Ethical design

Ethical design is an approach that builds the social, ecological and psychological impacts of a product into design decisions. It raises the question of the designer's responsibility for the effects of what they create on users and on society. It is the systemic response to manipulative practices (dark patterns, addictive design) and the consideration of the negative externalities that design can produce at scale.

Inclusive design aims to design products usable by as many people as possible, including populations that are often excluded (older people, people with disabilities, people with a limited connection). Ethical design has a broader scope: it questions the product's impact on all its users and on society in general, including unintended effects (dependence, disinformation, algorithmic discrimination). The two are complementary.

By asking questions that do not spontaneously come up in product meetings: does this feature really serve the user or does it only serve retention metrics? Does this design exploit a cognitive bias to push an action that the user would not have chosen freely? Tools such as the Mozilla Foundation's Tarot of Consequences or the Ethics for Designers checklists structure these questions within the workflow.

The tension exists, but it is often overstated. A product that manipulates its users in the short term generates distrust in the long term. Trust is an asset: users who trust a product use it for longer, recommend it and tolerate imperfections better. Companies such as Apple, Basecamp or Notion have built their positioning on a promise of transparency and respect for users that also translates into a competitive advantage.

Dark patterns are the symptom; ethical design is the response. Where dark patterns maximise a metric to the detriment of the user (subscription rate, data sharing), ethical design aligns the product's aims with the users' real interests. Identifying dark patterns in your own interface is often the first concrete exercise of an ethical design approach.