Moral Design — Journey Group

The pursuit of moral design asks us to cultivate at least three things within ourselves and our practices:

1. true affection , rooted in respect, experience, and specific knowledge;


2. empathetic boldness to confront deep-rooted, complex failures in other designers’ work; and


3. genuine humility in an industry that seems to celebrate hubris and seeing wha

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Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

— Attributed to Albert Einstein

Moral design is slower and smaller than the markets want it to be. It is more careful and plodding than the universities and the politicians want it to be. Sadly, we are not without case studies.

the people best equipped to solve any given problem in a durable way are those most familiar with the full complexity of the problem

What is the purpose of what we’re setting out to make? Who is it for? What are they like? What is good for them? We shouldn’t just ask these questions to uncover strategic insights or check a box but to further our own accountability and growth—as individuals, and as a profession. How can we pursue moral design if we can’t compare our plans with ou... See more

only sustainable medium for morality is affection—and moreover, he introduces a language for affection that is informed, practical, and practiced.

The democratization of process and proliferation of tools enable hundreds of small, local design decisions to have an immediate and outsized impact. When something works in one place, it can be quickly copied, tailored, and applied in other contexts.