OUGD505: Ted Talks - Sebastian Deterding - Rethinking the Ethics of Design

To gain a better insight on ethics in design I listened to a Ted Talk.

Moral and immoral by changing peoples perspective by design. He's not able to give answers. "My values can be radically different from your values." So he says he can give the audience questions to ask themselves based around ethics.

He compares a health and shopping app and something makes him feel uneasy about it and explains "it's the intention behind it." What are your intentions when designing something? Intentions aren't the only thing. The next app he uses as an example is being fuel efficient but then that can advertise unsafe driving because they want to be fast.

They say they want people to be
"fitter, happier, more productive, convertible, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym..."

Aristotle - ethics wasn't about good or bad it was about how to live life well.

"Products are vivid arguments about how we should live our lives. Our designs are not ethical or unethical. They have a moral component just in the visual operation of the good life they present to use."

"What vision of the good life do your designs convey?"

"A single design chair is a persuasive technology. It communicates an idea of a good life a life you as a designer consent to by saying goods are produced as sustainably or unsustainably as this chair. Workers are treated as well or as badly as the workers who built this chair."

"What are the intentions you bring to bare when you design?
What are the effects intended or unintended?
What are the values you're using to judge this?
What are the virtues, the aspirations you're expressing?
How does this apply to everything you design?"

It's important to convey positivity within design. He stresses this idea of the "good life" frequently because it is what is shown to us through product advertisements. In things such as fitness apps, they're trying to improve and better your life. How can I push this concept further in my work? It's something I'm going to explore more and gain influence on positive and happy graphic design work.