Final Reflection
Before the class, I had not considered ethics of design enough. To be fair, this is one of the first (and one of the few) classes in the Product Design path that incorporates history and ethics to better inform students in the major as designers. I was excited by the prospect of learning about ethical design during a global health crisis because unprecedented times highlight areas where design should be used. In a previous class, I had just begun to question the design processes that are taught at Stanford and in similar design spaces, especially the notion of need-finding. I felt a disconnect between the way Stanford glorified the design process, how it could save lives and solve problems, and what it actually did in the real world. Yes, I have encountered design practices that I had never thought of that utilize design challenges and visual thinking to build equity and ethical processes. However, a great deal of design work that the Product Design program pipes graduates into feels distanced and detached from the reality of the world.
In a pandemic and a rapidly changing world (regarding race and other social issues), I have witnessed many businesses and organizations, freelancers, and designers grapple with conditions they were thrust into — where they had to work around new constraints, address long unaddressed structural flaws, and abandon some of the previous illusions of the world. For me, the act of schoolwork became superfluous — problem sets, readings, and exercises that built skills incrementally and did not reference the big and pressing conflicts we are enduring were not worth my time. With this class, I soon understood what I desired in the near future and in my career. Building beautiful websites and aesthetically pleasing wireframes is gratifying for the portfolio boost and practice, but those websites should be for ethical companies focused on lasting change. I think the need for pleasure is immense, so I understand projects that focus on distraction or entertainment for users, but at least in those scenarios, the user is still the focal point of the project.
At the beginning of the class, I was initially disheartened by the curriculum (which was a product of my own misinformation about the class and the chaos that ensued in the switch to online learning). However, I was eager once I could voice my concerns and have them implemented. I enjoyed the first week and initial design project about architecture, but once discussion sections started focusing on ethical prompts that our classmates created and the speakers began discussing more relevant issues, I found a rhythm and curriculum I enjoyed. The discussion sections were especially helpful for me not only because I found the discussions to be engaging and ideally formatted but because I had not practiced my discussion skills in a while and doing so within the design field and about ethics that will impact my future career was very fulfilling. Because the class content necessitates a wide breadth of design-related industries, there were weeks I was not as engaged. I am very much aligned with social justice, equity, sustainability, and design, so when I could use those as a wedge into discussions and readings for the week I managed. However, the sections focused on artificial intelligence or video games were not as interesting to me.
I learned a great deal about ethics. Moreover, what confounded me the most was that in fixes delineated by various speakers for various inequalities (namely, gender inequity in video games), even the fixes could be contested on the ground of ethics: is it ethical to work within the indoctrinated gender binary and create video games that are marketed towards girls by leaning into traditional gender norms? Quandaries like that made the class fulfilling for me.
The most helpful activity in the class actually did not involve me as much; rather, I loved seeing how my classmates interpreted the prompts for various projects and assignments — this was especially fruitful during the architect and poster projects. In the future, I will attempt to approach school assignments in infrequently conceived ways. I want to use the cushy classwork opportunities I complete on a daily basis as a way to conduct my own research, learning, and critical analysis of the matters covered in this class — those I care about the most. Above all, I will approach each ethical question with a level and open mind, remembering that everything I know and have learned has been taught in or through some sort of biased framework.
