What your designs say about you Sebastian Deterding

we are today talking about moral

preservation what is moral and immoral

in trying to change people’s behaviors

by using technology and using design and

I don’t know what you expect but when I

was thinking about that issue I early on

realized what I’m not able to give you

or answers I’m not able to tell you what

is moral immoral because we’re living in

a pluralist society my values can be

radically different from your values

which means that what I consider moral

or immoral based on that might not

necessarily be what you consider moral

or immoral but I also realized that

there is one thing that it could give

you and that is what this guy behind me

gave the world Socrates it is questions

what I can do and what it would like to

do with you is give you like that

initial question a set of questions to

figure out for yourself layer by layer

like peeling an onion getting at the

core of what you believe is moral or

immoral persuasion and I’d like to do

that with a couple of examples of

technologies where people have used game

elements to get people to do things so

that’s the first very simple a very

obvious question I would like to give

you what are your intentions if you’re

designing something and obviously

intentions are not the only thing so

here is another example for on these

applications there are a couple of these

kinds of eco dashboards right now so

dashboards built into cars which try to

motivate you to drive more fuel

efficiently this here is Nissan’s my

leave where your driving behavior is

compared with the driving behavior other

people so you can compete for who drives

around the most fuel efficiently and

these things are very effective it turns

out so effective that they motivate

people to engage in unsafe driving

behaviors like not stopping on a red

headlight because that way you have to

stop and restart the engine and that

would use quite some fuel right wouldn’t

it so despite this being a very you know

well intended application obviously

there is a side effect to that and

here’s another example for one of these

side effect commendable a site that

allows parents to give their kids little

badges for doing the things that parents

want their kids to do like tying their

shoes right and first of all that sound

like very nice very benign well intended

but it turns out if you look into

research on people’s mindset that caring

about outcomes caring about public

recognitions caring about these kinds of

public tokens of recognitions is not

necessarily very helpful for your

long-term psychological well-being it’s

better if you care about learning

something it’s better when you care

about yourself and what how you appear

in front of other people so that kind of

motivational tool that is used actually

in and of itself has a long-term side

effect in that every time we use a

technology that uses something like

public recognition or status were

actually positively endorsing this as a

good and a normal thing to care about

that way possibly having a detrimental

effect on the long-term psychological

well-being of ourselves as a culture so

that’s a second very obvious question

what are the effects of what you’re

doing the effects that you’re having

with the device like less fuel as well

as the effects of the actual tools

you’re using to get people to do things

public recognition now is that all

intention effect well there are some

technologies which obviously combine

both both good long-term and short-term

effects and a positive intention like

Fred Stutzman’s freedom where the whole

point of that application is well you

know we are usually so bombarded with

with tasks and requests by other people

with this device you can shut off the

Internet connectivity of your PC of

choice for a preset amount of time to

actually get some work done and I think

most of us will agree well that’s

something well intended and also has

good consequences right in the words of

Michel Foucault it is a technology of

the self it is a technology that

empowers the individual to determine its

own life course to shape itself but the

problem is as for Co points out that

every technology of the self has a

technology of domination as its flipside

as you see in today’s of modern liberal

democracies the society the state not

only allows us to determine our self to

shape ourselves it also

of us it demands that we optimize

ourselves that we can stroll ourselves

that we self-managed continuously

because that’s the only way in which

such a liberal society works these

technologies want to stay us in want us

to stay in the game that society has

devised for us they want us to fit in

even better they want us to optimize

ourselves to fit in now I don’t say that

is necessarily a bad thing I just think

that this example points us to a general

realization and that is no matter what

technology or design you look at it even

something we consider as well intended

and as good in its effects like fit

Stutzman’s freedom comes with certain

values embedded in it and we can

question these values we can question is

it a good thing that all of us

continuously self optimize ourselves to

fit better into that society or to give

you another example what about a piece

of persuasive technology that convinces

a Muslim women to wear their head

scarves is that a good or a bad

technology in its intentions or in its

effects well that basically depends on

the kind of values that you bring to

bear to make these kinds of judgments so

that’s a third question what values do

you use to judge and speaking of values

I’ve noticed that in a discussion about

moral persuasion online and when I

talking with people more often than not

there is a weird bias and that bias is

that we’re asking is this oh that still

ethical is it still permissible we’re

asking things like is this

Oxfam donation form where the regular

monthly donation is the preset default

and people maybe without intending it or

that way kind of encouraged or not into

giving a regular donation instead of a

one-time donation is that still

permissible is it still ethical we’re

fishing at the low end but in fact that

question is it still ethical it’s just

one way of looking at Alex because if

you look at the beginning of ethics in

and in Western culture you see a very

different idea of what ethics also could

be for Aristotle for Aristotle ethics

was not about the question

is that still good or is it bad ethics

was about the question of how to live

live well and he put that in the words

arrete which we from the Latin

translators virtue but really it means

excellence it means living up to your

own full potential as a human being and

that is an idea that I think poet

Richard Cannon nicely put in a recent a

segue said products of vivid arguments

about how we should live our lives right

our designs are not ethical or unethical

in that they’re amusing ethical or

unethical unethical means of persuading

us they have a moral component just in

the kind of vision and the aspiration of

the good life that they present to us

and if you look into the design

environment around us with that kind of

lens asking what is the vision of the

good life that our products are designed

present to us then you often get the

shivers because of how little we expect

of each other then of how little we

actually seem to expect of our life and

what the good life

looks like so that’s a fourth question

I’d like to leave you with what vision

of the good life do your designs convey

and speaking of design you’ll notice

that I already sort of broadened the

discussion because it’s not just

persuasive technology that we’re talking

about here it’s any piece of design that

we put out here in the world I don’t

know whether you know the great

communication researcher Paul Rex

Lubbock who back in the 60s made the

argument we cannot not communicate right

even if we choose to be silent we chose

to be silent we’re communicating

something by choosing to be silent and

in the same way that we cannot not

communicate we cannot not persuade

whatever we do or refrain from doing

whatever we put out there as a piece of

design into the world has a persuasive

component it tries to affect people it

puts a certain vision of the good life

out there in front of us which is what

pitiful for bakthi Dutch philosopher of

Technology says right no matter whether

we as designers intend it or not we

materialize morality we make certain

things harder and easier to do we

organize the

existence of people we put a certain

vision of what good or bad or normal or

usual is in front of people by

everything we put out there in the world

even something as innocuous as a set of

school chairs is a persuasive technology

because it presents and materializes a

certain vision of the good life

the good life in which teaching and

learning and listening is about one

person teaching the others listening in

which is about learning is done well

sitting in which you learn for yourself

in which you’re not supposed to change

these rules because the chairs are fixed

to the ground and even something as

innocuous as a single design trip like

this one by Arne okosan is a persuasive

technology because again it communicates

an idea of the good life a good life a

life that you say you as a designer

consent to by saying in a good life

goods are produced as sustainably or

unsustainably as this chair right

workers are treated as well or as badly

as the workers which we did that built

that chair good life is a life where

design is important because somebody

obviously took the time and spent the

money for that kind of well-designed

chair what tradition is important

because this is a traditional classic

and someone cared about this and where

there is something as conspicuous

consumption where it is okay and

normally it is spend a humongous amount

of money on such a chair to signal to

other people what your social status is

so these are the kinds of layers the

kind of questions I wanted to lead you

through today the question of what are

the intentions that you bring to bear

when you’re designing something what are

the effects intended and unintended that

you’re having what are the values you’re

using to judge those what are the

virtues the aspirations that you’re

actually expressing in that and how does

that apply not just to persuasive

technology but to everything you design

do we stop there I don’t think so I

think that all of these things are

eventually informed by the core of all

of this and this is nothing but life

itself why when the question of what the

good life is informs everything that we

design should we stop at design and not

ask ourselves how does it apply to our

own life

why should the lamb or the house be an

art object but not our life as Michel

Foucault’s puts it just to give you a

practical example of Buster Benson this

is Buster setting up a pull-up machine

at the office of his new startup habit

labs where they’re trying to build up

other applications like health month for

people and why is he building up the

thing like this well here is the set of

axioms that habit lapse Buster start up

put up for themselves on how they wanted

to work together as a team when they’re

building these applications set of moral

principles they set themselves for

working together and one of them being

we take care of our own health and

manager of our own burnout because

ultimately how can you ask yourselves

and how can you find an answer on what

vision of the good life you want to

convey and create with your designs

without asking the question what vision

of the good life

do you yourself want to live and with

that I thank