Abstract
Design researchers have previously sought to describe, model, and represent the cognitive processes of designers. In parallel, researchers in HCI and STS have identified a range of frameworks to describe the ethical and value-related char-acter of design activity. We have identified a productive gap between these two sets of literature—namely, the role of analytic methods in describing ethical de-cision-making as one aspect of design complexity. In this paper, we describe and explore an approach for quantifying the ethical character of design decision-making, building upon existing critical approaches from HCI and STS literature. Through a series of visualizations at varying temporal scales and numbers of inter-locutors, we seek to describe the ethical complexity of design activity, grounded in a set of ethically focused lab protocol studies. We describe the implications of our approach for mixed methods researchers, including the role of quantitative methods in describing temporal aspects of ethical design complexity.
Keywords
computational approach; ethical concerns; protocol study analysis; quantifying ethics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.223
Citation
Sai Chivukula, S., and M. Gray, C. (2024) Quant-Ethico: An Approach to Quantifying and Interpreting Ethical Decision Making, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.223
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Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Quant-Ethico: An Approach to Quantifying and Interpreting Ethical Decision Making
Design researchers have previously sought to describe, model, and represent the cognitive processes of designers. In parallel, researchers in HCI and STS have identified a range of frameworks to describe the ethical and value-related char-acter of design activity. We have identified a productive gap between these two sets of literature—namely, the role of analytic methods in describing ethical de-cision-making as one aspect of design complexity. In this paper, we describe and explore an approach for quantifying the ethical character of design decision-making, building upon existing critical approaches from HCI and STS literature. Through a series of visualizations at varying temporal scales and numbers of inter-locutors, we seek to describe the ethical complexity of design activity, grounded in a set of ethically focused lab protocol studies. We describe the implications of our approach for mixed methods researchers, including the role of quantitative methods in describing temporal aspects of ethical design complexity.