A new paradigm shift in design evaluation : Focusing on the need to expand ethical metrics

Evaluation indicators play a key role in systematically analyzing design outcomes and ensuring consistent assessment standards. As design increasingly operates through online platforms, enabling real-time sharing, communication, and feedback, ethical issues such as copyright infringement, manipulation, and evasion of responsibility have emerged. In response, organizations like the OECD and EU have proposed ethical standards suited to digital environments. However, domestic design evaluations—particularly in competitions and guidelines—remain focused on aesthetic quality, lacking mechanisms to address these ethical concerns. This study compares evaluation indicators from ten design institutions in Korea and abroad, assessing the extent to which three expanded ethical criteria—process transparency, extended responsibility, and digital inclusivity—are reflected. The findings reveal a domestic emphasis on outcome-oriented evaluations and a gap with international standards. To address this, a process-oriented evaluation framework is proposed to better respond to ethical challenges in digital design environments. This research offers foundational insights for revising ethical assessment systems in industrial design and supports future policy development aligned with digital transformation.