Researchers are constantly presented with ethical challenges in their work, but we’re not always well equipped to handle them. How can we avoid thinking of research participants as “resources” to extract from? Once the data are back in organisations, designers face a number of tough choices about how to use the data they’ve obtained – how should you tell someone else’s story? What about someone’s experience should you reduce to a summary? What is lost in that? Reuben will explore these ethical questions (and more!), and will present a practical framework that designers can use to identify the ethical lines in a project, so that they might understand when and why they’re crossing them.

1. The Ethics of Design Research
Reuben Stanton
@absent
@hellopapergiant

2. Dr. Reuben Stanton
@absent

4. ethics

5. ethics
the moral principles which govern our work

6. ethics
as expressed through our actions
the moral principles which govern our work

7. If ethics is about the question of how to act, and designers
help to shape how technologies mediate action, designing
should be considered ‘ethics by other means’.
Every technological artefact that is used will mediate human
actions, and every act of design therefore helps to constitute
specific moral practices.
P.P Verbeek, What Things Do, 2009, p.69

8. Design has moral consequences,
So be deliberate about your actions

9. To be ethical means to take a
deliberate stance – for example:

10. 3. Suppress dissent
1. Impose authoritarian rule
2. Favour the strong over the weak
To be ethical means to take a
deliberate stance – for example:

11. 3. Help others do no harm
1. Make positive social change through design
2. Help the most vulnerable in society
To be ethical means to take a
deliberate stance – for example:

12. the framework

13. Positionality Participation Representation
the framework

14. Positionality Participation Representation
the framework
Who am I in relation
to this work?
Who participates,
and in what ways?
How does data get
represented, and by whom?

15. Positionality Participation Representation
the framework
Who am I in relation
to this work?
Who participates,
and in what ways?
Before the project During the project After the project
How does data get
represented, and by whom?

16. Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project
the framework

17. questions not answers
interrogations not methods
and
the framework provides

19. Ethical engagement
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

20. How might we enter
this community?
How might we represent
diversity of experience?
How might we give participants
the power to speak freely?
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project

21. Consult with experts before
entering an at-risk community
“do good”
Are we ok with that?
Be flexible about your
methodology

23. Being human-centred
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

24. How might we enter
this community?
How might we represent
diversity of experience?
How might we give participants
the power to speak freely?
What are the risks to our
participants and ourselves?
What do we summarise about someone’s
situation, when, and why?
How might we make participants
feel comfortable sharing?
Positionality Participation Representation
During the project

25. Your participants are people, not
resources for your project
Connection and trust is more
important than ‘data gathering’
“do good”
Are we ok with that?

27. Organisational ethics
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

28. How might we enter
this community?
How might we represent
diversity of experience?
How might we give participants
the power to speak freely?
What are the risks to our
participants and ourselves?
What do we summarise about someone’s
situation, when, and why?
How might we make participants
feel comfortable sharing?
What consequences
might our models have?
Who gets to shape
the data?
What happens
when we leave?
What are the ethics
of the organisation?
Why are you being
asked to do your work?
Positionality Participation Representation
During the project After the project

29. Help an organisation do slightly
better than they might have
done without you
“do good”
Are we ok with that?

30. I know what you’re thinking

31. I know what you’re thinking
who gets to decide what it means to “do good” anyway?

32. Maybe just don’t

33. Ethics is expressed through action

34. Ethics is expressed through action
What should we do or not do in a
particular context?

36. Why are you being
asked to do your work?
What are the ethics
of the organisation?
What consequences
might our models have?
What happens
when we leave?
How might we represent
diversity of experience?
How might we give participants
the power to speak freely?
What are the risks to our
participants and ourselves?
What do we summarise about someone’s
situation, when, and why?
How might we make participants
feel comfortable sharing?
How might we enter
this community?
What right do we have to
participate?
How might we hand over
our power?
Who owns the data?
Who has the right to interpret it?
What is the history of
‘research’ with
this community?
Who gets to
frame questions?
Who gets to shape
the data?

37. Give away your power
“do good”
Are we ok with that?
Acknowledge your limitations

38. And that will help you figure out who gets to decide
You need to establish your ethical framework
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

39. Design has moral consequences,
So be deliberate about your actions,
By continually interrogating your practice

40. It’s all about choices
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

41. Are we ok with that?
Positionality Participation Representation
Before the project During the project After the project

42. Questions?
Reuben Stanton
@absent
@hellopapergiant