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My Top 5: Ethics in UX
Personal ethics and the lessons along the way
Ethics is deeply woven into the ethos of User Experience Design. It shapes how we navigate current issues, and is the foundation to our judgement. Ethics is also deeply personal and subjective, making it a difficult topic to discuss around most people. As designers, I believe we have a moral responsibility to not only the people we design for now, but for all those people connected to our design now and in the future.
“Ethics cannot be a side hustle.”
— Mike Monteiro
While ethics and morals are important to all aspects of living a noble life, for us it is mandatory to have at least some sense of where you stand ethically in order to proceed with the simplest of tasks. You know that phrase if you stand for nothing you’ll fall for anything? I don’t know who said that, but it couldn’t ring more true to how we must approach how we operate every day. After all, we are the gatekeepers (Monteiro, 2018) that advocate on behalf of the best interest of users.
However ethics, just like design, is not for the faint of heart. We need to have deep conversations with ourselves and open discussions with others in order to begin to break into the habit of understanding our ethical boundaries.
