For the 17th annual World Usability Day, UX Research and Strategy hosted a panel discussion featuring Morten Rand-Hendricksen, Trina Falbe, and Andy Vitale.
The panel discussion focused on the biggest ethical concerns the UX field faces, how to address ethical challenges in the workplace, and steps organizations can implement to avoid unethical practices.
While there were over three dozen online World Usability Day 2021 events this year, I was interested in attending the panel discussion for multiple reasons:
- I’ve met and known Morten Rand-Hendriksen through the WordPress community and respect his commitment to ethics in design
- Andy Vitale is vice-president of design at Rocket Mortgage, a company that’s been a longtime supporter of our Refresh Detroit group. Many Rocket Mortgage staff have attended our past Refresh Detroit meetups as well as our World Usability Day Detroit events.
- As a new owner of The Ethical Design Handbook by Trina Falbe, I was interested in learning about her thoughts on ethics. Given my past work on higher education websites, her biography detailing that she currently works in the education space caught my attention.
Here are my notes from the panel discussion.
Trust, Ethics, and Integrity in Design
- What we do as designers and developers has a an impact, often in ways we don’t expect. Vitale described a health care application that didn’t provide options for healthcare professionals (HCP) to share info or ask questions. Resulting in HCP printing out pages with patient health information, risking security.
- Developers often think that when the open source code they create is used to do harmful things, it’s no longer their responsibility.
- For example, the General Public License (GPL) often used in development disowns the creator from responsibility. Others can use the code in whatever way they want and redistribute it, and the original creator has no control over it. Which is problematic, because bad things can happen and no one takes responsibility.
- For some people in the development and design communities, they think because code and design by nature are value neutral, it’s no longer the developer or designer’s concern.
- How to solve it? Rand Hendricksen says we should get rid of the GPL and develop new licenses. You need to address the core issue of open source development, that original creators are responsible for what happens when people use what we create. This also applies to the design community.
- Falbe described one of the common dark patterns used by large organizations: the “roach motel.” You can get in easily but it’s impossible to get out.
- The “roach motel” trend has surged in recent years as subscription-based services and products moved to the cloud.
- Let’s rename dark patterns as harmful patterns. Rather than referring to them in reference to light or dark.
- Why do designers use tricks and deceptive design to get users to subscribe to a product or service? Let’s be clearer in our labeling.
- When it comes to ethics, you need to look first at yourself
- Another example of dark patterns is TikTok and how it uses harmful social and psychological patterns to make sure users stay on the TikTok platform as much as possible
- What can we as designers do to drive trust and integrity in the services and products we create? How can we help users discern trustworthy design from manipulative design? As designers, we can’t change everything. But we can raise awareness; bring it up all the time.
- Point out how not doing things the right way can impact the bottom line for the company, in terms of cost.
- What can you do as a designer at a company that’s doing something unethical? Rand-Hendricksen points out that American designers have healthcare through their job, which is a safety net. In Canada and countries in Europe, healthcare is provided through the government.It’s not easy to quit a job in America because you don’t agree with unethical design decisions.
- Part of the solution is to educate the people at the bottom of an organization about how to discuss ethics constructively. Explain the reasons why what the business is doing is unethical and how it causes harm. And how that will play out over time. Example: YouTube removing the public view of the dislike button.
- Depending on the organization you work for, it may be an uphill battle to battle a business model that uses deceptive design practices. It may not be realistic, says Falbe. We need to pick our fights.
- It’s important to separate the responsibility and the shame that comes with it when the business we work for make poor decisions about design practices and ethics
- For companies to make more ethical decisions, they need to change their business model. Which also involves governance and who is the final decision maker.
- Rand-Hendricksen recommended designers embrace our responsibility as future builders. Every person who works on design needs to be educated when they first join a business about their responsibility and how to raise issues about and discuss ethics.
- Falbe discussed the potential of ethical standards, similar to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for designers
- Designers need to find common ground to communicate with words and language that non-designers can understand easily and quickly. In addition, designers need to understand key metrics and drivers of the business and tie every ethical decision to those metrics.
