Golden Rule in Design Ethics?

If you're alive on twitter, probably you noticed a flood of #Dup19 — we did have a lot of fun. I've never seen so many designers in one place.

The most significant idea, that stood-out for me, was "consequences" in design. An alternate way to look at it — the golden rule for design:

Treat others like you'd like to be treated.

turn it to the Golden Rule in Design:

Consider consequences for others like you'd have them considered for yourself.

The economic advantage of a diverse team becomes evident here, speaking of which — at Headout, we've always wondered why we have more men applying for the design team than women.

But looking at the gender diversity at DesignUp was sad, and should be a wake-up call for us as a community. Where are we going wrong as a community & society?

The second theme was — from design, building products to management, and AI — everything is a messy process. Most of my favourite talks and panellist highlighted their struggles, failures, and were able to look at the real big picture and impact of their work.

In my first newsletter, we spoke about the stagnant Graphic Design pay in the industry — a discussion that came up when Pablo Stanely released free to use illustrations.

The 2019 Dribbble report doesn't look too bright; Graphic Designers are among the least paid profession in design by a lot.

In a recent discussion with designer friends, a theme emerged — "web designers" broke away from that label and specialised in various fields. That hasn't happened for graphic designers for decades; in fact, the opposite may have occurred with the market expecting more multi-talented graphic designers than a specialist.

However, this alone will not solve the entire problem. Animation & Gaming industry as many specialised designers, but in conversations with folks from that background — it has problems.

There's much to think about, discuss, and fix. If only we had a problem solving professional with tools that can change behaviours 🤔

Design purely for social good, and companies and designers aligning and making a mark in the world reminded me why I drifted towards design.

Let's not stop dreaming. But let's take time to inform our dreams with constraints and problems of our fellow human beings.

Charity begins at home. How can we more kind to ourselves?

You are reading a post that I wrote a long time back—at least 5 years ago. Take it with a bag of salt.