Safety by Design (SbD), like similar design paradigms such as Privacy by Design or Security by Design, suggests that organizations consider risk of harm to a user or stakeholder group before they occur, rather than after the fact. It involves a systematic and proactive approach to identifying and responding to risks of harm at the earliest stages of product development—from ideation and design through post-launch monitoring. Safety by Design has been a standard approach to minimizing health and safety hazards in the design of physical products (e.g., standard inclusion of seatbelts in cars), and it extends to the development of software and online products as well. While much of this chapter focuses on preventing and mitigating harms by bad faith actors, there are also opportunities for platforms to consider prosocial design features. These features encourage healthy engagement and content production among good faith-but-sometimes-erring users, as a way to proactively reduce harm and create a welcoming and healthy environment.
In this chapter, readers will gain:
- An understanding of the Safety by Design approach and standard frameworks for assessing risks of harm
- An overview of implementing a Safety by Design approach within an organization, with practical examples of different safety interventions and an overview of the stages of maturity of a Safety by Design approach