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Embodying altruism in interaction design: towards moralising HCI

Published: 28 November 2017 Publication History

Abstract

As digital technologies permeate all aspects of our lives, their ethical and moral implications assume a central role in discussions among researchers across the fields of philosophy and design. Yet, there seems to be little consensus as to where the agency or responsibility lies in technological systems. In this paper, we argue that morality is a significant aspect of the design process, requiring deliberate attention and consideration in the design and development of new technologies and systems. We aim to address the issue of morality, starting from the perspective of altruism. In support of our argument, we present a theoretical analytical design schema - referred to as the Mediated Tendency Towards Altruism (MeTTA). The MeTTA classifies various aspects of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) systems. Through this approach, we propose to evaluate the 'altruistic tendency' of a design solution, to gauge how HCI can materialise the conditions to embody altruism in design artefacts and posit that this approach could serve as a model for other moral perspectives. We conclude by discussing how the MeTTA design schema could be used as a basis for further inquiry towards understanding and taxonomy of a moral continuum in HCI.

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Altruism in Design: Conveying Designers’ Thoughtfulness to Users Through ArtifactsHCI International 2023 Posters10.1007/978-3-031-35989-7_7(53-59)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2023
  • (2020)Designing human-god interfacesProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202010.1145/3404983.3409997(393-397)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2020

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  1. Embodying altruism in interaction design: towards moralising HCI

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    OzCHI '17: Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction
    November 2017
    678 pages
    ISBN:9781450353793
    DOI:10.1145/3152771
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 28 November 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. HCI
    2. altruism
    3. applied ethics
    4. moralising technology
    5. morality

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    OzCHI '17
    OzCHI '17: 29th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
    November 28 - December 1, 2017
    Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

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    OzCHI '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 74 of 157 submissions, 47%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%

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    • (2023)Altruism in Design: Conveying Designers’ Thoughtfulness to Users Through ArtifactsHCI International 2023 Posters10.1007/978-3-031-35989-7_7(53-59)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2023
    • (2020)Designing human-god interfacesProceedings of Mensch und Computer 202010.1145/3404983.3409997(393-397)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2020

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