Deliberate Choices


Interaction designers try to promote certain kinds of interactions between people. Thus, the fundamental ethical baseline for interaction designers should be the quality of those interactions on both sides of the equation: the person initiating the interaction (the e-mail sender) and the person receiving it (the e-mail receiver). The content of the communication aside (e-mail spam, say), the quality of those interactions is strongly determined by the decisions the designer makes while designing the product or service. In this context, even the placement of buttons on an interface is an ethical act: Does the designer have respect and compassion for the users? Does this product or service afford the users human dignity? In short, is the design goodgood for the users, good for those indirectly affected, good for the culture, good for the environment?

The choices interaction designers make need to be deliberate and forward thinking. Designers need to consider the consequences of their design decisions. Designers have a sacred duty to the users of their products and services. Every time users perform an action with a designed product or service, they are, indirectly, trusting the designer who created it to have done his or her job, and to have done it ethically. Users trust that not only will the task they want to do be accomplished (an e-mail will get sent and arrive at its destination), but that the product or service (and by extension the designer who designed it) will do no harm. Users entrust designers (through the products and services they design) with intensely personal informationpasswords, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so onand, in some cases, with their lives. Designers need to recognize and respect that trust.

It isn't enough, however, to do right by just the individual users. Individual users (and the organizations that may be behind them) may not have the best interests of others at heart. Although, as described in Chapter 7, users will always find ways to use products and services for purposes they weren't designed for, designers need to be cognizant of the potential negative consequences of their designs on those who aren't users or who are forced userslike the timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, Hollerith number 44673.

But just as there are forces for evil in this world, so there are forces for good. After the carnage and atrocities of World War II, representatives from 50 countries met in April 1945, only a few miles from where I'm writing this in San Francisco, to design a service to humanity, something that would help prevent anything like what happened twice in the 20th century from ever happening again, something that would facilitate and inspire dialogueinteractionsbetween countries. Their work, their design, became the United Nations. And while the United Nations, like all things made by humans, may be imperfect, its goals of international cooperation, peaceful conflict resolution, human rights, and humanitarian aid, and its actions that support them, are forces for good in the world. May the products and services that interaction designers create all be thus.




Designing for Interaction(c) Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
ISBN: 0321432061
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 110
Authors: Dan Saffer

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