Design and Ethics of Product Impact on User Behavior and Use Practices
Dorrestijn Steven · Ambient intelligence and smart environments · 2009
Smart technologies and progressive automation raise questions concerning the use of such technologies. The design challenge to enhance usability cannot be seen apart from the broader societal, and ethical concern of how technologies are accommodated in a way of living. The designer's tinkering to improve usability, is therefore an ethically relevant practice, as is the consumers engagement with new technologies. Explicit consideration and design of product impact can help to improve the accommodation of technology. The ethical problem of product impact and freedom is treated by elaborating that product impact not so much infringes on freedom but provokes specific forms of freedom.