Ethical Design At Work: 3 Key Takeaways From World Usability Day With UXPA-MN

In the shockwaves of a global pandemic, technology has rapidly turned from a business tool to the very medium of business itself. But who do digital spaces exclude? What opportunities are leaders, teams and customers missing from their technology?

In November, I attended a full-day online event hosted by UXPA-MN to celebrate World Usability Day. This year’s theme focused on designing for trust and ethics in our flourishing online world. My goal was to find the major threads that tie the six sessions of the event together. These threads span from emerging technology to the virtual workplace. However, you can apply these key takeaways at any level of hierarchy and in any industry.

The presenters included UX designers, researchers and consultants who share a profound enthusiasm for ethical design. You can find their names and credentials listed at the bottom of this article. At this intersection of user experience and human-computer interaction, discover the direction in which the brightest innovation is heading.

Ethical design is a big topic. Let’s zoom in.

According to the presenters, ethical design for digital spaces and systems might involve a variety of strategies, such as:

· Using plain language in user interfaces and documentation

· Developing a localization strategy that respects linguistic and cultural contexts

· Fostering diversity with data-driven hiring and employee retention practices

· Providing all users with an equivalent experience through accessible product design

· Including clear warnings and safeguards for the outcomes of a user’s actions

Businesses have endless opportunities to incorporate ethics, and each of them matter for end users. Even if you lack the power to shift your entire business, you may find a way to either adopt ethical design into your personal workflow or advocate for change within your team.

1: Ethical design can be strategically rewarding.

While ethical design should not be contingent upon profitability, it often is. Committing to ethics may not always show a clear ROI — particularly because ethical design can sometimes be hard to define and track through objective metrics. That is why it is easy to write off ethical design as a nice “extra” after prioritizing all other goals.

Several presenters refuted the assumption that ethics detract from the bottom line. When businesses value ethical decisions, data shows that they will likely boost traditional markers of success, too.

The benefits of investing in ethical design throughout your business ecosystem could include:

· Productivity: Diversity and inclusivity in the workplace can boost productivity by up to 30 percent, as cited by UX consultant Carissa Merrill. Building an environment that encourages a variety of perspectives on your team can enhance your collaboration, especially for remote teams.

· Market appeal: Consumers of both majority and underrepresented groups prefer digital products and systems with accessible design, as cited by Merrill. Therefore, accessible design can give you a competitive advantage in the market.

· Trustworthiness: Ethical design promotes a healthy relationship between your business and its customers. Consumers who distrust a product might stop using it. On the flip side, consumers who trust a product too much may misuse or misunderstand it. This can cause negative outcomes, which could be serious enough to risk legal liability as well as loss of credibility. Ethical design helps businesses reach what research scientist Carol J. Smith called “calibrated trust” to protect themselves and their consumers.

While businesses should care about ethical design for the human-centric benefits, they may resist change until tangible benefits are clear. The research cited in the webinar offers a strong rationale for investing in ethics — even for hesitant businesses.

You can’t afford to enter 2022 without comprehensive ethical design.

2: External output reflects internal culture.

This takeaway starts with a question: If your organization is not inclusive, how can you expect to produce inclusive products and systems?

Echo chambers can do as much damage in your business as they can on social media platforms. Workplace culture is vulnerable to becoming homogenous without a concerted effort. Employees who share similar life experiences or ways of thinking are likely to approach challenges in the same way. Homogeneity risks excluding people who are different from your team.

Fortunately, ethical business design helps combat the pressure to fall into groupthink. A diverse team contributes unique perspectives. Through collaboration, employees can develop a habit of looking beyond their familiar problem-solving patterns. This habit is valuable for accessibility, localization and other vital facets of product design.

A welcoming culture is as equally important as diversity when you want to harness the full power of your team. Holly Habstritt Gaal, a director of design, encourages a culture of open cross-functional collaboration. When employees across disciplines form supportive partnerships, they can more easily identify potential problems and opportunities, such as accessibility features, earlier in the design process.

Employees who are empowered by an inclusive workplace can safely question the status quo and challenge ideas. This empowerment enables them to fully refine products. Ethical design relies on healthy skepticism, worst-case scenario planning and evaluation of alternative solutions, which require a workplace culture that fosters safe and open communication.

What happens behind the scenes in your workplace strongly translates to the products and services your business sends into the world. This connection gives every business a strong incentive to develop diversity and inclusion throughout its organization.

3: Ethical design cannot be an afterthought.

Ethical design taps into your organization’s core values and connects your work to a greater purpose. It should remain the guiding light for your decisions — both on a grand scale and in day-to-day challenges. You must passionately follow through on your values when making decisions to avoid losing sight of your values.

René Otto, a uniquely self-proclaimed ethical tech vigilante, emphasized that business leaders and employees must be “clear, intentional and intense” about ethics. Ignoring difficult issues in favor of quick, easy wins could result in creation of harmful systems and technology.

For example, product content strategist Abby Bajuniemi explained that diversity-oriented hiring practices fail when companies do not follow them with robust employee retention practices. Sure, you can hire a highly qualified neurodivergent candidate, but how do you respond when that employee asks for a way to balance noise sensitivities or communicate in a way you did not expect? Do the diversity hiring statistics truly matter when employees leave six months later? A business can only be as ethically strong as the problems it overlooks.

Whether you are designing for an employee journey or a customer journey, consider your business as an ecosystem. Both of those journeys are connected. Ongoing assessments of your workplace culture, design process and products can highlight shortcomings — and give you opportunities to strengthen your business.

Be a champion of ethical design — even if you start small.

Ethical design is worthwhile throughout the business ecosystem. However, a business must proactively consider ethics within every layer of its organization for efficacy.

While this work may seem daunting, all workers and leaders in a business carry this responsibility together. The next step is to find direct methods to incorporate ethical design in your own role. Even starting with small ethics-driven acts in your organization can start a cascading effect, transforming your culture and products along the way.

Thank you to the presenters who shared these meaningful messages on World Usability Day:

· Holly Habstritt Gaal — Director, Design at DuckDuckGo

· Jonathan Mann — Vice President, User Experience at Renaissance Learning

· Lisa Maynard — Lead User Experience Researcher at Renaissance Learning

· Carol J. Smith — Sr. Research Scientist, Human-Machine Interaction at Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

· Mathias Rechtzigel — User Experience Lead at Medtronic

· Abby Bajuniemi, PhD — Sr. Product Content Strategist at Calendly

· Nii Ato Bentsi-Enchill, MA, Ed.M — Founder & Head Coach at AvenirCareers.com

· Kat Jayne — Lead Consultant, Experience Research & Design at Fathom Consulting

· Carissa Merrill — Conversational User Experience Consultant (Independent)

· René Otto — Ethical Tech Vigilante at Rene Otto Design

Thank you to UXPA-MN and their sponsor, Optum, for hosting the event.