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April 23, 2005

Designer as Moral Agent

Notes from discussions on ethics, politics, and organizations from Dick Buchanan's organizational design class:

The first formal discussions about ethics in design were in the mid-90s, but ethics has become a matter we just can't not discuss. It's how we can distinguish between well-done design and design that shouldn't be done. It's about what can be done when we're asked to do work that is questionable. It's about consequences; if there were no consequences to what we design, there'd be no need for ethics.

In discussing ethics, we need to make the distinction between preferences and values, although this can be very difficult. Preferences reside in us. They are personal choices that range from whether one likes chocolate ice cream to whether one believes in the death penalty. Most of the things we run into in the world are preferences, and they have their roots in psychology and culture. Values reside in things in the world. Values spring from two sources: faith and reason.

This of course, brings us to the problem of pluralism. We know there is a pluralism of preferences, but is there a pluralism of values? Is there one truth with many ways of saying it?

Values and preferences gives rise to judgments, and design is about making judgments. Not judgments after the fact, but before. To be a moral agent means to make choices informed by ethics. Thus, designers should be moral agents.

There are four parts to being a moral agent as a designer:

How does one talk about or evaluate a moral act? By looking at three things: the nature of the act, the circumstances of the act, and the motives for the act. Motives can be personal or ethical.

How do designers deal with the clients they serve? Do designers adopt the client's preferences? Nazi design was both exquisite and horrible. How then do we relate to clients and the organizations that hire us when we have a responsibility to create a world that is better and does less harm? There needs to be a balance between the designer's personal ethics and the company's ethics. And if a balance cannot be struck, a designer may have to change the values of an organization.

One of the roles design can play is to draw out operating values. Designers can encourage conversations that help identify what values the group really holds. When a value is held collectively, it's no longer a preference. How do you find the common values between people? You can do what designers do: visualize them with diagrams, images, words. Seeing them makes people less cynical and can help facilitate the workings of people.

Ethics is about how we deal with emotions in the workplace: how we handle our own emotions and the emotions of other people. What emotions are appropriate, and when and why. Emotions are a central part of our work.

Posted by Dan at 11:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 22, 2005

Final Draft

I reached another milestone this week: I finished what is hopefully my final draft of my thesis paper. It's about 30 pages long, but still needs to be formatted, copyedited, and printed on heavy stock. But that's for the future; I'm just glad the writing is done.

Posted by Dan at 06:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thesis Project Beta Prototype

Please play with the beta version of the FilePiles prototype (~1mb swf)! I'd appreciate any feedback or comments you can give me.

Some thing that aren't obvious:

Hopefully, everything else will be more obvious. Remember that it's still a work in progress, so some stuff is still in development.

Posted by Dan at 05:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 20, 2005

Senioritis

With my post-school job settled and graduation looming, I've got the disease that affects millions of high school seniors every year: senioritis: the inability to do schoolwork or to care about the schoolwork you do do. I'm fighting it, but not very effectively. Which is bad news for my remaining schoolwork.

Posted by Dan at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

Readings in Ethics, Politics, and Values in Design

For the last section of Organizational Design class we're reading chapters one and two from Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research by Caroline Whitbeck and "Design Ethics" by Dick Buchanan from the Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics.

Posted by Dan at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 17, 2005

Job

My job search really began in earnest, although I was only half-aware of it at the time, last August at a backyard barbecue in Somerville, MA during DIS when Chad Thornton introduced me to Peter Merholtz, who offhandedly asked me when I was graduating. After another meeting with Peter in January, a long talk with CEO Janice Fraser at the IA Summit in March, and finally a day of interviews two weeks ago with most of the rest of the team, I was offered and accepted a job as a senior interaction designer at Adaptive Path. I start about a month after I graduate.

Although AP is a great company with some amazing opportunities and an impressive set of benefits and perks, I did agonize over the decision. I met with some very impressive companies and was even offered a job at some of them. But in the end, you have make your best guess based on the offers you get and hope it works out.

In some ways, it's easier to design strategies for companies than for your own life. It's tough to figure out where you want to go, and how to get there. You need, well, an adaptive path to find your way.

Posted by Dan at 10:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Dark Suit, Black Tie

Today was the second time in two years that I've dressed in a dark suit with a black tie to attend a memorial service for someone affiliated with CMU design. I hope it is the last.

Posted by Dan at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack