Why Ethics Are Important in UX Design
Posted in Design, Personal and tagged with ethics, impact, iron ring on 03/28/2009 07:05 pm by uxmelina
Today, I took part in the “The Ritual of the Calling of the Engineer“, a ceremony taken by many students who complete accredited engineering programs in Canada. The ceremony involved making a moral, ethical and professional commitment to my profession. I was “wedded to cold iron” (as they say), when given an iron ring to wear on my pinky finger of my working hand. This ring acts as a reminder of this commitment.
The ethical obligation held by more traditional engineering disciplines is clear. If a civil engineer doesn’t act ethically, and fails to design a bridge safely, then people could, and likely would, be harmed when it fails.
Can ethics have as important outcome in UX design? I say yes! It may not be as obvious at first, especial to people just starting out in the feild (such as myself), but I saw this talk last week (shown below) and it started to make me think. Robert Fabricant talks about IxD, I recommend watching the whole thing, but around the half way point he talks about the difference between output, outcome, and impact of design. I understand it as the result on the project level, user level, and society level. He uses the example of purity pledges with Evangelicals. I will summarize his distinction in his example.
Output (project level) : purity pledges, purity balls, rings (as designed)
Outcome (user level): teens taking the pledge, father’s giving rings to daughters (as designed)
Impact (society level): Higher teen pregnancy in Evangelical (not intended design)
It’s the impact where ethics really come into play. As shown with the purity pledge, if designers don’t consider this level fully, it becomes clear of the unethical results that can occur with a design. Robert talks about the need for an “impact model” similar to business models used for new ideas.
Since an impact model doesn’t really exist right now, can you think of any methods to determine an impact model or elements that an ideal model would have?
Robert Fabricant - Behavior is our Medium from Interaction Design Association on Vimeo.
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