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Evaluating your digital products allows you to assess where your products are already successfully addressing ethical considerations and where some issues might need to be addressed. The selection of methods give you the opportunity to evaluate your product on specific topics or by combining them to adress a wider range of issues, from inclusion, accessibility, to the overall impact on users. They will allow you to gain insights on how you can improve your digital products.
Dichotomy Mapping
Dichotomy Mapping
This exercise involves listing all positive (beneficial) aspects of a product's feature and then exploring potential negative outcomes (harmful) if the feature is used excessively, focusing on human needs. For instance, Facebook's engagement-ranked newsfeed, designed to show relevant content from friends and family, inadvertently promoted sensational and misleading content, contributing to the spread of fake news due to its emphasis on engagement.
Methode: Dichotomy Mapping is a method used to critically evaluate the potential positive and negative outcomes of a product's features. This exercise involves listing the positive aspects of a product’s features and then assessing what could happen if these features are taken to an extreme. It's a detailed examination of the variations in beneficial and harmful results that may arise from a product, grounded in human needs.
Time Effort: 30 min
When: This assessment typically occurs during the ideation and development stages of a product, where features are being conceptualized and designed. It helps to identify and mitigate potential negative outcomes before the product is finalized and deployed.
Topic: The topics addressed by dichotomy mapping can include inclusion, by evaluating how features may differently impact various user demographics; dark patterns, by recognizing features that may inadvertently lead to manipulative user engagement; and gender, by anticipating the differential effects features may have across gender lines.
Outcome: The result of dichotomy mapping is a nuanced understanding of a feature's impact. Users of this method will gain insights into how each feature can lead to both intended and unintended consequences. This understanding can lead to modifications of the feature to enhance positive outcomes and minimize harm, thus influencing the product design in a socially responsible manner.
Suitable for: This method is suitable for any product or service where features can have significant impacts on users and society, especially complex digital products like social media platforms, AI systems, or any technology that processes user-generated content.
Who: Dichotomy mapping is a tool primarily for product designers and developers to help them predict and plan for the impact of their features. It is also beneficial for stakeholders such as ethical review boards, user experience researchers, and social impact analysts who are involved in assessing the broader implications of product features.
😍 Highlights:
Dichotomy Mapping fosters a nuanced understanding of product impacts, balancing positive and negative outcomes.
🤔 Challenges:
Predicting unintended consequences accurately is challenging, demanding deep insights into human and societal behaviors.
360 review
360 review
“A system is a set of things — people, cells, molecules, or whatever — interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.”
Method : The 360 Review method involves a comprehensive systems-thinking approach to evaluate the impact of a product or service. It expands beyond typical stakeholder maps to include all affected entities such as various users, company employees, government agencies, communities, the environment, and flora/fauna. This includes both direct and indirect effects, and the review is visualized as a complex network of interconnected nodes representing different entities, with solid or dotted lines indicating the nature of their relationships.
Time Effort: 30 min
When: The 360 Review is conducted during the ideation, creation, shipping, and scaling stages of a product. It is a continuous evaluation process that reflects on the multifaceted impact of a product at each stage, considering emotional, physical, monetary, safety implications, and power dynamics between entities.
Topic: The topic of the 360 Review tool encompasses a broad range of ethical considerations, including inclusion (assessing how various stakeholders are affected), dark patterns (evaluating the product's potential for misuse or harmful consequences), and gender (considering how products might affect different genders).
Outcome: The outcome of a 360 Review is a holistic understanding of a product's impact on an expansive range of stakeholders. Users gain a thorough evaluation of the interconnected effects and power dynamics, leading to informed suggestions for change that address identified tensions or negative impacts.
Suitable for: The 360 Review tool is suitable for any product or service, particularly those with complex ecosystems and a broad range of stakeholders, such as large-scale technological platforms, community-driven services, and products with significant environmental footprints.
Who: This review process is for product teams, including designers, managers, and strategists, to understand and improve the product's systemic impact. It is also for stakeholders outside the company, such as communities and environmental agencies, to participate in evaluating the product's broader effects on society and ecosystems.
😍 Highlights:
The 360 Review method ensures a holistic assessment of a product’s impact on a broad ecosystem, fostering inclusive and sustainable development.
🤔 Challenges:
Its complexity demands substantial effort and expertise to navigate the intricate network of stakeholder relationships and impacts.
Layers of Effect
Layers of Effect
Let’s reframe the way we look at the products and experiences we either make or use. A breakdown of products into three sections: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary effects are the main, intended functions of a product, such as Yelp being a platform for reviews. Secondary effects are additional, intentional outcomes like Twitter generating ad revenue. Tertiary effects are unexpected or unforeseen consequences, which can be positive or negative, such as Facebook's role in spreading fake news.
Method :
Forecasting Tertiary Effects: The method involves creatively imagining and predicting the myriad unintended or unforeseen consequences (tertiary effects) that could arise from the use of a product or experience. This forecasting emphasizes quantity over precision, encouraging a broad exploration of potential outcomes to identify and mitigate harmful effects.
Reframing Products: This approach also includes a step where creators reframe their understanding of products, not just by their primary, intended effects but also considering the broader, often unintended impacts those products can have.
Time Effort: 30 min
When:
During Design and Development: Before the finalization and launch of a product, forecasting should be integrated into the design and development process to anticipate tertiary effects.
Continuous Evaluation: Even after a product's release, continuous evaluation is necessary to identify emerging tertiary effects and address them proactively.
Topic:
Ethical Design and Development: The focus is on ethical considerations in the creation of products, ensuring that primary and secondary effects align with ethical standards and that potential harmful tertiary effects are anticipated and mitigated.
Broad Impact Assessment: Beyond immediate functionality, the topic encompasses assessing the broader social, psychological impact.
Outcome:
Identification of Potential Harm: Users of this approach can identify potential harmful tertiary effects before they occur, allowing for preemptive adjustments to design or strategy.
Ethical Product Blueprint: Provides a comprehensive evaluation of a product’s impact, leading to suggestions for changes that enhance ethical alignment and minimize negative outcomes.
Suitable for:
All Digital Products and Services: This method is universally applicable across all digital platforms, applications, and services, particularly those with significant user interaction and data involvement, such as social media platforms, e-commerce sites, and online communities.
Who:
Designers and Developers: Empowers these professionals with tools and methodologies to anticipate and mitigate unintended negative impacts of their creations.
Product Managers and Decision-Makers: Assists in aligning product development with ethical standards and societal expectations, ensuring responsible product lifecycle management.
Users and Society at Large: Ultimately benefits users and society by fostering the creation of safer, more ethical, and socially responsible products.
This framework for understanding and applying Layers of Effect encourages a holistic view of product design and development, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations and the anticipation of wide-ranging impacts. It is a crucial tool for creating more responsible and beneficial digital environments.
😍 Highlights:
Forecasting Tertiary Effects allows for a comprehensive exploration of a product’s unintended consequences, fostering ethical design and development by emphasizing the anticipation of wide-ranging impacts beyond the primary and secondary functions.
🤔 Challenges:
The main challenge lies in the inherent unpredictability of tertiary effects, requiring a balance between creative foresight and practical mitigation strategies to address potential negative outcomes effectively.
Consideration Cards
Consideration Cards
user + NEED + insights = POINT OF VIEW
NEEDS ⇒ positive needs vs. negative collateral
Use preset cards that list positive needs and negative collateral to see if your defined need has the former and not the latter.
Method : The method involves a design thinking approach, which is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems, and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. The process includes stages of empathizing with users, defining the problem, ideating, prototyping, and testing. Ethical considerations are integrated by evaluating whether the problem statement is ethically worthy of being solved, and by ensuring that positive user needs do not result in negative collateral.
Time Effort: 30 min
When: The ethical evaluation of the design problem takes place after the empathize and define stages. At this juncture, a point of view (POV) statement is developed, and the design thinker evaluates whether addressing the user's needs could result in any negative consequences, thus integrating ethical considerations early in the design process.
Topic: The topic of the tool is ethical design thinking. It addresses the need for inclusion by empowering vulnerable populations, sharing truthful information, and reducing inequality. The tool also brings awareness to avoiding dark patterns such as spreading misinformation or creating addictive experiences, and it includes considerations for gender by ensuring that solutions do not discriminate against people.
Outcome: The outcome is a more ethically aware design process, where the design thinker evaluates the impact of the solution on society. Users get a structured approach to considering both positive needs and potential negative collateral, leading to more informed decision-making and suggestions for change that account for a broader societal impact.
Suitable for: The tool is suitable for any product or service design process that seeks to incorporate ethical considerations. It is especially relevant for digital products and services that have the potential to impact society significantly, such as social media platforms, information dissemination tools, and community-based platforms like Airbnb.
Who: This process is for designers, product managers, and the entire product team who are involved in creating solutions. It ensures that the products they design do not only meet user needs but also contribute positively to society and do not inadvertently cause harm or exacerbate societal issues.
😍 Highlights:
Integrates ethics early in design thinking.
Ensures socially responsible and inclusive solutions.
🤔 Challenges:
Identifying and mitigating negative impacts early.
Requires deep understanding of societal impact.
Deceptive Patterns
Deceptive Patterns
Dark patterns are deceptive design techniques used in websites and apps to trick users into making decisions they wouldn't otherwise make, such as buying something, signing up for services, or sharing more personal information than intended. These manipulative strategies exploit human psychology to sway user actions against their own interests.
It's a description about types, laws and cases of dark patterns.
Method : The identification and analysis of dark patterns involve a meticulous process of browsing and scrutinizing websites, apps, and digital platforms.
This method includes:
User Experience (UX) Audits: Conducting detailed UX audits to identify elements that might trick or manipulate users. This involves examining the design, layout, wording, and overall user flow to spot potentially deceptive practices.
Comparative Analysis: Comparing similar services or products to identify deviations in user experience that may suggest the use of dark patterns.
Feedback Collection: Gathering user feedback to understand areas where they felt misled, confused, or coerced into making decisions.
Legal Review: Analyzing current legislation and regulatory guidelines to determine if any aspects of the design contravene consumer protection laws.
Time Effort: The time spent identifying and analyzing dark patterns can vary significantly based on the complexity of the website or app, the depth of the audit, and the resources available. It can range from a few hours for preliminary assessments to several weeks for comprehensive audits and legal reviews.
Materials:
Checklists and Guidelines: A set of criteria based on known dark patterns and user experience best practices to systematically review digital products.
User Feedback Tools: Platforms and tools to collect and analyze user feedback regarding deceptive practices.
Legal Frameworks: Access to current legal standards and guidelines on consumer protection to evaluate the legality of the identified patterns.
When: The analysis of dark patterns should ideally be an ongoing process but is particularly crucial:
Pre-Launch: Before launching a new website, app, or service, to ensure it does not inadvertently contain dark patterns.
Post-Launch: Regularly after launch to catch any dark patterns that might have been missed initially or introduced through updates.
Upon Receiving User Feedback: Whenever users report feeling misled or tricked by the design or functionality.
Topic:
Identification of Dark Patterns: Understanding the various types of dark patterns, such as "bait and switch," "misdirection," "roach motel," etc., and how they manifest in digital products.
Legal Status: An overview of how different jurisdictions address dark patterns, including any relevant legislation or regulatory guidelines that prohibit or restrict such practices.
Ethical Considerations: Discussing the ethical implications of using deceptive design practices and the impact on user trust and brand reputation.
Outcome:
Awareness and Education: Raising awareness among designers, developers, and product owners about the existence and implications of dark patterns, encouraging ethical design practices.
Recommendations for Change: Providing actionable suggestions to remove or alter deceptive elements in digital products, ensuring compliance with legal standards and promoting a more transparent, user-friendly experience.
Suitable for:
E-commerce Websites: To prevent manipulative practices that mislead customers into making purchases or signing up for recurring subscriptions.
Apps: Especially those that require personal information, subscriptions, or in-app purchases, to ensure transparency and user consent.
Online Services: Such as streaming platforms, online banking, and any service requiring user registration or data collection.
Who:
Users: By protecting them from deceptive practices and enhancing their online experience.
Designers and Developers: Offering guidance on ethical design practices and helping them create more user-friendly and trustworthy products.
Product Owners and Providers: Assisting them in ensuring their services are compliant with legal standards, thereby avoiding potential fines and reputational damage.
Understanding and addressing dark patterns is a critical aspect of digital product design and development, requiring a balanced approach that considers user experience, ethical considerations, and legal compliance.
😍 Highlights:
Identifies and mitigates deceptive design practices.
Enhances user trust and legal compliance.
🤔 Challenges:
Time-consuming and complex analysis required.
Balancing ethical design with business goals.
Ethical Design Handbook - Scorecards
Ethical Design Handbook - Scorecards
The Ethical Design Scorecards are a systematic tool for digital teams to assess the ethical quality of their products, business models and practices. They enable a comprehensive assessment by offering specific criteria that help to anchor ethical considerations in the development and business processes.
Method : Weighted criteria in areas such as data collection, storage, processing, communication, governance, business model, user participation and UX/UI to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Time Effort: little time needed
Material: a free Excel file to download
When: after the design process
Topic: A systematic approach to assessing the ethical level of products, businesses, and practices which shows you a score for each criteria.
Outcome: To identify where a product or business does well from an ethical standpoint, and to reveal where improvements can be made.
Suitable for: Digital products, businesses, practices
Who: For professionals working in the digital industry: designers, developers, product owners/managers, entrepreneurs and self-employed, not for consumers.
😍 Highlights
Easy to understand
Short and fast
Summarised presentation of the situation
One excel-file
🤔 Challenges
Subjective
You assign the scores yourself
Inverted Behavior Model
Inverted Behavior Model
Invert BJ Fogg's Behavior Model to predict any unknown or unintended behaviors, and then forecast what consequences that behavior might trigger.
Method : The method involves utilizing BJ Fogg’s Inverted Behavior Model to forecast and analyze potential unintended or unknown user behaviors resulting from product features or overall products. This involves listing out the prompts (features or products), identifying the motivations users might have related to these prompts, predicting possible behaviors, and then analyzing the consequences of these behaviors. Additionally, the ability levels for each behavior to occur are assessed, with behaviors ranked by likelihood and severity.
Time Effort: 1h
Material: Fogg's model suggests that behavior occurs when motivation, ability, and prompts converge. This concept, when applied inversely for forecasting, allows for the prediction of unknown or unintended behaviors by examining how varying levels of motivation and ability, combined with specific prompts, can lead to certain outcomes. This approach enables the anticipation of potential consequences resulting from these behaviors
When: This inverted application of Fogg's model should be utilized during the design phase of product development, ideally before the product or feature launch. It can also be used post-launch for ongoing product evaluation and to forecast the impact of updates or new features.
Topic: While not specific to any single ethical concern, this model can be applied to various aspects of ethical design, including evaluating inclusion, identifying potential dark patterns, and considering the impacts on gender or other demographic factors. It serves as a predictive tool to anticipate and mitigate negative outcomes related to these topics.
Outcome: The user, typically the product team, receives a systematic evaluation of potential behaviors and their consequences. This allows for the identification of potential risks and ethical issues, leading to proactive suggestions for change to avoid harm, enhance user autonomy, and promote positive outcomes.
Suitable for: This approach is suitable for a wide range of products and services, particularly those involving significant user interaction and behavior change, such as social networks, e-commerce platforms, health apps, and other digital services where user behavior is key to the product's success.
Who: The primary users of this method are designers, product managers, and behavioral scientists involved in the creation and refinement of digital products. The ultimate beneficiary, however, is the end-user, as the tool aims to forecast and mitigate any negative consequences that could arise from their interaction with the product or service.
😍 Highlights:
Proactively identifies and mitigates unintended user behaviors.
Improves product design and user experience ethically.
🤔 Challenges:
Requires accurate prediction of user motivation and ability.
Balancing predictive analysis with practical design constraints.
Monitoring Checklist
Monitoring Checklist
Periodic checks should be conducted post-product launch to ensure no new ethical issues have arisen.
Method: The method consists of a monitoring checklist applied by product teams to ensure their product's ethical standards. The checklist focuses on autonomy, transparency, and safety. Teams should conduct regular reviews using these criteria to assess if the product respects user autonomy, maintains transparency, and ensures safety. This involves asking critical questions regarding user experience, information clarity, data privacy, and security, and taking corrective actions if needed.
Time Effort: 30 min
When: Monitoring should occur consistently after the product has been shipped. It is an ongoing process, ideally embedded into the product lifecycle, to continuously evaluate the product's impact on users and society. The checklist should be revisited periodically, and the team should be prepared to make adjustments in response to new insights or changes in the product's use context.
Topic: The topics covered by the tool include ethical considerations such as user autonomy (avoiding manipulative design), transparency (preventing misinformation and deceit), and safety (protecting privacy and physical well-being). While the checklist provided focuses on these areas, it also implicitly addresses inclusion, dark patterns, gender, and other ethical concerns by guiding teams to consider the broad implications of their design choices.
Outcome: As a result of applying this checklist, the user, which in this case is the product team, receives a thorough evaluation of their product's ethical alignment. This may lead to identifying areas where the product falls short and developing suggestions for change to improve user experience, enhance transparency, and ensure safety.
Suitable for: This monitoring checklist is suitable for a broad range of digital products and services, particularly those with significant user interaction and data management components, such as social media platforms, e-commerce sites, digital health services, and more.
Who: The primary users of this checklist are the product teams, including designers, developers, and managers, responsible for the creation and maintenance of the product. However, the ultimate focus is on the end-user, ensuring that their experience with the product is ethical, respectful, and safe.
😍 Highlights:
Ensures ongoing adherence to ethical standards post-launch.
Focuses on autonomy, transparency, and safety.
🤔 Challenges:
Requires continuous commitment and resources for regular assessments.
Adapting to new ethical dilemmas as the product evolves.
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