Designing for Respect

Chapter 5. For Designers: Choosing the Right Work

There are additional steps you can take to bring ethics and respect to your work. One of those steps is simply choosing respectful projects to work on. When making this decision, it may help to have an ethical compass for determining which companies will receive your skills and perspectives.

I will often ask designers to identify their dream clients or projects. After reflecting on this myself, I created a framework for how I choose ideal projects. Not everyone has the privilege to choose projects, but it’s helpful to know, if given the choice, how you would go about making the best decision. Of the millions of design problems that need solving, what calls to you and why?

Before any project, I will ask myself two questions—one selfish, and one unselfish. First, I selfishly ask, Is this work interesting and will it build my skills or grow my career as a designer? The less selfish question is Will solving this client’s problems make the world better or worse off than before? Ultimately, is the work interesting, boring, good, or evil, and to what degree? I created the chart shown in Figure 5-1 so I could visually gauge each opportunity.

Figure 5-1. A useful chart to gauge potential work

“Good” means: Is it good for the world? Will helping client x or y have an end result that will eliminate some human suffering, even if on a tiny ...