Ethical Analysis of User Interface Development in a Software Company

This report examines the ethical challenges encountered in a small software company, focusing on a situation where a programmer, Anna, developed a user interface for remote communities but was not acknowledged for her work, with her manager, Brian, taking credit instead. The analysis employs the Doing Ethics Technique (DET) to explore the situation, issues, affected parties, ethical implications, and potential solutions, emphasizing the importance of computer system security and creating a trusting work environment. Furthermore, the report uses the ACS (Australian Computer Society) code of ethics to assess the professional conduct, highlighting aspects such as public interest, quality of life enhancement, honesty, and professionalism. The findings suggest the organization faced potential consequences due to the ethical breach, including employee distrust and legal actions, underscoring the need for developers to protect their work and for companies to address employee concerns proactively to maintain their reputation and ethical standards. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study tools.

Running head: USER INTERFACE
USER INTERFACE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The aim of the report is to discuss the ethical issue faced in an organisation. The ethical issue
faced here in a small company. The issues of the company faced is analysed by the two
different standards mainly DET and ACS. The both analysis gives us a clear picture with
details mentioned in precise. The DET discussed the case scenario while the ACS discussed
the lagging in the part of professionalism. The report concluded with the comparison of the
facts that was given by the analysis section and the best option to resolve the problem

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
DET Technique of Analysis.......................................................................................................4
What is going on?...................................................................................................................4
What are the issues?...............................................................................................................5
Who are affected?..................................................................................................................5
What are the ethical issues and implications in this case?.....................................................5
Implications............................................................................................................................6
What could be done?..............................................................................................................6
ACS Analysis.........................................................................................................................7
Primacy of the Public Interest:...............................................................................................7
Enhancement of Quality of Life.............................................................................................8
Honesty..................................................................................................................................8
Competence............................................................................................................................9
Professional development....................................................................................................10
Professionalism....................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
An industry is known by the ethics it keeps. The better behaviour of the employee, the
better will be the growth of the organisation. The set of norms, rules that are followed in an
organization is called ethics (Mather and Cummings 2015). This minimize the behavioural
difference, set up a proper functioning plan for the company by helping in decision making.
The set of these rules are collectively known as code of ethics. There are different code of
ethics that are followed on the basis of the kind of industry people work in
The IT industry have has ethics code for computer, network as well as behavioural.
The ethical issue could be participatory, accessibility, hyborg involvement etc. There could
be ethical issue faced by the organization in breaking those norms or there could be situation
of ethical dilemma (Myers and Venable 2014). This could hamper the career growth of an
employee or the organization in different ways. This is the case of the ethical issue has been
faced under an IT company.
This is the case analysis of the ethical issue that was reported in a small software
company. The name of the company is kept anonymous because of the confidentiality. The
case focuses on the ethical issue that was faced by one of the software engineers working
under this IT firm. In order to understand the case, the case is being analysed by DET and
ACS techniques of understanding ethical issues (Koppman, Mattarelli and Gupta 2016). The
DET will give the overall view of the case and the ACS will help us to understand the lagging
that was caused regarding which professional negligence. The overall analysis gives us idea
how to prevent an ethical issue in an organization to prevent damage that could affect the
individuals or the organization.

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DET Technique of Analysis
The doing ethic technique helps to analyse the situation by setting up questions , the
trial and error , this technique is independent of any parameters and are reliable because it
covers up all the area through question (Lehnert et al. 2016). Here we apply the DET
technique over the small software firm and extracting the facts of the ethical issue regarding
the situation.
Applying DET techniques on the case, the listed questions are addressed the case
scenario. This will give us the deep analysis of the overall case in precise and also the actions
that were taken to overcome the problem and the solutions to prevent this kind of situation in
future.
What is going on?
The case throws light upon a software company where a programmer named Anna
was facing ethical issue. The ambitious programmer was working over the web services in
heath sector in order to reach and help remote areas of the village, there is language and
cultural barriers faced time to time in the area (Thomas 2015). There are certain technological
and language barrier faced by these remote areas and there is a constant work done on this
field.
In order to improve her knowledge and upgrade her career she did higher level study
in this field with support of her manager Brian. She worked hard and with help of her the
knowledge she built a new user interface that can easily interact with people of the remote
areas. This was big step to abolish these differences between the remote communities. She
created a new interface system to into more accessible form. Her work showed the efforts she
had put in research and time to build such project (Jimenez 2016). She added cultural pictures
that helped them connect with the interface and she avoided using any offensive or anything

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that could hurt the sentiment of the aboriginals. She arranged her ideas in a beautiful way that
was both reasonable and technical. The new system made by her brought a lot of success to
the company. The company won the national business award for positive use of ICT in the
remote communities.
What are the issues?
There was many efforts that taken to build in the user interface system that could be
easily accessible by the aboriginal communities (Burmeister 2017). This has brought the huge
success to the company. Despite of all the efforts she took for the company by going through
further studies and endless efforts she took to build the new system. She did not get any
acknowledgement for the work. The Employer of the Month award was been given to her
but Brian took all the credits of her work and her efforts remained unacknowledged.
Who are affected?
The above incident gives us the knowledge the most affected one was Anna because
she was not been known for her contribution or the hard work she have done for the company
(Baumer et al. 2018). Her senior took credits in return of the support she got from him. Had
she known that this was going to happen, she would not have trusted him with her work. She
should not have shared the ideas she would be using in building the system.
What are the ethical issues and implications in this case?
The ethical issues that are reported in this case are given as follows:-
● The software company was facing one of the barriers that they were not able to
mix up with the remote communities and the constant research was done to ensure
that people could access the system.

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● The credits taken by Brian instead of Anna who did all the work regarding
building the new system are the signs that the systems that are used in the
organization can be accessed by anybody and there is a lack of security regarding
this case (Mason 2017). Had Anna taken steps to ensure the security of her
system, there would not be such a case of her codes being forged.
● The ethical issue can also be considered under data breaching , the codes she
wrote was taken by her manager because all the systems are interconnected in an
organization are mainly are under outdated security framework this can be a
problem for the system and this might be a reason for the case depicted here.
● The ethical issue here can also be due to unreliable storage media. The codes and
the algorithm that can be hacked or shoulder surfed easily.
● There is a breaking of code of ethics in this organization as the senior employee
took the credits of junior employee and he can do so if any of the above problems
was persisted.
Implications
The organization would have faced harsh consequences because of the case. The
employees must have lost in the faith in the organization. There was a difference between the
junior and senior employees. The fresh employees knowing the incident were hesitant to clear
their doubts with their subordinates and seniors (Plemmons and Barker 2017). Few
employees left without giving notice for resignation. There was a complaint filed against the
manager. HR department investigated the case and then escalated the case towards the legal
actions for forging work. The company which had a good national recognition for positive

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use of ICT techniques to aid remote communities sometime before is now trying hard to
protect its status in the market after this case.
What could be done?
Regarding this case, the organization must look forward towards security of the
computer systems. The organization should pay attention to the problems faced by the
employees of the organization. The complaints and the problems should be taken seriously
and acted upon by listening to both the sides. The company should create a work friendly
and trusting atmosphere for the employees. The developers or the programmer must
copyright their codes to ensure that no one could forge or alter them. they can also use private
frame work and better security frame works to ensure that the information are not being
leaked at any cost (Al-Saggaf, Burmeister and Weckert 2015). While working in a team, each
member should have trackers to note down their progress and the efforts they put on their
behalf towards the team. This will let them know about the amount of effort they have taken
to complete the work and in what part they contributed to the work.
ACS Analysis
The ACS code of ethics assures the professional conduct of the employees under the
legislation. Under this code of ethics, there are six rules that need to be taken under
consideration for assessing the professionalism of the employee. Any failure of the code is
claimed under professionalism negligence. Here the case is analysed under these six codes.
Primacy of the Public Interest:
The company maintained the public interest as a basic requirement of the company.
The user system ensured the aboriginal accessibility easy in spite of the cultural difference it
has been facing before. Anna had gone for tertiary studies in order to come up with an idea to
work over the system building (Ulvik, Smith and Helleve 2017). The user system was

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accessible because of the cultural images helped them connect well with the system; the new
user interface was much accessible by the remote communities to use web services.
The project mainly considered to connect people who lack technological exposure
because of the cultural barriers. In order to connect them with the services, the organization
opened the opportunities for the communities as well. There can be many job opportunities
for aboriginal generated by the service like delivery systems, packaging and generating local
reviews (Stiles and Boothroyd 2015). The core of the communities can now avail to those
medical benefits, which was next to impossible before.
Enhancement of Quality of Life
The web services would help the aboriginals of the remote communities to have
technological exposure and this would provide online help to the remote communities who
had been facing hardships regarding health care (Thomas, Duessel and Meier 2017). They
can access the online services and get the services on their systems at home. The user
interface does involve enhancement of the quality of life of people living in the remote
communities.
These communities can now easily avail the medical benefits, which was once
impossible to reach without online exposure. Being cultural friendly user interface people can
easily access the system without much trouble. The organization have tried to reach the
deepest root of these communities and built a high network to aid them at one call. The web
services are 24 /7 available so it can aid them in any case of emergency (Ferguson, Thornley
and Gibb 2016).
The quality of life that once was led by the community is now improvised and worked
on than before. There were many cases of serious problems because of lack of amenities.

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Honesty
In this case, the efforts that are shown by Anna depicts her dedication towards her
work. In order to increase her knowledge she opted for tertiary study about the field. Then,
she worked hard in building a new interface system by doing a thorough research about the
communities; she made sure that the images would be according to the, liking of the people
and nothing that could offend them. Her efforts has contributed in Company’s success
(Mannay and Morgan 2015). The company won National Business Award for positive use of
ICT techniques because of her work.
Unlike the manager, Brian who broke this code of ethics and took the credits if all the
efforts that was taken by Anna. He supported Anna for tertiary study but he ditched her by
placing his name over all the contribution she made for the company depriving her with
Employer of the Month Award. He tried to enhance his reputation based on her credits.
Competence
This is the case of competence; the programmer is confident about the work and have
done tertiary study regarding the project. The skill was not miss represented by Anna; she
was ambitious and confident that she can implement the idea of the project in this case.
The project mainly was for the interest of the remote aboriginals communities. The
project was both financial and operationally enough for the stakeholders (Kakabadse and
Kakabadse 2017). The project was made under user interest by having a god user interface.
The interface included cultural images that made people connect with the system. The system
was easily accessible and has made in public interest. There was no bribery taken in this case
However, in case of Brian he did misrepresent the work that done by Anna. In this
case, the competence here is between the two employees; Brian took all of the credits because
he did not want Anna to be ahead of him (Parker 2017). This was a non-ethical and a bad step

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taken by him. He should have been fair to her and rather work on himself to help in
contributing the company through his hard work. The organization has other competition and
in order to fulfil the expectation the employees needed to work hard and that was an
opportunity for the employees to show their contribution towards the organization.
Professional development
In this case, Anna wanted to work on her career growth as well as helped the
company with her work. She had achieved a lot knowledge regarding the technology as well
as about the communities the company mainly see as a target audience (Rubin and Froehlich
2017). She had learned and grown as a better professional than before. The cultural research
would have made her knowing the roots of communities, the language, the diversity in their
culture and overall experience of the company. This would be a benefit to connect with the
communities.
Unlike Brian who first was supportive regarding Anna’s work, but with time, he
turned up towards her. He could have done enough research and aid her in the project so he
could have an equal share in the work. His professional development is curbed because of his
non-disciplinary actions.
Professionalism
The professionalism of the software company that have been analysed in this case is
shown by the programmer who took keen interest in her work , contributed to exponential
success of the company giving it a national recognition (Thomas, Burmeister and Low 2017).
There was a contrary shown in this case when someone else in the company took her credits.
There must be equal opportunity of growth irrespective of the position that employee holds.
The legal action taken by the organization against the guilty shows equality among all the
workers that have been working under this IT firm.

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Conclusion
The report concludes with the two analysis of the same case in order to understand an
ethical issue of an organisation. The report mainly focuses over the overall scenario of how
the ethical issue turned out to be an inconvenience for the employee. The DET technique
analysed the overall problem of the company that was by taking credits for some else’s work
and ACS technique showed the code of ethics mentioned and violated in this case. The ACS
system shows how to maintain a professionalism in a working organization and DET shows
the overall scenario of the damage faced by the organization as a whole. In order to maintain
a good work environment it is required to maintain a trustworthy relationship with the
organization and among the colleagues. There must be some computer and network ethics
that is need to be followed in order to maintain security. The above case depicts the chances
of security threats and participatory ethical issue in case.