we include ethical considerations in our daily work? Learn how others approach this challenge at Interaction 23.
As technology and design continue to shape our world, it is increasingly important for designers to consider the ethical implications of their work.
“The ethical aspects of digitization are becoming increasingly important for successful companies, organizations and authorities.”
– Cornelia Diethelm, CEO Centre for Digital Responsibility
Many companies establish ethics boards and guidelines. But despite the best intentions, we see technology fail us every day in various ways. Often, a lack of understanding and empathy for potential users leads to ethical problems.
A superpower for ethical design
There are some Interaction 23 talks that demonstrate how user research and empathy helped design ethical products. I’m looking forward to some interesting and fresh perspectives.
I’m especially curious about these three:
“Evolving design ethics”
by Tanvi Dhond, Dani V Sanchez, and Aminata Dia
They discuss challenges that arose in their projects as: When we say “inclusive,” whose perspective or worldview does this present? Is “Latina/o/e/x people with the ability to give birth” really more inclusive than “Latin women”?
“How to Design for Human Aging”
by Alina Karl
“Imagine you’re 75.” Alina discusses her experiences in designing for human aging. She shows us how to consider age-related changes throughout the design process to avoid ageism and to design without bias.
“Do No Harm framework for design”
by Pardis Shafafi and Giulia Bazoli
‘Do no harm’ is the Hippocratic oath guiding healthcare physicians to “be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future”. When contextualized within design practice, Do No Harm does not mean ‘do nothing.’ Using case studies and examples, they will unveil a few key steps of the framework and its application.
Design Ethics is a subtheme of the Interaction 23 conference theme “Design the undefined, undesign the defined” and these are only a few examples of many interesting and inspiring talks.
Practice your futuring skills
Another reason for ethical problems is the focus on short-term goals, rather than considering the long-term impact of the design on society and future generations. This can lead to designs that are not sustainable or that have negative consequences for the environment and society as a whole.
Therefore a very practical skill for ethical design is to adopt the mindset of a futurist. I will practice my futuring skills in the full-day workshop “Facilitating Futures” with Phil Balagtas, the founder of the Design Futures Initiative.
I’m convinced that we interaction designers and user researchers have good methods and are well-equipped to design products and services for a better world. We can use our impact in project teams to show that some ethics guidelines are not enough. That it really takes is a deep understanding of people, context, and consequences to design ethically. I hope to meet you at Interaction23 and hear some of your thoughts on the topic.
I’m a User Experience Architect and Partner at Zeix, a UX agency in Zurich. For over 20 years, I make websites, products, and services useful and usable. I’m very missionary about this, therefore I teach courses on user-centered design, digital ethics, and speculative design at several universities in Switzerland.
