Ethical Design

This article won’t be about tech. But about how we use tech and design to create product. And how we use this great power of creation.

“Ep 84 Design: The need for ethical design” by Stephen Gates is a bit old(19 august 2019) but the subject is still up to date. Ethical design.

Stephen Gates define Ethical Design by this phrase:

Its about understanding and thinking about the big and small effects of our work (ethical design)

One of the most important takes is the following one:

Your product already has ethical issues

If you think you don’t need to worry about ethics in your creative process because your product doesn’t have any ethical issues, you’ve probably wrong. You can’t be sure until you’ve taken the time to look at your product through an ethical lens.

As easy one that comes to mind for me is accessibility – I can’t tell you how many teams I work with where making sure their work adheres to ADA standards is an after thought at best but usually not a part of the process at all. Those teams usually look at ADA work as a chore with no empathy or thought to the how it effects the people who really need it. This about developing the ability to look into the future to see how your work will positively or negatively affect people. We are in a time when ethics needs to become a step like any other in the creative process. You take the time to be sure there are no bugs or mistakes in your design to make sure it is the best it can be.

For me personally, ethics, in general, have always been a very important subject in my work. When creating Niseko, I wanted to create an ethical communication agency. But very quickly I realized it would be harder than expected. First, majority of the clients don’t care about it and won’t pay extra to create a product that could possibly make less money. And secondly, the concurrence is so harsh in this domain and the big agencies already in place don’t leave much choices. You take every client you can have, and you try your best to sneak some ethic in it. We were able to manage some nice projects still. “Le bottin du local” which we made in 2 weeks to try and help people during the pandemic."legarage.love" to help young artists from our region. We’ve helped “Bouteka” with their branding, and a new e-commerce website is on the way. And finally, “Nuage Noir”, a brand of clothes with which we are trying as much as possible to create eco-friendly clothes in the hars eco-system of fashion(Spoiler: it’s impossible.).

Well, to sum up, I’m still searching a way to ally ethic and work. It will probably be the fight of my life.