English: The Centre for Pharmacy and Health Research, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I recently saw this article in Global Edmonton about the ethical questions raised in children being targeted by ads for unhealthy foods.
“‘Kids are getting exposed to about seven ads for unhealthy foods and beverages every hour when they’re watching television,’ explained Kim Raine, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. “We know that it’s associated with their demands for foods, for their preferences, for their consumption and it is associated with childhood obesity,” Raine added.”
It reminded me that as a designer, technologist, teacher and trainer, that I am responsible to my audience to not only benefit them, but to specifically not try to bring them harm. I have changed the channel in disgust many times when I’ve seen my own kids targeted in unhealthy advertising during kid’s television programming time, and have thought to myself that it is shameful. However, no rules exist now to prevent the practice. Others still wonder why an obesity epidemic exists. I have no question about the issue; it’s very clear to me. It underlines the importance for me to make sure that my work does at least these five things:
Five rules of ethics for my work
- Do no harm. By this I mean that I ask myself in any consultation or presentation if anything I am saying is potentially doing any harm to anyone involved or promoting my own biases at the cost of other valid possibilities. Clients sometimes ask me to make designs that debase or reduce women, minorities, and opponents of all kinds. I refuse the work immediately.
- Speak the closest thing possible to truth. Truth is relative, and is subject to our experiences, research, and facts observed and believed. I was once asked to make a border for a flier in which I was to camouflage a legally mandated support statement, e.g. “Paid for by so-and-so” in such a way that a court would not be able to argue that the statement was not made, but also so that a viewer of the flier would not immediately know who paid for the flier. I refused the job outright, and I made the right decision.
- Be kind. Sometimes clients ask me to write, present, or share information in such a way as to support the client and deprecate a competitor. In each of these cases, I have worked to convince the client that it is better to make friends, share commonalities, and find unity. In cases where I was not able to convince the client, I walked away.
- Leave the world better than you found it. There is likely lots of money in convincing people that sugary, fatty foods are good or redeeming in some way. I would rather be poor than know that I helped to slowly kill someone by convincing them of this. There are many other examples of this that come to mind, but I imagine that all you have to do to see them is to turn on a TV.
- Maintain transparency. If the product that I am working to promote in a design is a good one, with few flaws and lots of benefits, then I should be able to say/show everything that I know about it. In situations where I’ve been subtly nudged to ignore a potentially dangerous issue, social malady, or falsehood about a design topic, I try to find ways to work with the client to be clear, honest, and transparent about all the realities of the situation. Otherwise, it will be difficult for me to take part.
Without ethics, integrity, honesty, benefits, and clarity, I will find it difficult to live with myself. No payday is worth losing these things.
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