What is ethical design ?

Ethical design is the design that is made to have a positive impact. Unethical design is the opposite of ethical design.

Schools of ethical thought

There are two schools of ethical thought:

Designing ethically

In order to design ethically, solutions should be constructed keeping the following concepts into consideration:

Autonomous design

Autonomous design allows the users to:

• Have control over product use.
• Make their own interaction choices when they use the product.
• Customize the product for themselves.

Transparent design

Transparent design informs the users of:

• Their terms and conditions in an understandable manner.
• What they are signing up for.

Safe design

Safe design caters to:

• The privacy and security of the users.
• The physical and emotional well-being of the users.

How to design ethically?

Harms caused by unethical design

Unethical design harms people in various ways:

• Physical harm - endless scrolling on sites disturbs the normal activity of a healthy person.

• Data Leakage - companies share data with third parties without explicit user content that is used to manipulate users.

• Financial Loss: Engage users in unreasonable data packages and making it extremely difficult to back out.

• Emotional harm - showing content that is harmful to people of certain ages.

The reasons behind unethical design include financial incentives and increased user engagement.