The Designers Hippocratic Oath
Design has never been more important. The impact of a designer’s choice is wide and all encompassing considering the experiences we create. Almost everyone’s life is affected in some way by something that we have designed: we use Wise to manage finances, we order dinner from DoorDash, use Notion to manage our daily to-dos, we do a nightly guided meditation with Headspace — the list goes on…
Our potential to improve quality of life is huge, but our potential to harm is just as big.
There are several professions that require some level of certification and are subject to a set of standards that ensure they are creating appropriate, safe experiences and products that serve humanity in a functional or artistic way.
Architectural firms are accountable for safe buildings and urban planning. Engineers are accountable for safe, functional machines and structures. Should companies be legally obligated to hire designers who are certified in making the right decisions for humanity considering our impact on a person’s day-to-day quality of life?
Imagine this — a healthcare company is developing a new pump device responsible for automatically dispensing the precise doses of medication to patients. The company, facing tight deadlines and budgets, decides to cut corners in the design process; they hire someone that is not qualified to design a product of this level of importance, who skips several rounds of testing with healthcare professionals and the project is rushed in general.
The outcome is a product with several usability issues. The UI for administering medication is confusing and unintuitive, and the units for measuring medication are not clearly differentiated and easily mixed up. The product goes live and an overworked nurse mistakenly inputs the wrong unit of medication causing the patient to receive a massive overdose. Investigations by a medical board initially blame the nurse, but not long after they find that the device has had many other near-misses due to the products poor usability. Where does the blame lie? It would be easy to make an argument that the design process for the device was not rigorous enough or was not followed.
This example is relatively unlikely — the medical industry has a huge amount of regulation and processes in place to prevent scenarios like this, but what about a more realistic example?
A video game company hires designers to work on an in-game micro-transaction store. Leadership is putting pressure on the team to maximise profits so designers are forced into creating an experience that uses dark patterns to entice players to purchase from the store to get ahead in the game. One of the tactics they use is Odd-Pricing where virtual currency is sold in predetermined bundles and used to buy in-game virtual items. But the price of the items don’t match the increment of currency bundles on offer, meaning the players are forced into spending more than they had initially intended. The leftover currency create a sunk cost, which in turn lures players into buying more currency to ‘round out’ the initial purchase and the chain continues.
The micro-transaction store is highly enticing to younger players who don’t understand the tactic and also don’t readily have access to disposable income, commonly asking parents to make the purchases for them — parents who might not be clued into the tactic either. These micro-transactions practices are widely documented in popular video games (see Fortnite, Roblox, Call of Duty etc etc).
In this scenario the pressure is coming from high up, making it difficult for a designer or even a team of designers to push back on implementing dark patterns, but is it because we’re not empowered to say “No” to what is clearly a exploitative business practice turned dark UX pattern, or at the very least come to a compromise where the business requirements are met without exploiting the user?
How might we empower designers to not only make the right choices for users, but also to stand behind those choices and stop our expertise from being used for wrong-doing? Doctors are guided by the Hippocratic Oath, preventing them from misusing their expertise — so what if we were bound by something similar, a Designer’s Hippocratic Oath?
An oath might be too serious of a concept, but take ‘oath’ as something metaphorical. I’d imagine something more like a guiding framework that allows everyone to clearly understand our impact on users, something that acts as a paragon of ethics for us to follow, something that let’s everyone else know our expertise is for the betterment of humankind and not to be exploited.
It’s also something that designers who enter the industry need to be educated in. It’s important to build an early foundation for designers to understand the type and scale of impact we have on the end user, and hopefully create a passion for ethical design as well.
Tenets of the Designer’s Oath
What would this look like? I could never speak on behalf of all designers, but let’s brainstorm what might be in our Designer’s Hippocratic Oath:
Design to Do No Harm
While the phrase “First, Do No Harm” is not actually in the original Hippocratic Oath, the phrase is a popularised summation of one of its principles which would be easily transferable to design.
We are bound by ethics to never design something to intentionally harm our user, whether it be physically, psychologically or even financially.
Design for Confidentiality and Privacy
A concept that has become much more important in the last 10 years and already being taken very seriously by the industry.
We are bound by ethics to always be responsible with user’s data and respect their privacy.
Design for Inclusivity and Accessibility
Another concept that has become more widespread recently.
We are bound by ethics to create experiences that are considerate of all users regardless of ability or background.
Design for Clarity and Transparency
Many dark UX patterns revolve around misdirection and obfuscation, so this tenet addresses this.
We are bound by ethics to design and communicate honestly to our users, so they are as informed as possible.
Design for Responsible AI Use
AI is becoming more prevalent in design and is also highly controversial. It’s use is easily misunderstood and exploited.
We are bound by ethics to ensure oversight, transparency, user agency and to mitigate bias when integrating artificial intelligence.
There are many more ways to expand on this, but this is just an example.
These tenets might also look really similar to what would be in any design team’s ‘Design Principles’, but the difference between a companies principles and something like a Hippocratic Oath is enforcement. What happens when stakeholders, or clients pressure designers into an intentionally bad design decision because of a business requirement? It’s easy to cite your design principles, but when outside pressures are bearing down on you and your team things might not be so simple.
Doctors have medical boards (not to mention the law) to keep them accountable for any malpractice. Should designers have entities that keep us, or the companies that use our skills, accountable for the type of impact we have on our users? While there are regulations for very specific industries, design as a whole is largely unregulated. There are plenty of design organisations worldwide that provide professional guidance or advocate for designers, so a potential solution could include taking example from industry specific regulations to create a generalised ethics framework, but even then none of these organisations have the authority to proactively govern what is created.
This brings up another issue with enforcement — the legal perspective. Making the oath legally binding may be highly unlikely, but a system that creates industry pressure and cultural expectation could influence behaviour. An analogy could be seen with B-Corp companies and other eco/sustainable certifications. Perhaps a system where studios and product companies are certified to signify that their designers are trained in, and abide by, ethical design standards.
Challenges and considerations
While the idea of a ‘Designers Hippocratic Oath’ addresses the ethical issues of design, it’s important to address some of the other points of concern.
One issue is whether an oath might stifle creativity and innovation. It’s important to note the oath being proposed could be seen more as a piece of guidance rather than a strict set of ‘laws’. That being said, creative professions that have strict codes, like for example architects, haven’t let those affect the creativity of their output. There are plenty of examples of innovative buildings and structures created within the boundaries of an ethical code. It should also be said that many designers have found that constraints can encourage creative problem solving (Obviously within a reasonable degree).
Another potential issue is that the an oath cannot be a One-Size-Fits-All solution — the tenets above may work well for us brought up with western ideologies, but those with eastern ideologies may not find some tenets as relevant. For example, western society is driven by individualism while those in the east by collectivism, making aspects like individual data privacy less important than say data sharing for a collective benefit. The physicians oath is and has always been flexible, it is different between cultures and has also changed over time as we’ve made advancements in the medical field and like theirs ours should be flexible too.
Of course, one of the bigger issues is how the oath conflicts with business interests. The oath would do a lot to hamper efforts to maximise things like revenue, user engagement and competitive edge, but it doesn’t have to be viewed in that way. There are huge long term benefits to ethical design: things like data privacy can become a selling point and strong ethics can create a fiercely loyal user-base. Patagonia’s transference of ownership to its Patagonia Purpose Trust in 2022 showed it was completely dedicated to their environmental and sustainability values, which not only helped set a precedent to other businesses, but also hugely bolstered their reputation and image amongst their competitors.
Reflections and designing for a better world
Ethics in design is a massive topic and I’m not smart enough to solve it, but it’s something that everyone should think about, not just designers. Imagine that we had an oath in the same way physicians have theirs — could we have prevented the effect of social media on humanity? Could we have reduced the impact of exploitative patterns in e-commerce? Could we have stopped addictive gaming mechanics in video games and gambling? Could we potentially saved lives?
I work for a design-tech studio in Aotearoa New Zealand and on our wall we have a purpose statement: “We design technology to better serve humankind”. I walk past this wall every day and hear the statement a lot as we engage with our clients, it’s a big part of the culture we have here. As I get older and more experienced the statement makes me realise I’m not as eager to just work on any project anymore, not for the sake of growth or to have it on my portfolio — I want to be more intentional with my skills. I want to do good, too.
