Why Design Matters Applying Ethics to User Experience Design
summary
Nineteen years of game work across mobile, AAA (Just Cause 2 rice pickers), Mad Max menus and Bioware’s Anthem inform a practical ethics roadmap: treat design choices as ecosystem effects with an outer circle inner circle meta layer linking company policy, in‑game representation and data use. Concrete fixes include universal design measures (reconfigurable controls, subtitles, color‑deficiency filters, adjustable text), hiring and curriculum changes, enforceable codes of conduct, and rejecting harmful marketing like a 41 percent discount tied to trans suicide rates. Crunch and “the end justifies the means” are explicitly rejected.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Introduction and background
- 1:51Professional journey
- 7:53Defining ethics in games
- 11:17The impact of games
- 16:16Responsibility in design
- 19:25The game ecosystem
- 23:27Addressing barriers
- 26:24Education and inclusivity
- 29:32Leading with standards
- 35:24Corporate culture
- 38:39Practical implementation
- 43:10Conclusion
- 44:52Q&A session
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