Okay so I have to write a paper for a course regarding ethical situations in “your” given profession. What are some potential ethical decision-making situations that an individual might encounter in Industrial Design? I need at most two and I only have to discuss one. The only things I’ve thought of are with regard to Creative content, copyright/patent issues. But I would really like some real life examples as I have yet to encounter such issues. Anything helps.
Thanks
We had a project when I was in school at ASU in which we had to do something similar. We were paired with one other person and told to argue both sides of an ethical dilemma a designer would be likely to encounter in his/her career (I believe the assignment was something to that effect, but I don’t remember exactly).
Most of the topics revolved around being asked to design a controversial product. Teams debated the virtuousity of such things as child “leashes,” robot dogs replacing real dogs, and, I believe, handguns. My team imagined ourselves being asked to design a piece of equipment that would instantly read one’s DNA and tell him or her in a moment what diseases he or she would likely get and how he or she might die of natural causes. We spent time discussing how such knowledge would impact users’ lives, whether it was a good or bad thing for such a product to exist, and whether each of us in the classroom would want to be involved in such a project.
I guess my suggestion is to imagine yourself being asked to design a product used for a purpose or cause you do not support. What if the client was willing to pay you double your rate because no one else would take the project? What if it were the middle of a recession and this was the first job you had gotten in months? What would you do if you were asked to design abortion equipment or handguns (or robot dogs!)?
I am not trying to start a debate about whether designers should design the specific products mentioned above. Everyone’s own beliefs will determine their opinions on that. Potential ethical dilemmas such as these are not hard to imagine, though. Fortunately I have not been faced with anything so dramatic in my career (yet!).
I hope this helps.
Other topics that can be covered under the ethical umbrella may be:
environmental concerns - here and overseas - are we doing enough to design products that use recycled materials, etc…
manufacturing overseas - are we sourcing products from sweat shops, etc…
what about planned obsolescence?
further, what about the idea that continually creating more desirable products in certain product areas that are very highly fashion and trend driven causes consumer to replace products long before obsolescence?
ie - how many razr owners needed a new phone when they got it?
I let this topic sink in over the morning. While the big ethics problems (environment, consumerism) are important, a designer faces smaller ethical dilemmas too. Such as working for free and dealing with clients.
Just last night I read a blog talking about making the decision to work for free:
http://www.designobserver.com/archives/014697.html#more
As a designer who struggled to get experience, I’ve had to face this too. It’s something to think about.
As for dealing with clients, I’ve faced a certain dilemma once or twice freelancing. The situation is, someone comes to you with a clear goal: take this idea and make it pretty. As a designer, you start to look into the ergonomics, the interface, the aesthetic appropriateness, the social appropriateness. The more you look at it, the more you ask yourself, is my client having me render up a failure? What do you do? Do you tell your client, “hey, your product is off target” and potentially lose your job, or do you go along and say, “hey, all I can do is make the best rendering possible”. That’s a hard decision.
There are plenty of huge concepts that designers face that raise ethical concerns. You could find in just about anything that we do.
But are these relevent to you, with your background, and where you live? My guess is that you have had to make ethical judgements throughout your life and these had an impact on how you live your life and how you make decisions.
The power in design is that it is so pervasive that there is usually a straight line between any ethical dilemma in the world today and the role that design or a designer plays.
Seems to me that your project may have more impact if you were to pick a personal ethical issue first, then trace it back to design. You might end up in new territory that others haven’t looked at yet. (Best place to be in my opinion.)
thanks for the replies, they have helped guide my thinking a little bit.
#1 ethical situation most Industrial Designers will face is copying products. Whether asked by owner/president or requested by a client, it happens very frequently.
I agree with Pier. the most common ethical challenge is the issue of creating concepts heavily inspired by existing concepts. We are able to avoid this type of work now but in our first few years it was not so easy.
think of it, we design in order to make the user lazy… hands free sets, power windows. would that come in ethics 
at the end we blame the user for a sedentry lifestyle ( even electrolux ha come up with a competition for this case)… dunno how muchi helped u … but u can talk tonns on this topic
think of it, we design in order to make the user lazy… hands free sets, power windows. would that come in ethics at the end we blame the user for a sedentry lifestyle ( even electrolux ha come up with a competition for this case)… dunno how muchi helped u … but u can talk tonns on this topic