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