ACM code of ethics
The final topic of our hierarchy is ethics. I am just going to touch on this briefly, but it is a very large topic like security or design, so please go and read about it. The Association for Computing Machinery has a code of ethics for software developers. It contains 24 rules for ethical software creation and working as a software developer.
There are many very interesting and important morals throughout the document, but my two favorites are near the front:
- Avoid harm to others
- Contribute to society and human well-being
These two rules are actually about UX. If you follow this code of ethics, you are saying that you will not write software that harms users and that your software will improve society. Design is often the aspect that determines whether a service meets these two needs. A good example comes from architecture, which also has a code of ethics. In their code, architects cannot design a structure with the purpose of harming people. To that end,...
