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UX Ethics Lesson: When it isn’t safe to pull the plug
My first brush up with an ethical boundary and how junior designers are not always safe to enforce them.
I understood that it was my job at this agency to advocate for the user and continue to push for a better experience.
I spent a summer as a junior UX designer at an agency creating a website and booking flow for an international cruise line. One day the marketing manager client-side came back with some very questionable changes to our booking flow which we worked for months to refine. To be intentionally vague, per my contract, the business received ships that had different specifications from what they were initially promised by the manufacturer. Specifically, the amount of cabin varieties increased from about 5 to close to 12.
My user experience spidey senses said “Let’s make this work for the user!”
When I heard about this, I immediately went to work. I began to adapt the flows and interfaces to sort and organize the different cabin types in a way that did not overwhelm the user with choices. I made my case to the marketing manager on the client-side who proceeded to tell me how…
