Ethical Design Principles

Ethical design is about acknowledging the impact we have on users and acting responsibly.

Consider the following guiding principles as you make ethical design choices:

• Acknowledge personal responsibility.
• Consider impact first.
• Prioritize user needs.
• Design for inclusivity and accessibility.
• Preserve user choice.

Acknowledge personal responsibility

As designers, we need to acknowledge our personal responsibility in the user journey. Design isn’t neutral, it is always influenced by the perspective of the designer. You can start to question your perspective to improve design by reflecting on your approach and your position in society.

• Am I ready to take a student approach to design?
• How do my position and advantages in society affect my design decisions?
• Who should I include in the decision-making process?
• Can I accept solutions that are different than my personal preferences or beliefs?

To recognize our own knowledge gaps, we need to assess our privilege and bias, and how they shape our views. The main types of privilege are:

• Race privilege: In a society with deep systems of racial oppression, being or appearing white has advantages. Society caters to and prioritizes white people. If you are a white designer, ask how you can broaden your understanding of the experience of BIPOC communities and individuals.
• Religious privilege: The belief that one or a few faiths are the social norm, or at the very least, the more accepted religions. Feeling that religious celebrations are connected with wider society is a sign of religious privilege. If you experience religious privilege, ask how you can start acknowledging other beliefs and perspectives.
• Gender privilege: Male privilege refers to the benefits experienced by cis-gendered men existing in a patriarchal society. If you experience male privilege, ask how you can consider and include the experiences of women, trans, and non-binary people.
• Heterosexual privilege: In a heterosexist society, straight folks experience wide acceptance, government benefits, and safety when expressing love in public. If you are straight, consider what it would be like to feel unsafe and unrepresented in society. Ask how you can keep all communities safe when using your products.
• Socio-economic privilege: In a capitalist society, having enough resources to fulfill physical and non-physical needs is a privilege. People who are of a certain status or class group are treated better, afforded more opportunities, and experience fewer obstacles. Ask how your socioeconomic status benefits you. Consider the experience of someone with less opportunities.
• Able-bodied and neurotypical privilege: Those who organize and communicate their thoughts in the most common way or move about the world without physical disability experience privilege. Society favors and builds things for this group first. Does your cognitive expression or physical ability benefit you? How might a neurodivergent or disabled person experience life differently from you?

Most of us experience at least one form of privilege. As designers, it is our responsibility to recognize our own, continually question our beliefs, unlearn harmful thought processes, and seek new perspectives.

Consider impact

Ethical design requires that we actively work toward minimizing negative impact. This means accepting full responsibility for the impact of our products, including unmanaged user conflict.

• How severe is the potential impact?
• How much do we contribute?
• How vulnerable are those affected?
• How likely is it to occur?

Prioritize harm reduction for all user groups above client requests. As designers, we are responsible for any unintended impact of our designs, especially where user data is concerned.

Prioritize user needs

Ethical design puts user needs before business goals or client demands. According to Deloitte (opens new window), not only are customer-centric businesses more ethical, but also upwards of 60% more profitable than sales-centric businesses. Avoid focusing on engagement boosting as a guiding metric.

• Why am I doing this?
• Who does it benefit?
• What is the impact of this decision?

Are you solving a user problem? Designs that benefit the company ahead of the user are unethical. Ethical designs empower users and preserve their right to choose.

Ensure all user needs are considered by:

• Identifying a universal goal and understanding how different users might achieve that goal.
• Designing with your users. UX research prioritizes user needs and empowers users to be a part of the design process.

Focus on the most marginalized groups and what challenges they might face. Cede power to those you design for.

Design for inclusivity and accessibility

Designing inclusively means intentionally increasing space and access for people who are not normally seen, heard, or considered rather than simply allowing their presence or access. This requires designers to take full responsibility for the user journey so that everyone can use our products successfully. Being clear and descriptive, especially with titles, makes a product easy to navigate in multiple ways. Using terminology like “edge-case” implies those user needs are not a priority. Normally, this is assessed based on the case’s rarity. It should be assessed based on the potential impact on a human. As designers, we can earn user trust by delivering on our commitments to prioritize their needs. This means including a diverse, representative user group in our research and design process. Challenging our own personal biases requires that we seek out and design with the most marginalized users, while creating a safe space for people to disagree.

For more info, check out Accessibility and Inclusive Language.

Preserve user choice

Maintaining the user’s right to choose is essential to ethical design. This doesn’t mean allowing users to choose to perpetuate harm. We can still positively influence user choices, but we mustn't take their choice away. Many users perceive design choices as connected to a company’s values and goals, so respecting user autonomy is key.

• Avoid unnecessary limitations, invasions of privacy, and intentionally misleading the user toward a specific decision.
• Make cancelling, deleting, or opting out easy and frictionless. Ensure user posts, comments, activity, records, logs, and personal data are easy to delete. User data should only be available to a company with the user’s permission.
• Maintain full user control along their journey: forward, backward, start, stop, pause, exit.
• Avoid blocks in the user flow that exist to promote something.

Fully inform the user by explaining what you mean, and what will happen next based on their choice. Balancing user autonomy and harm reduction can be tough at times. Always prioritize user protection and reducing harm while informing users and preserving autonomy as much as possible. User choice should never be prioritized above user safety.