Ethics in design: The role of a designer
Yet another day like any other day chilling outside with friends and having fun. As a UI/UX student in Design Shift, I got to hear know about the documentary cum drama “The social dilemma” through one of my mentors. firstly I wondered what is this? Is it something like any other movie just for fun? But after watching the complete movie, I realised that is a true story. the people who are giving the interview were true employees of the recent tech and social media giants companies. They were sharing their own experience being in a company and designing the product for people. The one dialogue that hooked me the most was “If you are not buying a product — you are the product”. This is the true dark story behind every social media platform.
If You are not buying a product — you are the product
The dialogue that hooked me the most in the movie. This describes how you act as a product for the market. Today almost a maximum chunk of people in our daily wake up with their phone, before having their brush they pic their phone and check the social media status, they go once through the notification. Not only this, most of the time is being spent by them on any of the social media platforms we see today. Somehow we are not aware but they know what we are doing all day. Tracking so much of our data they are aware of our needs and likes. This is done by basically every social media platform cause we spent a lot of time out there also they want us to be there as much time as we can.
in that sense, most of the social media platforms and apps are made in such a way that people spend a lot of time out there. Sometimes they make them addictive intentionally. They invest a lot in the UX of their app to make it more user friendly so that people become addicted to them. Well! this seems dark for us but yeah this is reality sometimes. Sometimes all that companies want is profit and revenue, so ethically they don’t think about their use other than revenue.
So the role of a UX designer becomes crucial in such cases how they can come up with a design that is more towards the goal of the app or product not towards brainwashing people minds and make them addictive.
The Role of a UX Designer Designing an Ethical Product
As a designer, I always wonder if my designed product will be accepted by mass or not? Will it be a good design for everyone or not? This is always a concern for us. But this is one thing another is the companies profitability through your design. As a designer, we always have to keep a balance between these two. But it this possible that sometimes companies are more profit-oriented and we cant do want we want with our design but to accept the companies policies and design what they want.
But in my way keeping a balance between these two is a middle path for both the consumer of the product and the one who built it. This will be more ethical. Though we know that companies keep a lot of data of their user but ethically this is not supposed to be used in a bad manner and also against the user to bring revenue.
A design should be good, it should be ready to solve the purpose for which it is made. It should be aesthetic so that people like it and use it very handy. Yes, some of the data being collected using these apps or websites but using that against the user to bring more revenue is not ethical. Privacy is also an important thing that should be marked. Things should be presented in the app such that the user remains aware of the things happening behind the scene and we should also keep them aware occasionally. Having a balance between companies profit and how the data of the user being used should be the new normal. The role of the Goverment is also important here. They can impose such rules as a norm for the companies and can take strict action against them if violated. And as a designer, we can keep things minimal, sorted and transparent through our designs for our users and presenting the product more ethically to the users which will also help to build brand value.
