Summary
We know that ability is equally distributed among humans, but opportunity is not. As the need for skilled technologists grows, so must our ability to empower individuals with accessible tech training. The data that can be gathered about an individual’s learning patterns can help inform the ultimate personalized educational experience, accelerating the cycle from novice to master, or it could be weaponized – used to judge an individual and block opportunities for jobs and advancement. As we design experiences and systems, we become the ethical stewards of the impact we could have on millions of lives. It’s up to us to make the right, and often hard decisions. Hear from Mariah Hay, VP of Product at Pluralsight about her experience designing product for tech education, the choices her teams have made to avoid weaponization, and how human centered design can inform the ethical underpinnings of our missions, our companies, and our bottom lines.
Key Insights
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Human-centered designers hold one of the most powerful roles in history with the capacity to solve or create problems.
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Ethics are defined as moral duties shaped by industry standards and social contexts, historically rooted in professions like medicine and engineering.
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Medical ethics extend beyond doing no harm to include respect for autonomy, beneficence, justice, and truthfulness.
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Engineering ethics enforce public safety and require engineers to speak up if their professional judgment is overruled with dangerous consequences.
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Bad design in technology, such as EMR interfaces, can cause fatal errors, making ethical accountability essential in tech products.
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Corporate profit motives can pressure engineers and designers to compromise ethics, as shown by Volkswagen’s emissions fraud and Cambridge Analytica’s data misuse.
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Pluralsight’s ethical approach to learner data involved not weaponizing their product despite enterprise pressures to use assessments for hiring or raises.
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Finding blind spots through thorough user research and peer consultation is critical to ethical design practice.
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Taking full accountability includes responsibility for the decisions of team members and the wider impact of design choices.
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Embedding ethics at company core fosters trust, openness, improved collaboration, productivity, and sustainable business success.
Notable Quotes
"We have one of the most powerful jobs in the history of the world, which is kind of frightening because we can also become problem-creators."
"Ethics are the discipline of dealing with what is good or bad with moral duty and obligation, shaped by who we hang out with."
"In medicine, first do no harm goes beyond harm to include utility—treatments must lead to better outcomes, no snake oil."
"Engineers must tell somebody if their judgment is overruled and it endangers life or property—you can’t just walk away."
"Jenny died because a critical hydration instruction was buried in a medical record interface, showing how design can be fatal."
"Volkswagen intentionally programmed their engines to cheat emissions tests for years, leading to serious legal consequences."
"Cambridge Analytica manipulated over 50 million users by harvesting data without consent to influence political behavior."
"Don’t weaponize your product—that’s one of our core ethical tenets in designing assessments at Pluralsight."
"We decided to share proficiency levels with employers, not raw scores, to balance transparency and learner comfort."
"Ethics aren’t inherent in companies; they live in the individual practitioner, like a doctor taking the Hippocratic oath."
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