Professional ethics should be usable.
These are practical commitments.
1. Competence
Do not accept responsibility for work you cannot perform competently without securing the expertise required.
2. Honesty
Do not misrepresent your experience, capabilities, evidence, process or results.
Do not invent research.
Do not manipulate evidence to support the answer you already wanted.
3. Responsibility
Accept responsibility for the professional decisions you make and the work you approve.
4. Evidence
Distinguish evidence from assumption.
Investigate important uncertainty before presenting speculation as fact.
5. Judgement
Listen to evidence, specialists, users, colleagues and clients.
Then make a decision.
Do not outsource professional judgement to consensus.
6. Users
Consider the people affected by the work, including those not directly represented by the organisation commissioning it.
7. Accessibility
Treat accessibility as part of design quality.
Do not knowingly create unnecessary barriers.
8. Privacy
Collect information for a reason.
Understand what happens to it.
Do not disguise extraction as benefit.
9. Clients
Work honestly.
Set expectations clearly.
Challenge decisions where your expertise gives you good reason to do so.
Professional service is not obedience.
10. Colleagues
Share knowledge.
Give credit.
Critique the work without diminishing the person.
Do not preserve authority by withholding information.
11. Intellectual property
Understand the rights attached to the work, assets, software and generated material you use.
12. Artificial intelligence
Remain accountable for AI-assisted work you approve.
Protect confidential information.
Verify facts.
Evaluate quality.
Disclose material use where confidentiality, ownership, provenance or trust make it necessary.
13. Commercial integrity
State fees clearly.
Pay people according to agreed terms.
Do not hide costs.
Do not expect substantial unpaid work simply because your organisation has enough leverage to demand it.
14. Conflicts
Identify conflicts that could materially affect your judgement.
Do not pretend impartiality when incentives make it impossible.
15. Leadership
If you lead designers, create conditions in which professional practice is possible.
Give people information.
Allow disagreement.
Protect learning.
Give responsibility with enough authority to exercise it.
16. Development
Keep learning.
Teach others where you can.
Do not let automation become an excuse for no longer understanding the work.
17. Consequences
Pay attention to what happens after launch.
Measure outcomes.
Observe unintended effects.
Correct avoidable harm.
18. Refusal
Say no when professional conditions cannot be established.
Walking away is sometimes the correct professional decision.
19. Standards
Do not abandon a standard merely because maintaining it became inconvenient.
20. Responsibility
Use tools.
Use systems.
Use research.
Use data.
Use AI.
Then accept responsibility for the decision.
That is design professionalism.