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Scaffolding of Interaction Design Education Towards Ethical Design Thinking

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Design Thinking in Higher Education

Part of the book series: Design Science and Innovation ((DSI))

Abstract

The introduction of any technology brings with it a set of assumptions about what is valued by a culture or society. Along with the explosion of design thinking and user experience in industry worldwide, this has led to a rethinking of how to educate design professionals equipped to work in a world of continual technologically driven innovation. We address this challenge by reflecting on our experiences as interaction design educators in an Australian higher education context. We discuss the success and failure of initiatives we have employed in our Master of Interaction Design courses to orient students to a value sensitivity in their design process and practice, such as explicit consideration of personal and professional ethics, value-sensitive design and dystopian critical design proposals. We conclude with suggestions for an educational agenda of ethical design thinking for interaction design, based on a set of six competencies, that can scaffold the development of designers who can advocate for ethical positions and can imbue their design proposals with value systems that support human and planetary flourishing.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/acs-documents/Code-of-Ethics.pdf.

  2. 2.

    https://www.ethicsfordesigners.com, http://ethicskit.org/tools.html, https://medium.com/ethics-kit/are-you-post-normal-a-primer-for-designing-ethically-c7ccff2cc64.

  3. 3.

    https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/acs-documents/Code-of-Ethics.pdf.

  4. 4.

    https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Lian Loke & Ben Matthews

  2. University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Lian Loke & Ben Matthews

Authors
  1. Lian Loke
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  2. Ben Matthews
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Correspondence to Lian Loke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorne, VIC, Australia

    Gavin Melles

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Loke, L., Matthews, B. (2020). Scaffolding of Interaction Design Education Towards Ethical Design Thinking. In: Melles, G. (eds) Design Thinking in Higher Education. Design Science and Innovation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5780-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5780-4_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-5779-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-5780-4

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