What Are The Ethics Of Working As A Web Designer?

In this day and age, every profession has its own set of ethical guidelines that its members are supposed to adhere to, and this is no different for those working as web designers. Whilst there can be no denying that the ethical considerations for those working in the design industry are by no means as crucial as those for the medical or law enforcement industries (for example), there are reasons that they should be adhered to. So, what are some of the ethical situations that designers are faced with?

• Spec Work: This is the industry name for a project in which the client expects to see examples (or even a finished product) before agreeing to pay you. There are a number of problems, both for web designers and clients, associated with spec work, but many people (especially those just starting out) are still tempted to accept it.
• Taking Advantage of Clients: This is like working for the complete opposite of the nightmare client – often, these clients aren’t that assertive, they don’t hold the designers accountable, they’re agreeable and they don’t care too much about a missed deadline or two. It can be very easy to take advantage of these clients, putting their projects on the backburner when more pressing problems crop up.
• Taking Advantage of Designers: Some companies like to outsource or subcontract some of their work out to other web designers (usually freelancers), but you need to avoid taking advantage of this person as much as possible. Sure, you should make a little profit for securing the client, but this doesn’t mean that you should pay the contractor pennies and dimes for their services.
• Overcharging: Often, clients have no idea what goes into the creation of a website – you could tell them that you spent 5 hours on a page when you only spent 3. When it comes to charging your clients, however, this is only considered unethical if you charge them by the hour – if you charge by the project, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend on the project.
• Asked to Copy Another Design: Whilst this is not a common situation, it is one that crops up from time to time when your boss or a client is set on a particular website. Often, these people are either clueless about why copying someone else’s work is wrong or they simply don’t care and are only looking for success. Web designers should avoid dealing with the latter as much as possible.

There are a number of other ethical considerations that many web designers will be forced to deal with at some point in their professional lives, including the ownership of source files, the disclosure of your terms and crowdsourcing. The 5 outlined above, however, are the more common or more damaging of these situations and designers need to know how to deal with them at all costs.