Ethical principles for services

The Ministry of Justice's principles for ethical services, including minimising harm, balancing power, inclusion, honesty and responsibility.

Visit websitedesign-patterns.service.justice.gov.uk

Good for questions like

Designing ethical services
The Ministry of Justice design system's introduction to ethical considerations for service teams, including harm, vulnerability, discrimination, trust and automated decisions.
Beyond Good Intentions: Towards a Power Literacy Framework for Service Designers
A 2021 paper proposing a power literacy framework for service designers, covering privilege, access, goals, roles and rules. Open access copy from TU Delft.
Government Design Principles
Ten principles for designing government services, starting with 'start with user needs'. Short enough to read in five minutes and widely borrowed outside government.
Dark Patterns and the EU Digital Services Act: Mapping Autonomy Violations and Design Factors
A CHI 2026 paper mapping dark patterns to deception, manipulation and the distortion or impairment of choice, and identifying the design factors involved.
Design Justice Network Principles
A community-authored set of principles that put the people affected by design at the centre, foregrounding lived experience and community-controlled outcomes.
The stakeholder map: a conversation tool for designing people-led public services
A ServDes 2018 paper and case study exploring stakeholder mapping as a way to talk about roles and the distribution of power in public service design.