White lies—unethical, or an act of kindness?

Visual persuasion is at the heart of a graphic designer’s job. Taking information and ideas and forming them into communication that engages and invokes is what we do. Regardless of whether our client is selling a product or ideology, our quest is to help them do it. Some would argue that we are like lawyers. It is our responsibility to use our skills to get the best possible outcome for them and not let our own personal views influence us.Yet, like lawyers, we also face certain ethical and moral challenges along the way.  The graphic designer’s moral dilemma becomes apparent pretty quickly—in our quest to do “good” design, how many “bad” things do we do? This debate comes up often. Milton Glaser’s essay, “Road to Hell”  is one of the most famous, but it was not the first and won’t be the last.In a recent article for A List Apart, “Design, White Lies & Ethics,” Dan Turner discusses some of the choices Interaction Designers face. He also raises the question of whether or not deliberate miscommunication is sometimes actually an act of “good,” reassuring and helping users along their way.The case study that Turner uses involves a mobile timebanking app. Its goal is to help neighbors share services and build supportive relationships. During the design process the team found that transportation was high on the list of services requested. With that in mind they focused on designing a new feature, TransportShare, which would help connect users and drivers. Early prototypes focused on honesty and the team decided that showing one specific route would not be honest as drivers would likely be running other errands along the way and the route would not be direct. As a result no connecting Start and End points were shown, but initial testing did not show high marks for usability. Once a line that showed Start and End points was included, regardless of whether or not it was accurate, testing showed that users were comforted and usability marks increased. It appeared that in this case the white lie helped the user and increased adoption and satisfaction with the app, “good” design.Turner is asking for feedback and wants to open the conversation. He is asking for a framework that we can use to judge when design decisions are ethical. It’s an excellent question, and one that is at the core of our professional practice.Join the conversation and read the full article here:http://alistapart.com/article/design-white-lies-ethics