Balancing Ethics and Design: Navigating the User Experience with Integrity

Introduction

Designers have an essential job. We bridge business and technology, advocating for users through our design experiences. As a result, we have a lot of power to persuade users through design.

But what happens when someone asks you to design something you find unethical? That's what we're diving into today.

The Ethical Dilemma and accountability in design

Being a designer means we're responsible for designing a product experience. If this product experience is unethical, we are accountable for that, too, even if it wasn't our idea.?

We risk doing the design and getting blamed if customers complain. I've observed this happen to other designers. Designers sometimes get blamed because they should have "pushed back" on the requirements.?

The Conflict of Unethical Requests

Unethical requests are a very tough challenge because it puts us in a situation where we are in a conflict. It might conflict with our morals and values if we say yes to the design. If we say no, we conflict with our business partner.?

We risk customer or media coverage if we say yes and design it.?

Example of an Unethical Request

Here's an example of an unethical request I received many years ago:?

Design an experience withholding consumers' money as a balance to go shopping. Consumers won't be able to withdraw their cash.

My Ethical Principles in Design

Everyone has a value system, and everyone is different. When it comes to design, I've defined the following as the foundation of my design ethics:

• The design must benefit the user in some way.
• The design must not violate terms of service.
• The design must not violate an implicit understanding between the company and the user.
• The design must not contribute to harmful behavior.

Finding Balance Between Consumer and Business Needs

I make it my goal always to find the balance between consumer and business needs. Most product roadmaps focus on solving user pain points. As a result, it's easy to see the balance.?

Our job is not to design for the business. We account for user preferences and ensure we design on the user's behalf.

Why Unethical Requests Occur

People aren't always aware that what they propose as a design is unethical. Business stakeholders don't understand design as well as we do. They might think we can make a less offensive version. Design from the outside can seem a bit like a black box.

The problem isn't in the request but in how the request is handled. In most cases, people have an idea, and you point out that it's unethical. They see it in a new way and drop the idea.?

It's really about how you approach them and the request.?

Approaching Unethical Design Requests

Listen and ask questions.

When someone proposes something unethical, listen to them. Use active listening to try to understand. Approach the idea with curiosity and inquiry.?

People don't like feeling like their ideas are wrong. It's a common reaction to hear a terrible unethical idea and immediately shoot it down.

Ask questions. Your questions should be neutral and objective in tone.?Asking questions helps to uncover what they're trying to do without judgment. After asking questions, most sensible people might see flaws in their ideas. But if they still feel strongly about the concept, we'll have to try different approaches.

Show them different options.

Show, not tell them why the idea is unethical. In the case of my unethical request, I created three different options.

The first option is what the business asked for. The second was to give the users a choice to shop or withdraw money. The third option was to offer incentives for them to go shopping.??

I prototyped the flows so they could see how unreasonable it is to ask people not to withdraw their money.?In my situation, the business still needed to see how unethical this design was for users. As a result, we moved on to user research.

The Power of User Research

User research is the best way to understand how people perceive the design. It's difficult to argue with people's experience. In my situation, I put all three flows in front of users. Not one person chose to keep their money to shop instead of withdraw.?

Finances and money are very personal, and people don't like the feeling of a company locking it away. We got clear feedback that people wanted access to their money.??

While this should have been convincing enough, it wasn't. The business still felt the idea had merit and wanted to continue shipping it.

Gather more support

Get more support and opinions. Depending on the request, start with gathering support early. Declining some requests need leadership support.

In these tricky situations, gather support from your design team peers. Take the design to crit or a feedback review. This is an excellent venue to hear from other designers besides yourself.?

You can also invite other product managers to weigh in. Sometimes, hearing from different people helps me see things from a unique perspective. You can frame it as gathering cross-functional feedback for more thoughts.

Conclusion: Should You Ship the Design?

Should you do it if nothing works and the product manager still wants to ship the unethical design? You only have two options: yes and no.

Derisk with data

If you ship it, derisk the design as much as possible. That means you should have metrics and data analysis in place to test the performance of the design. Collecting any sentiment analysis or raw feedback from users would be best.?

The idea here is that you're ensuring users have a mechanism to give feedback on the design. So, if there are early signs that the design is going poorly, you can immediately pull the plug on the design.

Disagree and Commit

In addition to derisking the design, make sure you make it known that you don't support the design.?

Amazon has a company principle to "disagree and commit." That means if you disagree with something but a higher-up overrules you, you still have to do it.?You can disagree and commit, but make sure it's in writing.?

Email the product team, outlining your concerns about the ethics of the design. Make it clear that if you were the decision maker, you wouldn't ship it, and propose your alternative.?

Outlining concerns in writing sounds direct, but if the design does poorly, your name is on the design.

You can also choose not to ship it.

Saying no is also a risk

Not shipping it is a bold move. Only some people can do this. If you're a person of influence, you'll be more likely to say no. In most cases, though, saying no means you will end up with bad 360-degree feedback, or people will complain.?

You can, of course, say no, and I've said no to projects after I did all the steps above. In that case, the product manager dropped the idea after getting a ton of feedback from me and our partner teams. It's a risk, though; you have to have a sterling reputation and trust from your leadership.

In my situation with the cash balance, the project was canceled after the research results. Thankfully, I didn't have to ship it.?

This aspect of our job isn't glamorous, but it's our job to create designs that reinforce customer trust.?

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I'd love to hear about any unethical dilemmas you've faced and how you've handled them. Please share below.