Ethical Design

When I talk about ethical design I'm not just referring to the accessibility of a site or making sure that it is right for as many people as possible. Not that accessibility isn't part of ethical design (It really is, but it doesn't stop there), what I'm referring to is defining your own ethics, your morals and being able to stick to them.

This means that you don't have a portfolio full of work from fossil fuel companies, that you don't design guns, that you don't build systems and products that would see harm on the disenfranchised. .

It doesn't just that but when you're in a company that when they asked you to do something that is misaligned with your own set of morals and ethics that you have the strength and the fortitude to rebuke it.

This is a hard and I privileged thing to do the ability to say no is very privileged but we need to. We need to use our power and our privilege correctly, we can continue to put poorly thought out products into the world or we can make see better things brought into the world.

We can't only have a goal of making money, that's not how we make the world better. That's not how we assist others, ethical design is then making sure that in 20-30 years from now, you can live with your own decisions, that you don't have a regret in what you could have should have would have done.

It's hard to have the strength to say no to a superior, "No, I cannot and I will not do this."

It's hard cause you are paying you for it and saying no to a certain thing as it could lead to termination of your role which is why if you do want to practice ethical design, you have to be prepared to walk away.

You have to be prepared to put it all out in the line for others because

where this all comes from is is wanting to do right by others to that you've you've put in the time to do the research and you've you've found that there are glaring holes in something, and that you cannot in all honesty, move forward with it.

We aren't the saviors of this world.

We are a brother, a sister, a sibling walking hand in hand with each other just trying to get through a world that at times seems darker and darker each day we go. We could do the work to allow ourselves and ourselves alone to be better or we could take the hard steps in order to be better as human beings and to help better others.

That's what I am referring to; the ability to fight back against injustice to shepherd those who need shepherding, to heighten voices that would be unheard otherwise.

We need to leave this world better than we found it.