During my own history, when I have done planning, ethical thinking has increased in my own head year by year. I have experienced that as a designer I have a responsibility to ensure that services are built ethically and sustainably. No quick quick wins, but long-term work honestly and with the customer’s interest in mind.
Misleading users
One of the themes of user interface design is the so-called ” dark ux “, i.e. ” tricks used in planning to mislead the user so that the company benefits more “.
Things like this in online stores and other digital services include, for example:
Misleading. Let the user assume that the functionality does something, but it actually does something else. Enter your email address and you will receive a discount coupon, but at the same time you will unknowingly become a subscriber to the newsletter.
Reinforcing shame. Language that incriminates the user is used. In the “No thanks, I don’t want to save money” button that skips some upsell.
Hiding the termination. A surprising number of services make it really difficult to cancel a service, compared to how easy it is to order.
Ethical design in society
Very similar things are also used in the real world. The term ” hostile architecture ” has been talked about for a long time , where the city’s public spaces are designed in such a way that one wants to limit the use of the space by a group of users. A good example of this is the design model used in several cities for park benches. In the picture below, the armrests have been placed to prevent sleeping on the bench, so homeless people cannot use that place. By Googling that term, you will easily find many similar examples.
The power and responsibility of the designer
So we designers have an even bigger responsibility to do things right. Every thing that we “agree to plan” against our own will and principles, takes the whole society in the wrong direction. I understand that things are often done with just optimization and results in mind, but if we want to build a sustainable society where business is ethically correct and still profitable, we have to make better choices.
Sustainable development and ethically produced services are the pillars of our nation, which are used to build companies with a “thousand-year strategy”. Of the Finnish companies, only Fiskars was founded before 1700. Source Wikipedia. How many hundred years did you think your company would still be around? The Swedish Stora Enso was founded in 1288 and the Japanese Kongō Gumi in 578 and they are both still in operation.
Would you like to be creating companies that will be remembered a hundred years from now? Contact us.
