What “Ethical Design” Actually Means
Ethical design is a term we hear increasingly often, but it can feel vague until you pin it down. In this episode of the Smashing Podcast, Trine Falbe and Martin Michael Frederiksen talk through what it really involves — and why it’s not just a moral position but a practical discipline with real tradeoffs.
Falbe and Frederiksen argue that ethical design is about recognizing the power that designers hold over users and taking responsibility for it. That means moving beyond surface-level choices like color or typography and looking at the entire product lifecycle: what you collect, how you store it, who you share it with, and what happens when a user wants out.
The Power Imbalance at the Heart of Design
A core theme in the conversation is the idea that design decisions are rarely neutral. Every pattern we build encourages certain behaviors, and in the commercial web, many of those patterns nudge users toward actions that benefit the company, not the user. Dark patterns are an obvious example, but the problem extends further into everyday design decisions, from autoplay to endless scrolling to data-hungry signup flows.
Frederiksen points out that the discomfort users feel isn’t always conscious. They may not be able to articulate why a product feels manipulative, but they experience it as friction, distrust, or fatigue. Ethical design, in this view, is about taking that user experience seriously — not just asking “is this legal?” but “is this fair?”
From Principles to Practical Steps
One of the more useful parts of the discussion is how to get from high-level principles to concrete action. Falbe and Frederiksen suggest that designers don’t need to wait for a perfect framework. Instead, they can start by reviewing existing products with ethical questions in mind, such as:
- What data does this product actually need — and why?
- Is there a clear way for users to delete their account or export their data?
- What happens to users who are tired, distracted, or in a hurry?
- Is the design optimising for the user’s goals or the company’s bottom line?
They also talk about how business constraints shouldn’t be treated as an excuse, but as a part of the design constraint space. If an ethical design decision costs revenue, the first move is not to discard it but to see if the business model itself needs revisiting. Sustainable products have to be both honest and commercially viable, which can make this a difficult but necessary conversation to have with stakeholders.
Moving from Individual Action to Team Culture
The episode also highlights a key tension: a single designer in a large organisation can feel powerless to make meaningful change. Both guests acknowledge this and stress the importance of creating ethical awareness within teams. This includes written guidelines, regular design reviews, and a willingness to push back as a team rather than as an isolated individual.
Design is not just a job — it’s how systems take shape. If you want to train for these decisions, looking at strong resources and designers who are already leading this discussion can deepen your thinking.
Practical resources on this topic include the Ethical Design Handbook from Smashing Magazine, which distills much of what Falbe and Frederiksen cover into case-based guidance. You can also follow their work directly: Falbe writes at her website and shares updates on Twitter, while Frederiksen writes at martinmichael.io.
Why Ethical Design Is Gaining Traction
Ethical design has moved from a niche concern to a mainstream topic in the design community, and Trine Falbe and Martin Michael Frederiksen argue the shift is driven by real-world pressure. Falbe points to a wave of lawsuits, privacy violations, and growing consumer pushback as evidence that the demand for ethical practices is coming from the user side. Frederiksen adds that the digital environment itself has changed the scale of the problem — marketing professionals today aren't inherently more malicious than their predecessors, but the tools at their disposal allow for data aggregation and influence at a magnitude that creates entirely new issues.
That awareness has been amplified by high-profile incidents, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to manipulative interface patterns on platforms like booking.com and Viagogo. While such dark patterns often come from deliberate business strategies, Frederiksen notes that many are simply the result of oversight — no one checked the full customer journey, or no single person owns the responsibility to fix it. The authors make a point of distinguishing between these cases. A broken unsubscribe flow in a hotel confirmation email, for instance, is more likely a product of negligence than malice, but it still damages trust.
The Difference Between Ethics and Ethical Design
In their new book, The Ethical Design Handbook, the authors draw a useful line between two related but distinct concepts. Ethics, they write, boils down to a duty to treat others with fairness and respect. Ethical design applies that principle to the entire creation and operation of a product — not just the interface, but also the business model behind it and the treatment of every person involved in making and running the service.
That means ethical design extends to how customer data is stored, how pricing is structured, how teams are treated, and how the product is tested after launch. Frederiksen points out that data deletion is a particularly complex challenge. If a user deletes their account, the product team must verify that the data is actually gone from all backups — a requirement that demands systematic thinking and dedicated testing, not good intentions alone.
It's Not About the Short-Term Sale
The obvious counterargument to ethical design is that manipulation works — countdown timers and social proof nudges do lift conversion rates within a quarter or two. But that logic misses the long view. Both authors emphasize that customers are only one click away from a competitor, whether they're shopping online or evaluating a business relationship. In B2B settings, overly complex pricing structures that survived from the pre-digital era discourage comparison and breed suspicion, while simple pricing and great service build lasting loyalty.
Decluttering an interface often improves conversion because it reduces cognitive load. A more ethical approach can also lower the costs associated with brand damage and the expensive, reactive task of managing social media backlash. Falbe also points out that treating customers well and respecting their attention leads to brand loyalty precisely because users remember which companies respect them. ## Changing Course From Within For a designer or developer who wants more ethical practices in an organization where leadership is not convinced, Frederiksen suggests an incremental approach. Writing a short IT governance model that articulates agreed principles — like privacy by default — gives teams a baseline to check every decision against. Small, weekly changes can accumulate into significant improvements within a year or two.
Falbe recommends another approach: select an isolated project under your control, implement the ethical changes there, and treat it as a test case. A project where you can measure outcomes becomes the foundation for proving the business case to leadership. Once you can show that a more ethical product didn't cost more and performed better, you have a much stronger argument than telling your CEO they'll sleep better at night.
At an even more basic level, the authors suggest a simple test for any decision: Would you want your mother, sister, or partner using this feature? If the answer is no, that's a sign the product needs revisiting — even if it makes the business money in the short term.
GDPR as a Catalyst
Privacy legislation like GDPR (and the recent California law) has added more than a compliance layer to the conversation. Falbe says proper data structure and hygiene — storing only what's necessary, deleting what you don't need — makes compliance and security manageable. Collecting everything just because you can creates vulnerability, cost, and risk for no business benefit.
Frederiksen is skeptical about widespread GDPR enforcement resulting in massive fines outside of a few high-profile examples. In his view, consumers are a much more effective enforcement mechanism.
I think GDPR is wonderful because as a consumer, I now have a weapon against the business.
He describes using unique email addresses for each service he signs up to. When spam arrives, he knows instantly who sold his address. That kind of grassroots vigilance makes significant brand damage from unethical practices much more likely than regulatory payback.
Beyond enforcement, both authors note that GDPR has had a powerful educational effect simply by being widely discussed. It has shifted mainstream consumer perception from "I have nothing to hide" to a much sharper understanding of data privacy as a pressing concern. One significant side effect: international companies tend to roll out the same software platforms globally, since running separate compliance systems is too expensive. So GDPR's privacy protections are, to a degree, adopted by customers well outside the EU's borders.
Trine: "It's about showing fairness and respect towards everyone involved in a project, because consequences don't just have to do with end users."
Individuals can make real changes even in large organizations by focusing on what they can influence. But it's worth remembering that transformation doesn't happen alone. Trine cites estimates that a substantial majority — on the order of 66% — of millennials would prefer to start their own business rather than work in a corporation where they feel they have no impact. Opening up processes to give team members a genuine say is increasingly necessary for retaining talented, value-driven employees.
From Principles to Practical Methods
The handbook stresses that its purpose is not to preach.
"We decided very early on that we will leave it to others to be angry," says Trine. Instead, the authors aim for an optimistic tone built on achievable methods: the ethical scorecard for establishing a baseline and tracking progress, plus four implementation blueprints for typical projects — eCommerce sites, apps, content sites, and connected (IoT) products. The scorecard takes about half an hour to complete and yields a concrete backlog for improvement.
The core message: ethical design isn't a topping to be spread over the finished product; it belongs at the heart of the entire design process. Making it work is the task of the whole team — and it means accepting something the field is only beginning to adopt: measuring these improvements as you would any other key performance indicator. Proof over opinion is the surest path to lasting, ethical transformation.
