This is a part of a series for ethical design practices in the age of GDPR.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when I mention ethics? Think of it for a moment, before you proceed with the blog. As a 7-year-old kid, while watching the Academy Awards on television for the very first time, I came across a disclaimer post that said, 'The following content is not advisable to be viewed by patients suffering from photo epilepsy, due to immense usage of lighting and flashes.' As a kid I found this to be very intriguing, and to date, it is a part of my memory, which is otherwise not very strong. As I grew up and was exposed to the word ethics, the disclaimer image was the first thing that appeared before me. And now that I am a UX Designer, I realise that ethics and design go hand in hand. The perception that I held regarding ethical design was limited to designing for the well-being of the users. But, during research before I started writing this blog, there were a lot of fascinating facts and aspects that I came across, that were completely beyond my awareness, Through this blog, I wish to share my findings that might also help you to enrich your knowledge about designing ethically, and may make you are a more responsible designer in the future. 

So what is Ethical Design? 

In simple terms, the concept of designing for the well-being of users is ethical design.

Have you heard of dark patterns in UX? 

Do you remember that WhatsApp message that offers a free Amazon voucher for clicking on a link because it's Amazon's 25th Anniversary? Or the pop-up notification on some random website that claims you're the 1000th visitor of the day and therefore eligible for some free goodies? These are classic examples of Dark UX, and they are one of the main reasons for millions of data breaches daily. Dark UX designs are essentially click baits that trick the user into performing a certain action through deceptive and misleading personal data.

The three areas to look into when designing ethically are:

1) Structural integrity

2) Functionality

3) Aesthetics

1) Accessibility: The concept of designing for the disabled is known as accessible design. Remember those wheelchair-accessible symbols and signs that you see in public places? Those seatbelt extensions that you get on aeroplanes... But have you ever wondered what accessible design would look like when it comes to screens?
Some of the generalised accessibility tools made available to us for digital media are the dark mode and light mode variations, being able to zoom in and out for better readability, making links underlined to denote that they are clickable, etc.

2) Usability: Usability looks at context-specific use-cases to ensure that users can complete tasks effectively in different use cases. For example, in high and low network areas user expectations from the product change.

3) Sustainability: Ethical design, in terms of sustainability, involves repurposing the design or promoting circular design, also known as recycling, reducing, and reusing. Examples include replacing simple plastic straws with steel straws, substituting plastic toothbrushes with bamboo brushes, and incorporating energy-saving appliances.

4) Security and Privacy: Ensuring that a minimal amount of user information is being asked for, and there is clarity provided to the user as to where and how this information would be used. This builds transparency.

5) Legal Compliance: A design should always conform to a certain set of norms considering the political, social, religious & economic ideologies while designing for different communities. 

6) Human Dignity: Designing for dignity establishes a sense of equality for all individuals, and makes all of them feel accepted. A simple example could be building an app that supports multiple languages.

What do companies aim to achieve through ethical design?

1) Engagement Goals: The sole objective of any company is to get user engagement, this could be achieved through ethical designing since it leads to customer loyalty.

2) Growth Goals: Once customer loyalty is achieved, it leads to better overall projected goals.

3) Revenue Goals: Ideal levels of growth and engagement from the user will automatically lead to increased revenue, thus helping the company meet all their goals.

Let's see how we can apply it to our daily work,

Imagine yourself working as a UX designer for a leading news channel, and your job is to introduce a fact-checking feature for calling out fake news for their Website and App encouraging journalistic integrity.

If you were to come up with accessibility features for an E-Newspaper, it could look something like the example below,

Mar 2023