Preface
Design is more than just creating pretty things. User experience, or UX, has the power to influence minds and shape cultures. Therefore, a successful UX design can make businesses profitable. A study done by McKinsey showed that companies who invested in good design experienced an increase of up to 32% in revenue.
How many times have you seen design solutions that showcased male chauvinist attitudes or marketing content that exhibited racial or gender biases? The content that designers create represents our social thought, values, and culture. Similarly, any product’s design embodies a value system, clearly indicating the designer’s beliefs and moral principles.
Racial and gender bias often result from unconscious UX design decisions and content strategies that exhibit various sets of biases. For example, if a toy manufacturer were targeting a mixed-gender audience, why would they show only boys playing with the toy?
The Concept of Ethical UX Design
Ethics comprise moral principles that dictate what we should and should not do in particular situations. Based on value judgments for good and bad, ethics dictate our duty and obligation to propagate the good and denounce the bad. Thus, ethical design basically means making conscious design decisions that do good and do not harm anyone—either intentionally or unintentionally.
UX designers can influence the people who use the products or services they design. From what people see on social media to news reports and even food packaging, the information our users encounter throughout the day can affect their thoughts and feelings. This is why making ethical design decisions in the UX design process is crucial.
The Key Principles of Ethical UX Design
- Usability is the most crucial aspect of designing user experiences. It refers to how efficiently and satisfactorily users can achieve their goals with a feature, design, or product. Our responsibility is to create intuitive interfaces that are easy to use and, in some cases, prevent serious consequences.
- Privacy is crucial in creating a unique brand experience. In the digital world where data security is a huge concern, UX designers and businesses are expected to safeguard the privacy of users.
- Positive influence requires guiding users’ behavior thoughtfully. The boundary between white-hat persuasion and gray-hat or black-hat persuasion sometimes becomes blurred. Persuasion tactics that change users’ perspectives and convince them to buy a specific subscription just to increase conversions are highly unethical.
- Sustainability, Have you kept the environment, climate change, and natural resources in mind when designing your product? Sustainability is a significant ethical factor that you must consider. We must foster sustainable consumer conduct to avert overuse!
- Society, UX designers must consider the impact of their products on users’ mental health. Ethical design requires aligning work with the needs of global and local communities, including political, economic, and health-related factors.
- Diversity and Inclusivity, UX design should prioritize accessibility for diverse groups. This includes offering multilingual functionality and incorporating illustrations and images that represent people from different backgrounds.
Be honest, don’t mislead
A Dark Pattern is a design pattern that prompts users to take an action that benefits the company employing the pattern by deceiving, misdirecting, shaming, or obstructing the user’s ability to make another (less profitable) choice.
Dark patterns are more likely to be successful with vulnerable users, such as time-poor users or users with lower literacy and digital literacy levels, making this practice even more troubling. Designers should avoid and actively argue against the use of deceptive patterns.
Some examples of unethical behavior include:
- Forcing users to enable notifications against their will.
- Convincing users to subscribe to a service through misleading tactics.
- Making it hard for users to reject options they don’t want.
- Using confusing language in forms or dialogs to trick users into consenting to things like newsletters or sharing personal info.
- Distracting users with overcrowded visuals.
Be Inclusive
These Inclusive Design are about putting people first.
- Choose readable font sizes and types with high contrast between text and background to help users with visual impairments.
- Allow flexible name entries to accommodate diverse personal and cultural naming conventions.
- Offer a range of options for race, ethnicity, religion and gender to respect different identities.
- Include diverse images and graphics to represent various groups of people, helping users feel seen and included.
Provide safety, security, and privacy
The digital age has brought many conveniences, but also challenges around data privacy and security. This is where GDPR and User Experience intersect. For example, we’ve all been frustrated by cookie consent popups on websites. Cookies allow sites to offer personalized experiences by tracking user behavior.
To ensure safety, security, and privacy in digital products, designers should:
- Clearly explain password requirements to help users create strong passwords.
- Make privacy settings easy to find and manage.
- Inform users about data risks and how to protect their information.
- Ask for permission carefully, detailing why and how data will be used.
- Collect only the data necessary for the task.
- Implement two-factor authentication (2FA) for added security.
- Encrypt data to keep it safe from unauthorized access.
Practice Environmental Sustainability
Technology use has a growing impact on the environment, and designers can contribute to a more sustainable world. There is still debate about how much energy internet activities consume, but it is apparent that many are becoming increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of their digital activities.
Designers can contribute to sustainability by:
- Choosing eco-friendly hosting powered by renewable energy.
- Optimizing data usage with compressed images and lighter code.
- Designing for green choices, like promoting digital receipts and slower shipping options.
- Encouraging remote work to reduce commuting emissions.
- Prioritizing energy-efficient designs that use less processing power.
- Supporting sustainable practices by encouraging users to recycle or save energy.
Give Users Control
Empowering users with control over their actions aligns with Nielsen’s heuristic principle of user freedom and control. Allowing users to easily reverse actions, correct mistakes, and navigate their way through a product fosters a sense of agency and confidence.
Ways to Provide User Control:
- Undo/Redo options for correcting mistakes.
- Clear Back buttons to retrace steps.
- Cancel buttons to stop tasks or processes.
- Close options to exit views without changes.
- Reset functions to restore default settings.
- Recover deleted items to retrieve lost data.
- Customization options for adjusting themes and layouts.
Respect Your Users
Respecting users and their autonomy is central to ethical design. When designing digital experiences, it’s crucial to prioritize users’ needs, preferences, and rights. Upholding these values helps build trust and creates lasting relationships with your audience.
Respecting users is key to ethical design. Here’s how to do it:
- Avoid harm by steering clear of manipulative practices and harmful features.
- Ensure equal access for all, including users with disabilities.
- Create a safe space for user feedback with proper moderation tools.
- Protect privacy with strong security measures and transparency about data use.
- Prevent harassment and safeguard user rights with reporting tools.
- Provide references to ensure content credibility.
- Offer a consistent experience across devices and browsers.
