My Ethical Code

Design

• As a designer, my role is to listen to, aggregate and extrapolate from, hypothesise of, iterate for AND continuously check back with the user who will be the final judge (through adoption and usage) of the products and services created.
• I will never be so pompous and arrogant as to start a sentence with ‘as a designer’.
• There are no ‘edge’ users, just people trying to get a job done with whom I must empathise totally and to a point where my pre-existing biases have no impact on the product discovery phase and beyond.
• My role is not to judge nor apply some form of moral superiority to either a potential or existing client, or the potential users for whom cultural and societal norms differ from my experience of the world. The world is a very complicated place and many, many people do things that do not make them proud or make things ‘better’ but have limited choices, or for reasons unknown or lost in time have become resigned to their reality.
• At any time during a project, should I suspect that there are negative influences, ones that deliberately profile and/or isolate groups of users and diminish their value, then I will always raise this to those in authority and reserve the right to withdraw from the project on my terms.
• There is no such thing as user-error, just poor design.
• Product Design/UX is a valuable profession, but the trust of those who do not understand it or treat it with suspicion must be earned and not anticipated. It should be well rewarded when delivered ‘as expected’.
• I will never denigrate another designer or product that’s made it into the world for my own gratification or promotional purposes. I will always start by recognising the constraints of other practitioners and applaud their ability to bring their work to market.
• I will represent my work to the best of my abilities, but never claim ownership of special skills nor a superior cache of creativity. Ideas are easy, it’s making them happen against a thousand potential setbacks and distractions that’s the challenge. I will be resilient.
• The sale and exploitation of personal data is a trillion dollar per annum industry. Most people have abdicated responsibility for their own data over time to companies that are largely supported by the advertising industry (of which I have been part of earlier in my career). Any request for the user to expose themselves even more by asking for them to supply their personal data must be met by;
  • Justification that is timely and easily understood
  • A value exchange that benefits the user in excess of the product owner
  • A trust that the user can adapt and/or reverse this decision at any point, and indeed would reasonably expect a prompt to do so
• Most people are just trying to make it through life without causing too much damage along the way. Good product design is there to help them achieve their goals.