[IxDA Discuss] Ethical Issues for Interaction Designers

[Frederick van Amstel]

> I cover this topic briefly in the epilogue of my book. In it, I
> suggest that the ethical baseline for interaction designers should be
> that the behaviors we engender through the products and services we
> create treat both the actor and the receiver of the action with
> dignity and respect.

But only the actor and the receiver can judge what is a respectfull
act, because they know very well their context. In some contexts it's
acceptable to do some things it couldn't be otherwise and vice-versa.

Is it moral to send IM messages to all my contacts saying that my
mother is sick and I'm organizing a bazar to earn money for her
medicines? Is it moral to do that 2 times in the same day? 5 times? An
interaction designer could determine to block repetitive messages, but
if the sender could know if the receiver read the message, no more
messages would be needed. Although IM software don't give the receiver
information about if the message was read, people acknowledge it with
a follow-up message.

When interaction designers do moral judgements over acts in a context
and enforce or prohibit something, they are inevitablly reducing
people freedom to choose what to do, and in consequence, depriving
them from their own ethical considerations.

I think it's better to encourage people do their own ethical
considerations over their acts instead of doing it for themselves.

-- 
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.{ Frederick van Amstel }. Curitiba ´´ PR
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