Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice

Title of the Paper

Felt Ethics: Cultivating Ethical Sensibility in Design Practice

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Ethics and Aesthetics in Human-Computer Interaction Design
• Keywords: Ethics, Aesthetics, Soma Design, Felt Ethics, Ethical Sensibility, Human-Computer Interaction, Embodied Design, Design Practice, Philosophy, Socio-political Context

Research Background and Problem

• Problem or Challenge:
  • Ethical issues that are invisible but embedded in the design process.
  • Motivating designers to enhance their awareness of their ethical roles to better address ethical challenges in design practice.
  • Many existing design frameworks are insufficient in addressing ethical issues in complex contexts.
• Significance:
  • Designers' ethical sensibility directly impacts the quality of design outputs and their value to individuals and society.
  • Improving design education and research to better address global challenges and technological ethics issues.
• Research Motivation and Related Work:
  • This study is based on the non-dualistic philosophy and embodied aesthetics of Soma design theory, aiming to uncover implicit ethical perspectives in design practice and propose "Felt Ethics" as a pathway for design practice.

Solution

• Proposed Method/Solution:
  • Introduce "Felt Ethics" as a pathway to cultivate designers' ethical sensibility.
  • Employ analytical, pragmatic, and practical approaches to foster ethical sensibility.
  • Promote the visibility and openness of ethics by critically addressing bodily limitations, socio-political contexts, and power structures in the design process.
• Innovative Aspects:
  • Emphasize the close connection between bodily perception and ethical decision-making, rejecting the traditional dichotomy between rationality and emotion.
  • Propose a "care ethics" approach tailored to design practice, enhancing understanding and sensitivity toward design materials, technologies, and non-human agents.
• Implementation Steps and Key Techniques:
  • Cultivating bodily perception in the Soma design process, including methods such as slow walking, Aesthetic Lab, and body mapping.
  • Exploring the socio-cultural, political, and technological mediations of "Felt Ethics" in design-user interaction scenarios.
  • Highlighting discomfort, vulnerability, and risks that may arise during the cultivation of ethical sensibility.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Outcomes:
  • Theoretical Development: In-depth analysis of the inherent ethical stance in Soma design and the proposal of a practical "Felt Ethics" framework.
  • Case Study: Using faucet design as an example, demonstrating the potential for multi-layered ethical sensibility cultivation through tension feedback mechanisms designed for water scarcity.
  • Practice-Oriented Contributions: Proposing specific methods and design attitudes to promote "Felt Ethics."
• Advantages over Existing Solutions:
  • Redefines ethical sensibility in design practice based on the theoretical foundation of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
  • Provides a body-perception-driven method for ethical cultivation, enhancing designers' ability to address complex social and technological issues.
• Experimental or Evaluation Results:
  • The faucet case study shows that through technology-mediated design, users can experience ethical awareness and be guided toward more responsible behaviors during interactions.
  • Soma design methods effectively help designers perceive and reshape their ethical sensibility, offering new perspectives for design practice.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • Limitations: The study primarily adopts a first-person perspective and has not deeply explored ethical conflicts across different cultures and social groups.
  • Future Directions:
    • Investigate the applicability of "Felt Ethics" in various design methodologies.
    • Research on designing for diverse groups and their interaction with ethical perception.
    • Further study the ethical roles of technology and non-human agents (materials, resources, etc.).

Notes

• This paper reinterprets Soma design to provide a multi-layered framework for cultivating ethical sensibility in practice. It calls on designers to address implicit ethical issues in design, leveraging bodily perception and critical reflection to drive innovation in design theory and practice.