Digital Ethics

By age 2, 92% of American children have an online footprint. What does that do to their psyches?

In these politically uncertain times, developers can help to **defend their users’ personal privacy** by adopting the _Privacy by Design (PbD)_ framework. These common-sense steps will become a requirement under the EU's imminent data protection overhaul, but the benefits of the framework go far beyond legal compliance. Let’s give credit where credit is due. The global political upheaval of the past 12 months has done more to get developers thinking about privacy, surveillance and **defensive user protection** than ever before. The risks and threats to ourselves, and to our users, are no lo...

Want to make change within your organization? Use your design skills internally to create a better workplace.

UXers must be aware of their own cognitive biases in order to make reasonable, evidence based judgments.

Designers love to minimizing the steps it takes to complete a process. But Nextdoor didn't remove steps from its incident reporting process. It added them.

When a performed action happens faster than expected, users may not appreciate the effort put into it or believe that the action happened at all.

Some buttons, such as the door-close button on an elevator, are mere artifices — placebos that promote an illusion of control but in reality do not work.

Office culture is only part of the problem.

More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

It's an unexpected side effect of globalization: problems that once would have stayed local—say, a bank lending out too much money—now have consequences worldwide. But still, countries operate independently, as if alone on the planet. Policy advisor Simon Anholt has dreamed up an unusual scale to get governments thinking outwardly: The Good Country Index. In a riveting and funny talk, he answers the question, "Which country does the most good?" The answer may surprise you (especially if you live in the US or China).

Outputs are more easily measured, but less important.

Nonprofits have to prove that they make a difference with their programs. But what do all these terms mean? And how do we use them?

We derive ethical truth with the same method we use to derive truth about anything; we ask good questions. If we look at the scientific method, it requires a hypothesis, a question or statement th…

In this article we develop a taxonomy of behavioral policy measures proposed by Thaler and Sunstein (2008). Based on this taxonomy, we discuss the ethical legitimacy of these measures. First, we explain two common reservations against nudges (choice architecture) rooted in utilitarian and Kantian ethics. In addition to wellbeing, we identify freedom of action and freedom of will (autonomy) as relevant ethical criteria. Then, using practical examples, we develop a taxonomy that classifies nudges according to the psychological mechanisms they use and separately discuss the legitimacy of sever...

A city councilman is pushing to make public the code behind city decisions on everything from school assignments to trash collection.

Trump vann valet tack vare en effektiv digital kampanj, ”Project Alamo”. Med falska nyheter, massiv datainhämtning och medveten påverkan av motståndarna.

You owe it to your users to design responsibly.

We’d like to see technology become more responsible — in terms of how it’s developed, how it works for users, and how it affects society.

The thousands of Wells Fargo low-wage employees who defrauded customers likely knew how it felt to face unfair overdraft fees or a deteriorating credit rating. So why did they do it?

Too many designers, argues Thomas Wendt, believe that doing empathy = doing good design. But empathy isn't a substitute for ethics.

The area of ethics in user experience design ranges from providing complete freedom for the users, up to making all the choices for them.

Five questions for designers

As computer programmers write code that runs everything from airplanes to pharmacy orders, there's a serious need for ethical training and guidelines.

Would you take on a client who’s business was ethically appalling to you? How far will you stretch the truth to help a client sell their products or services? When taking inspiration from another site for one you’re designing how much of that other site gets incorporated into your design and how close does your […]