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Principles and Practices of Ethical Design | Sukanta Kundu
Sukanta Kundu
Dean School of Design, MIT ID Ujjain, Avantika University
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With expertise in aesthetics and product innovation, Sukanta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur with a specialization in Aeronautical Engineering and did his masters from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad specializing in Industrial Design. India and China, Sukanta has been associated with many illustrious brands such as Bajaj, Philips, Surya Roshni, Fiem Industries etc., holding more than 29 years of experience in India and China, spearheading the product design vertical in Home Appliances and Luminaries, introducing new product concepts and revamping the available products from concepts to production and a black belt in Design for Six Sigma, he has set-up factories in India, leading Research and Development.
What is Ethical Design or Design Ethics?
Design ethics consists of the moral behaviour and responsibilities in practising design as a profession. It is designing products or services with the morals, beliefs and principles of designers and the business owner. A designer ought to remember, whether it be a website design, a marketing campaign, or a product, it will have an impact on real people, and such effects can create ripples that will not only affect the user but may percolate to the whole or part of the society. Ideally, the designer should take responsibility for the efforts of his/her design but in our ever-changing socio-political and cultural scenario, such status quo keeps shifting.
We know that “Design” as an activity has existed since pre-historic days when the early man tried to solve problems in their daily lives and came up with solutions to make their lives better. But for the last hundred years or so, the world has been conscious of “Design” as a wellthought-out activity and then came as a profession of choice for some. The definition of design has widened from developing new products and services to creating an experience for a better life. With the stage fully set, now we have started thinking about ethics in design and the ethical behaviour of designers.
The Principles of Ethical Design
Most principles of ethical design revolve around “Respect” – respect for human rights, efforts and experience. The pyramid of “Ethical Hierarchy of Needs” created by Aral Balkan and Laura Kalbag illustrates this. Each higher layer of the pyramid rests on the lower one and it would collapse if there exist ethical issues in the lower level.
Usability and User Involvement
This is a basic requirement. Products and services are designed for targeted users. Designs have to be human-centric and usable. It should perform the task expected by the users and should meet their needs. The design should also reach a higher level of being easy and pleasant to use. And this would lead to a delightful experience for the users.
Usability can be checked easily by checking its five components:
Learnability – How easy it is to use by first-time users? Efficiency – How quickly the users can perform their tasks? Memorability – What was the experience of return users retaining their learning? Error – How many errors do the users make and what is their severity? Satisfaction – How pleasant was it to use the design?
To achieve a high level of usability it makes perfect sense to involve users actively and continuously involving them from the early stages of the design process. They give their requirements and test the intermediate design which will help the designer to refine the design and perfect it. After all, it is the users for whom the designers develop a product.
Accessibility
Products and services are designed for users. It is imperative that designers not only think of and design products for normal users but also for those who are unintentionally left out. These extreme users are sometimes those with special needs and a designer has to also take them into account while developing designs. Sometimes accessibility can also be impaired due to inadequate description or information.
Transparency
It is the moral responsibility of a designer to be transparent and inform the users fully about the options available and their possible effects, so the users can make appropriate decisions. Vital information regarding choices to be made by the users should not be suppressed, inadequately informed or be misleading and ambiguous.
Privacy
This is always a much discussed topic. In the usage of a product and collecting user information during the process, how much user data is revealed or used to exploit the user is debatable. Collecting more than necessary information and using it for targeted advertisement is breaching the users’ right to privacy and is not in the best interest of the users. Designers should also understand that their creation will form only a small part of the life of the users. A good design should be the one that is available when it is required and will not disturb the life of its users. Designing an unobtrusive product also is a part of respecting the user’s privacy.
How to make designs more ethical?
The easiest way to adopt ethical design is to follow the above principles and embed them in the design process. It is not advisable to add the ethical elements at a later stage of the process. A good way to start the design process is to connect to the mission and values of a company and implement these morals in the design. As a designer one can challenge the company to live up to its promises and support it to carry out its mission.
Often assumptions made by designers can land them in trouble, especially when direct contact between the designer and the user does not exist. Keeping a track of such assumptions, testing and verifying them will give designers a lot of mileage.
An important step toward ethical design is to ask penetrative and sometimes uncomfortable questions about the design and analyze the answers without bias, and then make corrections and improvements wherever required.
No matter how a designer practices ethical design, it is important to hold on to one’s beliefs and moral principles – this will guide the designers to the best possible outcome and the users will be thankful to such designers.
