Dangers of designing with data

Abstract

In an analytical discussion structured by the framework of social justice, we scrutinize the shift of attention and focus in the HCI and interaction design communities towards “designing with data”. Specifically, acknowledging social justice as a horizon for design research to work towards [10], we investigate the six strategies for social justice as developed by Lötter [24], namely, recognition, reciprocity, enablement, distribution, accountability, and transformation. For each of these dimensions, we demonstrate how the inherent features associated with data-oriented design processes may be a substantial impediment to our attempt toward a more just society