ethical+issues



Ethical Issues



 * c) Are there any ethical issues that you may encounter? How will you address these?**

Ethical issues that may be encountered would be involved in the surveys. If the surveys ask for general information about an individual before they fill out the survey, then the designer would need to seek their consent to use the information they provided publicly. If the clients object to their information being used, then the designers should respect their wishes and discard their information. In this research plan, names are not required for participation in the surveys. It has intentionally been made anonymous to eliminate the trouble of notifying every individual that filled out the survey about sharing their information publicly. During observations, certain data may be collected; for example pictures. If this occurs, the designer needs to seek the consent of the individual whose picture is being taken. If the individual does not wish to have their face shown then the designer can digitally manipulate the photograph by adding a white blank square to where the individual's face is showing. This could be done on a software like Adobe photoshop. This protects the privacy of the individual but still captures the activities that are being performed for the benefit of data collection for the research. Interviews usually involve general information collection about the individual being interviewed before addressing the subject matter. This could include name, age, occupation and address etc. This is sometimes relevant to the topic that the interviewer is investigating and sometimes not. Some people do not have a problem with their information being put out while others care a great deal. In this situation, The interviewer has to seek the permission of the person being interviewed before they put out information that is obtained during the interview process. Another way to work around this issue would include changing the name of the individual and not displaying the rest of the information. In order to reduce legal problems, a consent form would have to be drawn up to obtain permission from the individuals participating in the research. This consent form would address the issues of using names, pictures etc for public purposes and also the designer promising not to sell the information or misuse it under any circumstances outside of the agreement of the consent form.