Ethics and consumer electronics
Harold Thimbleby · 1999
The design of car (automobile) radios exposes ethical issues in the design of consumer electronics. We show that car radios, despite being manufactured for many years and being a well-understood technology, are unsafe to use. It is implausible that manufacturers design such unsafe devices unwittingly. We argue that complex in-car devices raise clear ethical issues: (i) their complexity of operation demands and diverts driver attention from road safety (social ethics — social responsibility) (ii) the values embedded in their design (e.g., marketing values, seductive styling) are not consistent with their function (design ethics — issues of professional responsibility) Further, we show there is a correspondence between theories of justice and these ethical issues.