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By Andy Vitale – Vice President, Product Design & Content at QuickenLoans
Design is a superpower. Regardless of where you are in your career, being a designer is a privilege and an opportunity to make a significant difference. The impact of design is profound and inspiring, as it’s all about having a positive effect and leaving things better than we found them. Designers and product creators must recognize that there is always room for improvement, and meaningful context can truly showcase the power of design.
Choosing to be a designer means choosing to impact the lives of those who interact with your work. Your designs can either harm or help people, and the tools, solutions, and products we create have exponential effects, whether they are functional, emotional, or financial.
Functional Impact
The functional aspect of design refers to how a product or solution meets the practical needs of its users. Well-designed products can simplify tasks, enhance productivity, and improve overall quality of life. For example, user-friendly interfaces in software applications can make complex tasks more manageable and accessible to a broader audience.
Emotional Impact
The design also has a profound emotional impact. It can evoke feelings of joy, satisfaction, and trust, or conversely, frustration and anxiety. Consider the emotional resonance of a well-designed, aesthetically pleasing product versus one that is cumbersome and unattractive. The former can create a sense of pride and happiness, while the latter can lead to dissatisfaction and stress.
Financial Impact
In the financial realm, design can influence economic well-being. For instance, financial tools and applications that are intuitively designed can help users manage their finances more effectively, leading to better financial health. Conversely, poorly designed financial products can lead to errors, misunderstandings, and potentially significant financial losses.
People want to feel safe and secure, and safety is a basic human right. However, frequent breaches and improper practices across industries compromise this feeling of safety. Although not all issues can be blamed on companies, customers often hold them responsible. As designers, it’s crucial to consider these aspects while creating products. While not all problems can be avoided by design, ensuring that people feel safe should be a priority in product design.
Digital Safety
Digital safety involves protecting users from data breaches, privacy violations, and cybersecurity threats. As designers, we must prioritize data encryption, secure authentication methods, and transparent data usage policies to ensure users feel safe when interacting with digital products.
Emotional and Psychological Safety
Designing for emotional and psychological safety means creating products that do not exploit users’ emotions or contribute to negative mental health outcomes. This includes avoiding dark patterns—design tactics that manipulate users into taking actions they might not otherwise choose—and being mindful of the potential for technology to cause anxiety or stress.
Physical Safety
Physical safety is paramount in the design of products that users interact with in the real world. This involves ensuring that products are ergonomically designed to prevent injury, that materials are safe and non-toxic, and that any potential hazards are clearly communicated to users.
Glass-Bottomed Walkway in China
In China, a glass-bottomed walkway with special effects that made the glass appear to shatter as tourists walked on it caused significant fear. Although it was a trick, the local government had to issue an apology for the scare it caused. This incident highlights the importance of considering user safety and experience in design.
The intention behind the design was to create a thrilling experience for tourists, but it failed to account for the intense fear it could induce. Effective design must balance creativity and excitement with user comfort and safety. In this case, a less dramatic effect or clear warnings could have mitigated the negative impact.
Hawaii Missile Alert
On January 13, 2018, an erroneous ballistic missile alert in Hawaii caused widespread panic. The alert was sent due to a design flaw in the alert system’s file naming conventions. Such design errors can have severe consequences, emphasizing the need for careful consideration in design processes.
The incident was caused by a simple yet critical error: the similarity between the names of the drill and real alert templates. This highlights the importance of clear, intuitive design in systems that carry significant responsibilities. Improved naming conventions, additional confirmation steps, and better training for operators could have prevented this terrifying mistake.
Apple’s Sexist Credit Card Algorithm
Apple faced backlash when their credit card algorithm gave different credit limits to men and women, even in cases like Steve Wozniak and his wife. This algorithmic failure, potentially due to unconscious bias, underlines the importance of ethical considerations in design and technology.
Algorithms must be designed and tested to ensure fairness and avoid perpetuating biases. This requires diverse teams, thorough testing, and ongoing monitoring. Transparency about how decisions are made and opportunities for users to challenge those decisions are also crucial.
Facebook’s Emotional Experiment
In 2014, Facebook conducted an experiment on over 600,000 users by filling their news feeds with negative news to study its impact on mental health. The users were not asked for consent, showcasing a significant ethical lapse. This incident reminds us that ethical responsibility is crucial in design.
User consent and transparency are fundamental ethical principles in design. Experiments that impact users’ mental health must be conducted with their informed consent and a clear explanation of potential risks. Ethical design involves respecting users’ autonomy and well-being.
Universal Design
Universal design benefits the widest range of people in the widest range of situations. Examples include sidewalks with curb cuts, which help not only people in wheelchairs but also those with walkers, strollers, or shopping carts.
Universal design principles can be applied to digital products as well. Features like adjustable text sizes, voice control, and intuitive navigation benefit all users, not just those with disabilities. By considering the diverse needs of users from the outset, designers can create more inclusive and effective products.
Accessibility
Approximately one billion people worldwide live with disabilities, making them the world’s largest minority. Designing from an accessibility-first standpoint can benefit a larger group of people and typically delivers a better user experience. Many everyday products, like SMS texting and audiobooks, were originally designed for people with disabilities.
Accessibility should be a fundamental consideration in all design processes. This includes ensuring compatibility with assistive technologies, providing alternative text for images, and designing interfaces that are navigable by keyboard alone. Prioritizing accessibility not only complies with legal requirements but also expands the user base and improves overall user satisfaction.
Inclusive Design
Inclusive design has been around since 2005 and aims to create products that are usable by all people, regardless of their abilities. It’s not just about designing for people with disabilities but about creating better products for everyone.
Inclusive design involves actively seeking input from diverse user groups and considering various perspectives and needs throughout the design process. This approach leads to products that are more effective, enjoyable, and equitable. It’s about recognizing and valuing diversity as a strength and designing products that can be easily used by as many people as possible.
In recent years, designers and companies have made inclusive design a focal point, recognizing its importance in product development. An example that illustrates the significance of this approach is the case of a soap dispenser that failed to recognize darker-skinned users.
The Soap Dispenser Incident
A video demonstrated how a soap dispenser worked perfectly for individuals with light-colored skin but failed to dispense soap for those with darker skin. To get the soap dispenser to work, individuals with darker skin had to place a paper towel under their hand, highlighting a significant design flaw.
This incident underscores a crucial point: ignorance or negligence is no longer acceptable. In 2021 and beyond, failing to understand the diverse needs of potential users and not testing products accordingly means a designer does not deserve to create products for anyone. As designers, we have a responsibility to respect everyone who interacts with our products, considering their time, intentions, privacy, and intelligence.
Victor Papanek famously said that designers are responsible for what they put into the world and the effects those creations have. The story of James Liang, an engineer at Volkswagen who was imprisoned for designing software that cheated emissions tests, serves as a stark reminder. Designers and product professionals must uphold ethical standards and be held accountable for their creations.
In a typical design process, we must ask ourselves key questions:
Understanding the context and actual usage of a product is crucial. We must consider whether our designs work for everyone, and if not, why not? It’s important to think about who can access the design and, more importantly, who cannot.
Evaluating Potential Issues
Ensuring Usability and Safety
Prioritizing usability means understanding how people intend to use products and ensuring those needs are met. Designers have an obligation to create products that are intuitive, safe, and as free from harm as possible. While harm cannot be entirely eliminated, we must strive to minimize it.
Accommodating Diverse Abilities
Designers must accommodate users with a wide range of abilities. Privacy, security, and safety concerns vary for different people. For example, while some users are comfortable using smart home devices, others, like older adults, may find them invasive and prefer not to use them.
Transparency and Intention
Being transparent and well-intentioned means putting the well-being of others before anything else. Helping people through thoughtful design is a rewarding experience. Throughout the design process, we make assumptions, but we must remember these are just that—assumptions with limitations. Identifying and testing these assumptions to uncover potential risks is essential.
Data-Informed Decision Making
Data alone is meaningless without context. We should be data-informed, not data-driven, using both quantitative and qualitative data to make better decisions and improve the human experience. Minimizing accidental actions and errors, and helping users learn from their mistakes, fosters a supportive environment.
Empathy and Collaboration
Bringing users to the center of the design process helps us understand their needs—both articulated and unarticulated. Developing empathy and building relationships with users allows us to create better, more effective products.
Embracing Diversity
Diversity in design teams leads to better outcomes, solutions, and products. Welcoming and encouraging people from diverse backgrounds and cultures ensures that marginalized voices are heard and included. Diversity enriches the design process, leading to more inclusive and successful products.
Designers hold a significant responsibility in shaping the world through their work. By prioritizing safety, ethical considerations, and inclusive design, we can create products that positively impact people’s lives. It’s about doing right by the people who use our products and ensuring that we leave the world a better place through thoughtful and responsible design.
Effective design goes beyond aesthetics and functionality; it encompasses ethical responsibility, inclusivity, and a commitment to making the world a better place. As designers, we must continuously reflect on the impact of our work and strive to create products that enhance the well-being of all users. By doing so, we can truly harness the power of design to make a positive and lasting difference.
About the Author:
Andy Vitale – Vice President, Product Design & Content at QuickenLoans
Ethical product design prioritizes the well-being, privacy, and safety of all users, ensuring that products are accessible and usable by diverse populations. It involves transparency, accountability, and a commitment to minimizing harm while maximizing usability. Ethical designers anticipate potential misuse and unintended consequences, striving to create solutions that benefit society as a whole. By embracing empathy and inclusivity, ethical product design fosters a positive impact on the world.
An ethical product is one that is designed, developed, and marketed with a commitment to social responsibility, sustainability, and inclusivity. It prioritizes the well-being, privacy, and safety of all users, ensuring accessibility and usability for diverse populations. Ethical products are created with transparency and accountability, minimizing environmental impact and avoiding exploitation in their production. By considering the broader implications of their use, ethical products contribute positively to society and the planet.
Ethical products are important because they promote social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and inclusivity. They ensure the well-being, privacy, and safety of users, reducing harm and fostering trust. By considering diverse needs and minimizing negative impacts, ethical products contribute to a fairer, more equitable society. They also support sustainable practices, helping to preserve the environment for future generations and setting a standard for responsible business conduct.
The five ethical considerations in product design are inclusivity and accessibility, ensuring products are usable by all; user privacy and data security, protecting user information; environmental impact, minimizing negative effects on the planet; safety and harm reduction, designing safe products; and transparency and accountability, being honest about product capabilities and responsible for their societal impact.
