The awareness of ethical design principales in media design education

Abstract

Designers today, through the creation of media content, do not only create a media construct, but they also participate in the creation of social values, norms, and common patterns of communication. When reading books, manuals and design instructions, a design practitioner often encounters the term "good design". If we take the “good design” concept of industrial designer Dieter Rams, then the term will be describing the product that is useful and understandable, innovative, aesthetic, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and involves as little design as possible. His principles of "good design" can be applied to the field of media design, applications, user interfaces and so on. Or, if we change the paradigm towards the ethics, is “good design” design which is not only aesthetically pleasing but also that strives to do good - to be socially responsible in order to improve the social environment? This approach is the basic of this article. The basis and starting point for the discussion was the article "Redefining design ethics" by Phil McCollam published in Design and Culture, 6: 3, 2014. The author argues that designers have a legal obligation to be aware of and to follow accessibility laws and standards, but also, more broadly, they have an ethical obligation to focus on the needs of the people who will use their designs, even when the law does not explicitly require it of them. Furthermore, he says that future professionals must be challenged to develop solutions that are human-centric. The research is based on a questionnaire and discussions with the students of graphic design. Therefore, the goal of this research is to explore the existence of awareness of the ethical and social role of design in contemporary society through individual awareness of students.