Blog 11

Ethics and Justice to Me

Justice and ethics mean a wide variety of things to me, especially in the context of my artistic and programming practice. While art and programming are often viewed as opposites - one expressive and creative, the other logical and precise - I see them both as their own forms of creation. When you put any kind of creation into the public space, you take on a certain level of responsibility. Personally, I believe the baseline ethical obligation is this: your work should not cause harm. In our Professional Practice course (Engineering Course), we often refer to the ACM Code of Ethics, which outlines the ethical responsibilities of computing professionals. It defines harm as “negative consequences, especially when those consequences are significant and unjust. Examples of harm include unjustified physical or mental injury, unjustified destruction or disclosure of information, and unjustified damage to property, reputation, and the environment” (ACM, 2018). That line always sticks with me - especially the emphasis on unjustified. It reminds us that as creators, we can't afford to ignore the social consequences of our work, even when those consequences aren't immediately visible. I will continue to create art and program according to the ACM Code of Ethics but I will specifically focus on never harming even a single soul with my creations.

Design Ethics Based in Experience

One area where ethics has directly shaped my thinking is accessibility. In second-year Game Design, I often found myself running out of time and leaving out features for players with any sort of disability or accessibility requirement. Things like customisable controls, visual accessibility options, or sound design that supports the hearing-impaired were usually the first to go when any deadline was approaching. But they never left my mind. I always thought about it in the context of my late grandmother. Toward the end of her life, she was nearly deaf and had difficulty seeing, even with strong glasses. She used to play video games with me, but over time, she simply couldn't keep up. Realising that she likely wouldn't be able to play any of the games I had made genuinely saddened me. That memory drives me to take ethics in design seriously. I want to build things that people like her - and people with any sort of limitation - can still enjoy.

Searching for Broader Perspectives

I also try to expand my ethical lens by playtesting my projects with a diverse range of users. Coming from a relatively privileged background, I know there are certain lived experiences and accessibility needs I might never personally encounter. By giving my games or software to people outside of my own bubble, I hope to uncover what I might be missing - whether that's a technical feature or a narrative choice that unintentionally excludes or misrepresents someone. Justice in my work also shows up in how I approach storytelling and agency. I always try to offer users as much choice as possible - to let them shape their own experience. I avoid pushing only the perspectives that appeal to me or my peers. Instead, I want to tell stories from multiple angles and empower voices that aren't always centred in mainstream games or software.

Ethics and the Values We Embed

The reading for this week, Flanagan, Howe, and Nissenbaum's “Values at Play: Design Tradeoffs in Socially-Oriented Game Design” offered a helpful framework for thinking about how values show up in game design - sometimes subtly, sometimes intentionally. They argue that “technical systems often come to embody values,” and that designers should consider values as a “criterion according to which system quality is judged” (Flanagan, Howe and Nissenbaum, 2005, p. 752). This stood out to me because it reframed ethics from being just about avoiding harm, to actively embedding positive values - like inclusivity, empowerment, and justice - into the systems we build. The RAPUNSEL case study demonstrated how a project with a clear social goal - in this case, teaching programming to middle-school girls - had to repeatedly confront and reconcile value conflicts. For example, some users preferred drag-and-drop interfaces for ease of use, while designers initially believed that typing out code was more empowering. The final solution involved a scaffolded interface that grew in complexity, which balanced expressiveness and accessibility. This kind of compromise is something I aspire to in my own work. Flanagan et al. note that “games replicate the value systems of the culture or community in which they are created and played” (2005, p. 756), and this hits hard. It's a reminder to me that games are never neutral. Every single developer or group of developers carry their own biases when developing any games or software, as that is inherit to every single human being. Every mechanic, every narrative choice - even every UI decision - is a reflection of the values we carry into the design process.

Moving Forward

Looking ahead, I plan to be much more intentional about accessibility and justice in everything I create. That means doing more research, spending more time with people who have different needs, and continuing to question the assumptions I have due to my upbringing and exposure to various parts of life. Ethics in art and programming isn't a one and done deal - it's an ongoing practice of listening, reflecting, and iterating. That is especially important in the context of engineering. As Friedman and Nissenbaum (1996, p. 332) put it: “Computer systems should be designed with an explicit awareness of the values they support or undermine.” That quote really encapsulates what I want to work toward - a kind of design that doesn't just avoid doing harm, but actively does good. The ACM Code of Ethics even mentions that “Developers have a responsibility to the public over self-interest. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's this: our creations speak - and we get to choose what they say.

References:

• ACM (2018) ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. Association for Computing Machinery. Available at: ACM Code of Ethics(Accessed: 24 May 2025).
• Flanagan, M., Howe, D.C. and Nissenbaum, H. (2005) 'Values at play: design tradeoffs in socially-oriented game design', Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005), Portland, Oregon, USA. New York: ACM, pp. 751-760.
• Friedman, B. and Nissenbaum, H. (1996) 'Bias in computer systems', ACM Transactions on Information Systems, 14(3), pp. 330-347.