The Ethics of Design for User Needs

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-73192-6
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 174 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 435 g

This book offers an inquiry into the ethics of ‘human needs capture’ for design purposes by drawing upon ethical theories and narratives.

Designers have historically relied upon the satisfaction of human needs as a moral justification for their profession. This volume offers an alternative critique to challenge this perspective, arguing that seeking to satisfy needs doesn't offer sufficient moral justification on its own. It presents an extensive ethical analysis of the notion of need and develops a thought-provoking case for a plural reconceptualisation of the notion of ‘need’ as user-based knowledge about product and service improvement opportunities. It does this by drawing upon a range of ethical approaches including Soran Reader’s needs ethics, classical utilitarianism, Robert Nozick’s libertarian philosophy, and John Rawls’ theory of justice. The book goes on to link these approaches to concepts guiding design such as human-centred design, collaborative design, and end user innovation. Written as a dialogue between a designer and his consciousness, the book underlines the deliberative nature of applied design ethics, and also highlights how consciousness challenges designers to solve their moral dilemmas. This engaging format invites readers to become an intimate part of the ‘discussion’.

This book will be of interest to students and academics studying product design, industrial design, interaction design, user experience design, design ethics, and sustainable development.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Professional Reference, Undergraduate Advanced, and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Keinonen, Turkka

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Design Produktdesign, Industriedesign
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. A need thief 2. Helping to exist 3. Design ethical calculus 4. Copyrighting needs 5. Fairness through design 6. Tools of decontextualisation 7. Designer’s duty 8. More than one narrative 9. User needs refinery

Über Autor(innen)

Turkka Keinonen is Professor of design at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Finland. He has worked for Finnish design consultancies, been a principal research scientist at the Nokia Research Center, and worked as Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore. He has published more than 100 articles, conference papers, and patents on human-centred design, concept design, and design strategy. His recent research deals with the ethics of human-centred design.