For three days, the Sevilla Design Walk (SDW) will showcase the originality and brilliance of the design happenings in our city. On October 10th, we’ll be hosting a workshop to train designers to work transparently in an area—ethics—that will become increasingly crucial in the digital world.
When you open TikTok, do you ever think about what they're doing with your data, how much time they're holding you hostage, or what emotional state the "For You" feed is pushing you towards? Have you ever wondered if Amazon knows your voice better than your own mother? Is it real-life or sci-fi that Cabify once recorded passengers' facial reactions to ads on screens inside their vehicles to sell the data to other companies? Besides bombarding us with endless ads, have you considered that your information could be used by Facebook to train new AI features?
The shady practices behind most of the apps we use daily are a badly-kept secret we've decided to accept as an inevitable fate.
For years, the shady practices behind most of the apps we use daily haven’t just been a suspicion—they’re common knowledge, a badly-kept secret we've decided to accept as an inevitable fate. Experts predict that in ten years, we’ll look back and be shocked at the outrageous things we allowed in the early 21st century when it comes to digital products.
Design responsibly. Learn ethical design
Against this backdrop of evil logic, there's a growing discipline that, if you're a designer, aspiring to be one, or work in related fields (communication, programming, content creation...), you should know about: ethical design. Want a comparison? It’s The Rebel Alliance against the Empire, Neo vs. the Machines, Winston Smith against Big Brother. And here’s a spoiler: for now, the bad guys are winning, which is why you should keep reading.
This week, during the Sevilla Design Walk, the major design event in our city, we’ve decided to keep informing the industry about what we fight for every day: the ethical focus digital products need and the importance of being informed to spot where they’re pulling one over on us. Our CEO, Héctor Giner, along with our partner from Magma, José Ramón Texeira, head of Upwelling Studio, will lead a workshop in Magma to convince attendees that ethical design will soon become a non-negotiable discipline and even a specialized role within companies.
We’ve titled this workshop "Empowering Interfaces," (you can get your tickets here). But don't be intimidated by the name—while it may sound a bit jarring, it perfectly sums up everything we’ll cover, which you should be familiar with. We’re talking about well-designed apps—ones that allow users to customize their settings or offer transparency in data usage, giving them control over their interactions.
“Autonomy, transparency, fairness...these are basic principles when designing. But almost no one takes them into account."
José Ramón Texeira, head of Upwelling studio
“Autonomy, transparency, fairness...these are basic principles when designing. But almost no one takes them into account. In fact, very few professionals even know what we mean by ethical design. You need to understand that any artifact, any, impacts people’s lives, which is why we need to educate ourselves on responsibility,” says José Ramón.
At companies like Z1, the goal is to create products that prioritize quality and transparency in user experience, not the amount of time spent using them. “We avoid at all costs the rampant engagement that’s become so normalized in an industry that, unfortunately, has made dependency the norm. We build our products like a political statement, with unshakeable standards to ensure they always operate ethically,” explains Héctor Giner, CEO of Z1.
He adds, “We should demand that digital products be simple, that they don’t harm us, that adapting to their dynamics is quick, that they don’t make us consume ads just for the sake of it, that they handle the information we give them with extreme care, and that they leave us time for everything else.”
Designers at the SDW workshop will participate in a fun, hands-on exercise, creating a product that stays clear of ethical red flags. “Beyond the law, which increasingly punishes these bad practices, we genuinely want to explore how to improve users’ lives,” notes Texeira, who is also organizing Spain's first ethical design festival alongside Magma, Píldoras UX, and Daniela Peñaranda. “It’s a critical moment because we’re in the midst of an AI boom, a technology that’s been handed to us in the form of tools without explaining their impact or what kind of unconscious actions we’re performing within them.”
The workshop will focus on teaching participants how to reduce the carbon footprint, ensuring users are consciously providing their data, and design without negatively impacting human behavior, always considering the needs of the people using our products, asking who they are and how we can help them. In other words, as Texeira puts it, “we need to learn how to take care of ourselves through technology.”
The ethics of design touches every discipline at SDW
Sevilla Design Walk is an annual design event organized by LAB Sevilla and Manifiesto Taller since 2012. It offers an immersive experience into the most creative trends of the city, aiming to connect professionals, students, and design enthusiasts with the most innovative spaces and ideas in the sector.
From the beginning, the event’s goal has been to build a community among local talent. Initially, it looked to other communities for inspiration, but this year’s edition focuses on showcasing some of the most brilliant work and interesting initiatives from our own environment. “In this edition, 90% is local, and we couldn’t be prouder", claims Fátima González, one of the organizers.
"It’s exciting that new designers in Sevilla have such great talent to look up to. We have typography talks, a signage exhibition, and we’re exploring disciplines like illustration and animation...but we’re thrilled to have the event at Magma, since the ethics of design touches every discipline we address at SDW.”
