Ethics work

FuturePresent’s Safety + Ethics

What is Ethics?

Being human involves making choices. And whenever we make a choice, it means that we could have made a different one. Out of all the choices we can make at any given time, which choice should we make? This is what ethics are. Ethics help us work out how to act.

What is Design Ethics?

Like ethics, design ethics are the choices we make daily, just at work. But unlike our personal ethics, design ethics impact our teams, clients, customers and society. But the way to design ethically doesn’t start with them or what they believe is ethical rather it starts with us as designers. Before designers can identify, share and scale ethics at work, they need to firstly seek out where they stand ethically.

What is Speculative Design?

Speculative design is a theory which uses scenarios to travel ahead in time and paint a picture of what could happen if we don’t take new directions in the present. Speculative design began its life in the art world about a decade ago, created to theorise the practices artists were exploring to tell their story of alternate realities. Pivoting this into design practice, Speculative design uses scenarios to project into the future in order to rethink the present.

In early 2018, I researched how designers can find their ethics.

I began to notice questionable practices happening at work. I wondered if there was a framework (or process) for ethics that would help me (and others). It became clear there wasn’t a simple framework to solve for design ethics. It is only by reflecting on our practice that designers can make more ethical decisions.

Read:

Design ethics for designers who give a toss

Read:

Ethical tensions in design practice