We Love Ethical Design

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François Téchené

Director of Product

Latest posts by François Téchené (see all)

Replacing the Screen of Your Librem 5 - January 25, 2024
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In our wish to bring our contribution to the betterment of society, wherever we plan to work on refining our products or existing software, we will conform to the Ethical Design Manifesto. Our philosophy and social purpose have always been in perfect unison with the principles stated in the Ethical Design Manifesto, and having it as part of our internal design team’s policy is a good way to make sure that we always keep it in mind.

What is Ethical Design?

The goal of “ethical” design is to develop technology that is respectful of human beings whoever they are. It encourages the adoption of ethical business models and, all together, it is favoring a more ethical society.

According to the manifesto, ethical design aims to respect:

Human Rights: “Technology that respects human rights is decentralised, peer-to-peer, zero-knowledge, end-to-end encrypted, free and open source, interoperable, accessible, and sustainable. It respects and protects your civil liberties, reduces inequality, and benefits democracy.”
Human Effort: “Technology that respects human effort is functional, convenient, and reliable. It is thoughtful and accommodating; not arrogant or demanding. It understands that you might be distracted or differently-abled. It respects the limited time you have on this planet.”
Human Experience: “Technology that respects human experience is beautiful, magical, and delightful. It just works. It’s intuitive. It’s invisible. It recedes into the background of your life. It gives you joy. It empowers you with superpowers. It puts a smile on your face and makes your life better.”

Growing the seed of an ethical society

Working towards an “ethical society” may sound like fighting windmills. I personally see it as a global, constant yet disorganized wish that nonetheless tends to materialize from time to time through a common concerted effort. I don’t think that this effort is about changing some thing because of its unethical nature; it has nothing to do with a fight. Instead, it is about growing the seed of a more ethical thing that would exist next to it.

In line with this goal and our social purpose is the fact that we aim to work in an “upstream first” way as part of the Free Software community; in order to contribute to the common effort toward growing this ethical seed, any software development and improvement on top of an existing project is intended to be discussed and co-developed upstream first. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel and fork existing projects just because we don’t like the colors of the paint on the wall! This would only fraction the community’s resources and add confusion for users.

There are so many amazing free software projects that share our philosophy, and we hope to contribute while also ensuring these pieces of software respect human rights, human effort and human experience. These are my guiding principles for Purism’s UI and UX design projects.