The Great Design Debate 2016

Ethics has no place in professional design practice

Rebecca Mangan and myself debated against this motion. The following is the debate we used to show our views on the motion. After everyone debated a vote was taken and we won our debate.

“Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right.” We thought that this quote was a good example of ethical conduct. Basically what ethics means is to have a code of conduct, morality and a way for designing that doesn’t negatively impact other people.

1. How ethics comes into responsible, safe and sustainable design.

A. Child Labour

This can be clearly seen through companies who are associated with child labour. This is common practice in developing countries where pay is next to nothing and there is little to no laws or rights in place for employees. These unsafe conditions often result in serious injury or fatality. Continued incidents such as this give the company a terrible reputation and eventually a loss of profit

B. Environmental Awareness

A designer’s material selection based on cost can be unethical and cause damage to the environment, e.g. the use of materials containing excess fossil fuels, radioactive material. Designers tend to use cheaper manufacturing processes which causes more pollution than more expensive manufacturing processes. Products that designed with shorter lifespans create excess landfill once they go into disrepair which is very unethical. All of the above would lead to bad reputation for company and loss of profit and potential legal battles

C. Unsafe design

Fulfilling brief requirements by sacrificing safety assurance. Again, the choice of materials i.e. carcinogenic material which may cause delayed reaction years later and lead to cancer or fatality for example poorly wired electronics could cause electrocution. Unstable or badly structured work tools which cause injury. All of the above would lead to bad reputation for company and loss of profit and potential legal battles

D. Responsible Design – Being aware of who your design impacts

Unethical Design that may offend cultural groups or minorities. An example of where this is continually unethically dealt with is Urban Outfitters Clothing Chain. The company continue to create offensive designs and slogans for their clothing and accessories. Some of their most offensive controversies include their ‘Eat Less’ slogan on a women’s t-shirt, aimed at young girls. Additionally, they had a racially offensive t-shirt branded ‘New Mexico: Cleaner than regular Mexico’. They refused to pull these products and continued to sell them online and in stores. Apology issued for the eating disorder promotion t-shirt but not the Mexico issue.

2.Work Practice Ethics

A.Work Place Bullying and Harassment

Bullying and harassment in the work place is unethical and can be subjected by both co-workers and superiors, within an organisation. Results in the employee feeling belittled and uncomfortable at work, which may lead to an expensive legal battle from the company – aside from the moral responsibility for employers to ensure a stable, and comfortable work environment for their employees. Legal battles lead to bad reputation and loss of profit for company

B. Plagiarism

Using other’s work and claiming it as your own while being very unethical which can lead to a copyright lawsuit which reflects negatively on the company and can lead to a loss of profit

C.Overcharging

This means being dishonest about aspects of the design process. An example would be where a designer has sourced cheap labour in a developing country but bills the client for a much more expensive labour cost by claiming the labour is being carried out in a first world country which costs more as a result of highly educated workers. Designer would be illegally profiting from this dishonesty which is in fact embezzling money from the client and/or company.

In conclusion, bad practice of ethical behaviour in the professional workplace can lead to bad reputation for the company which can lead to legal battles, loss of profit and depending on the severity can lead to possible bankruptcy.