Ethical Product Decisions
We’ve become so used to reading about employees, managers and CEOs (usually in tech) doing something shady to benefit themselves at the cost of their users and customers that we’re not surprised anymore. Yet, as a product manager (and leader) whenever I read or hear this, there’s definitely a moment of introspection - Could something like this happen on my watch? In my company? My team? Me?
Am I so focussed on short term goals that I’ve inadvertently created a process / product that allows such bad behavior from my team mates? Surely not!?
This fear is not necessarily irrational, after all we all struggle to define what ethical decisions mean. You generally here definitions like “Do the right thing”, which is altogether useless advice. I would argue all decisions at startups that are considered un-ethical in retrospect were made in the quest of doing the right thing. Doing the right thing to meet my goals, or my team’s goals, or my company’s goals.
Let’s say you, your team and indeed your whole company are very aware of their biases and blind spots and committed to making ethical decisions, or at-least avoid un-ethical decisions. You as a product manager present your next big idea to your team for their consideration. And someone on your team says - I think this feature is exploiting our users. This copy seems misleading. We shouldn’t work with these partners because they have xyz political affiliation etc. What do you do? How do evaluate which of these dissenting POVs are constructive and which ones aren’t? Looks like everyone has a different understanding of what is ethical.
Traditional wisdom says, go to Legal! If legal says we’re covered in our T&C or Privacy Policy, we’re ok. All users have to accept these terms before signing up, so we’re good. Of course just because its not illegal doesn’t mean its ethical. Also, when was the last time you actually read T&Cs before signup online?
I've used a shortcut that gives me some comfort that I'm being ethical in the product decisions I make - its not fool proof, but like most frameworks and principles, it gets the job done. Any time I’m designing something for behavior change (which is all the time) I ask myself -
When users of this product find out what we're doing, will they be ok with it?
Say you're designing a flow where upon registration you're going to share the user's information with advertisers - if the user found out, would they be surprised? pissed? If the answer is no, you're probably ok.
To make this even more effective:
Explicitly ask your team before you kick off the project - “Does anyone in the room think when users find out we’re doing, they’ll be ok with it?”
Make it part of your user testing sessions, tell your research participants upfront - “We make money by sharing anonymized data with our advertisers.” (Don’t ask are you ok with this). The user’s reaction or lack thereof will tell you what you need to know
