See no evil? Ethics in an interventionist ICTD

This paper considers some of the ethical questions that arise in conducting interventionist ICTD research, and examines the ethical advice and guidance that is readily available to researchers. Recent years have seen a growing interest from technology researchers in applying their skills to address the needs and aspirations of people in developing regions. In contrast to much previous research in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) which has sought to study and understand processes surrounding technologies, technology researchers are interested in finding ways to change the forms of these technologies in order to promote desirable social aims. These more interventionist research encounters raise distinctive ethical challenges. This paper explores the discussions that have been presented in the major ICTD journals and conferences and major development studies journals as well as examining codes of conduct from related fields of research. Exploration of this literature shows that the quantity, quality and detail of advice that directly addresses the challenges of interventionist ICTD is actually very limited. This paper argues that the there is an urgent need for the ICTD research community to investigate and debate this subject

Towards an understanding of human behaviour for design action

It can be shown that exceeding both utilitarian and hedonic needs of consumers leads towards greater satisfaction, delight and enduring consumer loyalty. If designers are to meet the progressively diverse needs of consumers, then access to consumer values, aspirations and the underlying logic of their social practice become increasingly important. If we accept that what people say, do and think are often different things, gaining access to these requirements is clearly a challenge. The challenge is not only concerned with how these requirements are accessed at source, through widely adopted ethnographically inspired techniques, but more towards how these requirements are communicated to the designer. There is a clear disconnect between the collection of consumer requirements and how these requirements are arranged and communicated as implications for design. This thesis details a governance framework for the output of ethnographically inspired research methods to provide an understanding of the arrangement and attributes a communication tool for ethnographic work should possess, particularly towards the more technical area of new product development. The framework bridges a gap between consumer research and design action, which may be used as an approach to facilitate innovation, targeted problem solving and offer creative direction for new product development. Following an exploratory review of the literature and a series of way-finding interviews with domestic appliance and consumer goods manufacturers, a pilot study was conducted to identify the philosophical and practical barriers faced by designers, when designing for consumer requirements beyond the functional. A detailed second level literature review explored the emergent themes and led towards a desktop review of over 30 different creative thinking design tools from the design & emotion movement, 24 different communication approaches for ethnographic work in design and a two year case study on communication within the design process

Reflecting on the usability of research on culture in designing interaction

The concept of culture has been attractive to producers of interactive\ud systems who are willing to design useful and relevant solutions to users\ud increasingly located in culturally diverse contexts. Despite a substantial body of\ud research on culture and technology, interaction designers have not always been\ud able to apply these research outputs to effectively define requirements for\ud culturally diverse users. This paper frames this issue as one of understanding of\ud the different paradigms underpinning the cultural models being applied to\ud interface development and research. Drawing on different social science theories,\ud the authors discuss top-down and bottom-up perspectives in the study of users‟\ud cultural differences and discuss the extent to which each provides usable design\ud knowledge. The case is made for combining bottom-up and top-down perspectives\ud into a sociotechnical approach that can produce knowledge useful and usable by\ud interaction designers. This is illustrated with a case study about the design of\ud interactive systems for farmers in rural Kenya