Designers, Users and Justice 9781474245043, 9781474244992, 9781474245005

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Designers, Users and Justice

Designers, Users and Justice TURKKA KEINONEN

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Turkka Keinonen, 2017 Turkka Keinonen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: 978-1-4742-4504-3 ePDF: 978-1-4742-4500-5 ePub: 978-1-4742-4501-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Keinonen, Turkka, author. Title: Designers, users and justice / Turkka Keinonen. Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. Identifiers: LCCN 2016041077| ISBN 9781474245043 (hardback) | ISBN 9781474245005 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Design--Philosophy. | Design--Social aspects. | BISAC: DESIGN / General. | DESIGN / Product. | DESIGN / History & Criticism. Classification: LCC NK1505 .K45 2017 | DDC 745.4--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016041077 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN

To Reino Keinonen Hero in justice

Contents Preface  ix

1 The First Dialogue on A Virtuous Method  1



Instruments and consequences  7 Adventures and assurances  13 Competences and virtues  19 Agendas and maxims  25 Internal good of design  27 Notes  37

2 The Second Dialogue on Quality of Use or Life  41



User with a multiple personality  45 Anti-usability  51



Neighbor-centered design  57 Worth of use  65 Imagining a practice  69 Impartially opinionated  78 Notes  82

3 The Third Dialogue on Applicability  85



Ignored use  93 Conviction-critical use  96 Justified exclusion  100 Tolerance for emergence  105 From usability to applicability  110 Notes  117

viii Contents

4 The Fourth Dialogue on Utilitarian User Experience  121



Bentham today  124 Pleasure and pain  130 Against utility  142 User exertion  149 A word with two meanings  154 Notes  158

5 The Fifth Dialogue on Articulating Justice in Design  161



Conductors of justice  162 Division of labor to ensure justice  165 Flourishing hybrids  171 Compromising wellbeing  177 Trading in human dignity  183 Notes  187

6 The Sixth Dialogue on Being in A Transitional Position  191



Controversies and moderations  192 Design as a contract  200 Notes  207

Bibliography  209 Index  219

Preface M

y point of departure is the designer’s mission to serve people, satisfying their needs and creating wellbeing. Often we speak about the users for whom we design, who acquire the things we have designed, and use them for their own purposes and purposes we have suggested. Sometimes these users are the products of our imagination, but often they are real. Perhaps they have no other choice but to use our designs. Or perhaps it is their neighbor who acquires and uses our designs—vehicles, entertainment electronics, garments—and they have little option but to tolerate this. It all comes down to use, whoever is using the design. They may end up disliking their neighbor for having such a flamboyant car, noisy stereo or provocative outfit, while actually they should dislike us, the designers, and we should realize that. Designers have a responsibility to help ensure that people like their neighbors. That is why I suggest that design should be seen as a societal function that distributes pleasures and pains, resources for good life, and capabilities to achieve valuable goals. It influences distributional justice. This book contributes to the ethics of human-centered design. Humancentered design is an orientation of design that pays serious attention to involving users and other stakeholders, with all their needs, wishes, and contextual requirements of use, in the design process from its very beginning to the end. If I were to explain my motivation in writing this book in humancentered design terms, I could say I have long believed in and worked to promote ideas of usability and user experience but have found them inadequate. A new angle is needed. Usability is a branch of human-centered design that focuses on evaluating users’ ability to complete tasks with devices and systems. I wrote my postgraduate theses about inclusive design, usability, and consumers’ decision-making in the mid-1990s and became familiar with usability. I observed, as did many others, that usability was too achievementoriented and instrumental to be seen as a fundamental goal and framework for human-centered design, and switched my attention to user experience. User experience pays attention to aesthetics, hedonic experiences, memories and dreams, social context and others in addition to users’ capability to achieve practical goals. It focuses on subjective experience and perception of use. But then I became disappointed with the idea of user experience as well,

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finding it too hedonistic and conceptually diluted. The world or the way we see it has changed, and I am confident that design is more than ever needed to address deeper issues than hedonic pleasures. Another angle needs to be found if we want human-centered design to remain relevant. Most of my colleagues would say this new angle is collaborative or participatory design, which elevates users from being subjects of user studies to active and equal contributors of design alongside professional designers. I don’t disagree, but in this book I start by looking for the answer from another direction—one that we could perhaps call “responsible design” or design for justice. I will turn the lens from answering the usual question of how to design products that are good for their users towards a seldom-asked question: how can we ethically justify human-centered design? A key concept in this book is distributional justice, which refers to the justice of allocating assets, happiness, or possibilities of action between individuals. Design is a form of human behavior. Some say it is particular to and characteristic of humans. This means that just design is almost equal to justice, and design ethics is almost equal to ethics. There are more than enough academic traditions in which we study just distribution; ethics, welfare economics, and the political philosophy of distributional justice are the ones addressed in this book. The sociology of consumption and the adoption of new technologies are also relevant to the discussion. Thus, I had to be selective and decided to trust the classics. I refer to Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Alasdair MacIntyre, Amartya Sen, and Martha Nussbaum. For a person like me, who has been designing what we call “new technologies” such as digital communication and industrial automation, and who believed that design has recently changed to something it has never been before, it has been healthy to notice how much the classics have to offer in terms of understanding the design of today. The book is written in a dialogue format. In its six dialogues there are plenty of questions, arguments, and assumptions, and these are questioned and debated in a way that can more usefully take place in a dialogue between two people trying to make sense of these issues, than in a document where a sovereign author dictates how they should be understood. I hope and believe that, considering the nature of the topic under discussion, this informal approach can be fruitful. Presenting the results in another format implying confidence in the proposals put forward would be misleading. The discussants are Scholar and Practitioner. Scholar is the more talkative of the two. He shares his personal experiences and knowledge of human-centered design, ethics, and justice. He seems to be excited to have an interested audience. Practitioner is not ignorant about design theory either, but he mostly contributes by asking questions about how design

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should be practised in a “just” manner. But why don’t I let them speak for themselves? –

Hi, Scholar! May I bother you for a minute? Would you like to introduce yourself to the reader? S: I don’t know what to say. Why don’t we let Practitioner introduce me and then I can introduce him? – That’s a good idea. Practitioner, did you hear that? P: I did. Well, Scholar is a teacher of human-centered design. He’s critical and reflective and seems to have a hard time believing in what he’s been teaching about human-centered design. That can make him a bit hard to follow. He’s not very good at understanding what we practitioners already know and sometimes he gets carried away by his own elaboration of a topic. When he gets sidetracked, he tends to lose the thrust of his main argument. S: Thanks. I guess you’re right. I suppose I assumed you already knew quite a lot. P: I do. S: What should I say about you? You’re very sensitive to the idea of “justice” in your own practice, and eager to learn. You ask good questions, summarize my incomplete explanations, and keep me on track when I start to digress from my argument. You also contribute with your theoretical knowledge, so that I no longer know who’s the scholar and who’s the practitioner. Well, I also have a history of having practiced design. We often face questions that we answer with somewhat questionable simplifications. In these cases I ask that you agree to accept my simplified interpretation so that we can continue. I feel that we create interpretations together, even though I’m the more vocal one. I also let or even push you to summarize and crystallize the results of our discussions. I hesitate to wrap up long discussions with only a few words, but I don’t mind you doing it. We are not really very different. P: Thanks. – Thanks guys. This format in which Scholar and Practitioner discuss ethical questions could perhaps be called a “Socratic dialogue.” “Socratic dialogue” refers to the manner in which Socrates in Plato’s famous texts challenged his fellow Athenians by questioning their assumptions. It also refers to an educational process based on examples and counter-examples. The process helps the learners to understand their own assumptions, reject their false preconceptions, and learn more coherent conceptions. Scholar’s and Practitioner’s discussions are in some respects Socratic. They are “indirect, ingressive and

xii Preface

incomplete” (Khan 1998: xiv), they deal with fundamental issues of design and ethics, they are based on questioning, and they challenge Scholar’s, Practitioner’s, the author’s, and hopefully the reader’s assumptions. Scholar and Practitioner take turns to present ideas about use, users, design, and justice in both concrete and abstract terms.1 The dialogues are also a process of self-scrutiny for Scholar and Practitioner, by which they confront their own preconceptions and engage in collaborative sense-making. However, both the ingenuity of Socrates on the streets of Athens and the rigorous educational process of Socratic dialogue are more systematic and more sophisticated learning vehicles than Scholar and Practitioner’s dialogues. Without the proper Socratic qualities we could perhaps call their talks a Schönian dialogue. Donald Schön’s example of teacher Quist and student Petra engaging in a reflective process of elaborating an architectural plan is well known to designers. Quist and Petra used pen and paper, but that is not always necessary for reflection. Schön’s second example is of a therapy dialogue between an anonymous Supervisor and a Resident (Schön 1983: 105–27). Schön uses this to show how dialogue is equally a platform for reflective sense-making. Scholar every now and then attempts to tell Practitioner something that he already knows, but the outcomes of the discussions are nevertheless unknown to both of them at the beginning and the dialogue is a way for them to reflect and learn. In this respect, Scholar and Practitioner tell a true story about the author, who has been using their discussion as a way to approach both the answers and the questions the dialogues deal with. A topical reason for writing the book has been my experience in design for wellbeing. Helsinki was the world design capital in 2012, and I was in charge of one of the projects associated with the programme. My project, “365 Wellbeing” (Keinonen, Vaajakallio, and Honkonen 2013), as well as much of the larger umbrella programme, “Living+” (Kinnunen, Kivelä, and TyyriPohjonen 2013) run by Aalto University, addressed the social responsibility of design. But as is customary in design, and life, it’s difficult to engage in deeper reflection when your days are busy. We did not have much time to conceptualize or reflect on what we did and learned. At the end of the year, I felt no wiser about questions of design, wellbeing, equality, and social justice, even though those were the areas in which we had been working. Fortunately, an opportunity to think about these issues arose not long after, in 2013, when I was able to take a research sabbatical with the support of the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The six dialogues in this book try to be faithful to the ways in which they were born. The structure of the discussions is based on my associ­ations and thus can be read as a rough description of his research process. That is why some ideas appear in perhaps somewhat surprising contexts. A topic

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starts in one dialogue and continues in another. But there is also some structure. The first dialogue focuses on design methods. It is based on the idea that the choice of a righteous design method can be a route to the ethical justification of design activity. Doing design ethically would lead to ethical design. Scholar and Practitioner observe, however, that methods and outcomes do not seem to be ethically commensurate. The dialogue includes a short discussion about the different ethical bases that various design approaches seem to imply. Eventually Scholar and Practitioner decide to lean on virtues and the internal goods of a practice as clarified by Alasdair MacIntyre. They notice that certain ways of designing make design a more virtuous and ethically sustainable practice and that this can be used as a guideline to decide how we work. The dialogue leans on probes—tasks given to users to document and reflect on their experiences and perceptions—as an example to illustrate the links between methodological choices and ethical evaluations.2 The second dialogue addresses the quality of use. It includes criticism of usability and user experience in terms of their conception of the user. In the dialogue, Scholar and Practitioner recognize five standpoints that users can assume. Users in these standpoints have conflicting interests and, consequently, are diagnosed as having a serious case of multiple personality disorder. The dialogue ends with Scholar and Practitioner proposing to broaden the evaluative framework of use to include the practices where the use takes place. The third dialogue focuses on usability and the capability approach. The capability approach is a conceptual framework of distributive justice. It claims that individuals’ capabilities to do and be what they want, within reason, should be the criterion of justice and development. The dialogue identifies that design, usability, and capability are all concepts bridging resources and achievements. The dialogue outlines a version of usability that is sensitive to distributional justice and to the principles of the capability approach. Scholar and Practitioner propose a new definition and a new name for usability. In the fourth dialogue, Scholar and Practitioner claim that user experience and Jeremy Bentham’s version of utilitarianism are similar in many essential respects. Utilitarianism is an ethical school that believes happiness is the most important quality of life and that maximizing the happiness of all is the goal of development and the rule for just decision-making. That being the case, the sharp criticisms of utilitarianism as the foundation for justice should also apply to our more recent conception of user experience. Scholar and Practitioner seek to criticize user experience accordingly and propose a new more righteous version of it.

xiv Preface

In the fifth dialogue, Scholar and Practitioner present a set of ethical heuristics. They continue discussing the links between the capability approach and design, but most importantly their dialogue suggests that the ethical responsibility of designers lies in making their assumptions transparent. This discussion, more so than the others, leans on a case study: a service design called Transfer Ticket. Finally the sixth dialogue summarizes the main points of the previous discussions and presents the design process and the responsible designer’s state of mind as a situation where a contract is drafted in a “transitional position.” The idea follows John Rawls’ philosophy. Rawls claims that the principles of a just society can be outlined in “the original position” behind “veils of ignorance.” Behind these veils, decision-makers do not know their own societal position and status. Thus, their decisions are impartial and give priority to the worst-off in the distribution of goods. There are a few hand-drawn illustrations at the beginning of the chapters. They are not captioned and as such serve as a sort of visual quiz referring to certain key aspects of the dialogues. I want to thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation for a grant enabling the writing of the book. I am also grateful to Umeå Institute of Design and the School of Design and Environment at the National University of Singapore for fruitful research visits. Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture agreed on special arrangements to enable me to focus on writing. Comments from anonymous reviewers have been most helpful for improving the earlier drafts. Anita deserves special recognition for her tolerance for a husband who probably has done more justice to his work than to his spouse. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. Turkka Keinonen Helsinki

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Notes 1

For applying Socratic dialogue in professional ethics and teacher education, see, e.g., Van Hooft (1999), Fitzgerald and van Hooft (2000), Morrell (2004), Skordoulis and Dawson (2007), Gose (2009), and Knezic et al. (2010).

2

This chapter is partly based on a keynote lecture I gave in Lugano in 2009 (Keinonen 2009b).

1 The First Dialogue on A Virtuous Method

I

n this dialogue Scholar and Practitioner discuss whether it is possible to make designers’ efforts virtuous by choosing an ethical design method. They immediately notice that “design method” is a conceptually unclear idea that allows plenty of leeway for interpretations. Scholar presents a minimal definition of a method as a specific way to work that has been given a name. However, the two of them conclude that this definition is too generic. Scholar then proposes that design methods could be seen as instruments, competences, or agendas. First they discuss method as an instrument and link it to classical utilitarianism, Rawls’ difference principle, and Sen’s capability approach. Then they talk about a method as designers’ competence and MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, which links designers’ ethical behavior to enhancing the professional practice of design. They remember that design problems are ill defined and discuss the challenge of combining adherence to an ethical method with creative reflection and the designer’s professional role. They realize that being ethical while engaging in design is difficult, because design requires us to abandon known models of behavior, including the virtuous ones. Then they speak about methods as overt manifestations of ideological stands—as agendas. They notice that no matter how they frame a method, they do not reach an ethical perfection. In the middle of the ethical discussion, Practitioner wants to choose probes as a design method to make the different ethical stands more understandable and concrete. Practitioner and Scholar arrive at a dead end. They are not happy, because their intuition says that method choices have an ethical dimension. They take a new tack and address method choice from the point of view of professional virtue. They change their angle from users’ benefits to the development of design practice, and make headway. Finally Practitioner can summarize the discussion, saying that we should choose a method whose use enhances design. The dialogue begins …

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DESIGNERS, USERS AND JUSTICE

P: Hi, Scholar! S: Hi, Practitioner! Good to see you. Have a seat. P: Thanks. S: How are you? P: Good. And you? S: Very good. P: Thanks for making time for me. S: No problem. I understand you have something particular in mind. P: I do. Now, I hope this doesn’t sound too negative or desperate, but I feel that I’m no longer very motivated to keep doing what I’m doing. I have a bit of a professional identity crisis. S: I’m not a motivational psychologist. P: I’m not looking for therapy. S: Fine. If you’re interested in discussing what makes design meaningful, that’s something we can do. P: That’s exactly what I was hoping to talk about. S: Good. So do you have a particular problem? A difficult customer? P: Nothing like that. I studied design and begun practicing, but I’ve started to feel that design is futile. We merely create products that do no real good—or if they do, the only ones who benefit are those who already have an abundance of material wealth. We harm individuals, corrupt the social structure, and jeopardize the balance of the environment. S: Creating beauty doesn’t seem to be enough for you. P: You’re being sarcastic. S: Sorry. P: Well, I like to solve design problems for people and bring beauty into people’s everyday lives,1 but it’s not enough that I’m happy to do creative work and design beautiful, nicely working gadgets. They don’t justify what I do, my role and identity as a designer. I want to do something that is more fundamentally meaningful and righteous. I’d like to understand how to design in a way that contributes to the development of a just society. I’d like to know how I should conduct my practice to be a righteous professional.



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S: You’re not the only one who has been bothered by the lack of responsibility and justice in the field of design.2 P: I know. That isn’t an original frustration, which makes it even worse. The whole profession should be concerned about this. S: Yes, we should, and many are. But there are also several ways we can design in a way that contributes to the development of a just society. Think about human-centered design. Doesn’t obeying its principles help you to serve your fellow citizens? P: I’ve been thinking that doing good for the users of our designs by following the principles and using the methods of user-centered design—or humancentered3 if you prefer—would ensure that my designs promote justice, but I’m not so sure about that any more. S: Why? P: User-centered design4 is fragmented. Different interpretations address use as sometimes too subjective and hedonic, and sometimes as too instrumental to ensure that design contributes to the development of a just society. At least that’s what I think. But I haven’t been able to articulate my concerns clearly. I guess that’s why I wanted to talk with you. S: I don’t have any off-the-shelf answers either, but we can try to figure out something together. P: Perfect. S: We need some sort of point of departure. Do you have anything more tangible in mind? P: I might have something, but I’m not sure if it’s a good starting point. S: Yes? P: I’m a practicing designer. I have clients and assignments. I believe I exercise a greater influence by doing rather than by speaking. S: Those are overlapping categories. P: Maybe. But let me continue. The philosophies of user-centered design influence—or don’t, as the case may be—the wellbeing of people through our practical design decisions. That’s how I see it. S: Fair enough for a practitioner. P: Thanks. I have specialized in user-centered design. Since that is my role and stand, I’m trusted to choose and use approaches and methods for involving

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users in design. I feel that it’s my responsibility to choose methods that are not only practical and economical, but also the most ethical and righteous. I assume that the way we design is a choice with an ethical dimension—under the umbrella of user-centered design we should always consider ethics. But I don’t know how to go about doing this. I don’t know how to ensure that my choices of methods will be just. I don’t know what kind of ethical merit my designs deserve based on my methodological choices. S: Methods are non-commensurable. Trying to compare the practical merits or righteousness of methods is a dead end.

Choosing a method is a choice we have, even when we can’t decide about other aspects of our work.

P: Could we still discuss the topic? I believe the question has practical relevance even though it might be difficult to examine from a scholarly angle. As I said, we’re usually free to choose a method—or perhaps we can generalize and say choose a way to work—even when we can’t decide about many other aspects of our work. The topic of a project is often assigned to us, as we work for firms and clients. But usually we can choose how we work and that is where our clients trust us to help them. Even though it’s difficult to make ethical comparisons at a general level, I as a practitioner often face situations where I need to choose between alternative methods that can be applied for the same … S: … or roughly speaking for the same purpose. P: I understand that the choice of method can lead to slight changes in the purpose of a design. S: Maybe we can focus on alternative ways of applying a method. That would make our choices more commensurable. We can assume that you have an anchor point, so to speak, and then it would be up to you to decide how to interpret and apply that in your particular context. The anchor point might make the alternatives commensurable. P: I think we’re now focusing on something insignificant. S: I wouldn’t say so. Adjusting is essential and meaningful. Methods for user-centered design—I think we exclude other methods, knowing that the borderline is fuzzy—are often vaguely defined. Sometimes even applying them incorrectly, I mean in a way that doesn’t follow the textbook, might be the best way to achieve good results (Woolrych et al. 2011).



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P: I see. We have to use the methods for our own purposes rather than let them dictate what we do. S: Correct. Adjusting methods might require you to go beyond the script—to rewrite part of it. When we focus on adjusting, we narrow down the generic question about the choice between ethically relevant approaches by looking at comparable cases. At the same time we keep our options open so that we can talk about ethical ways to design in general. Starting from the anchor point—or in other words the script of the method—we can proceed in any direction. P: This wouldn’t make sense if our courses of action were exactly scripted and the method scripts couldn’t be challenged. S: Design method scripts tend to be loose and they can be challenged. Can we agree on that? P: Of course. We tend to work with so-called “innovative” user-centered design methods (Hanington 2003), which are characteristically openly defined and require creative interpretation each time we use them. This creativity is often more essential than rigid and rigorous explication of the prevailing state of affairs, as is the case with traditional research methods. S: Also, more conservative and established methods like usability-testing share the same character. When you carry out a usability test, your choices are still numerous after you’ve read the textbook and before you start working on your actual case (Woolrych et al. 2011). Design methods are methods in a rather weak meaning of the word. My colleagues have actually used organizing a party as a metaphor for design methods (Ylirisku and Buur 2007: 34). You choose the place, invite people, and offer them a drink and then the party happens. Choosing the venue, people, and drinks is the script, but the party is more than that. The script of the method can be short and generic. P: What’s the point then of speaking about methods at all? S: You’re starting to behave like a scholar. P: I don’t know if that was a compliment. S: You can take it as one. Well, there might be plenty of other answers, but I see design methods, especially when we speak about the development of new methods for human-centered design, as an attempt to link emerging conceptions of design with design practice and the other way round. Design methods draw on the accumulated lessons learned from the practice and the implications of theory for practice. We can understand the method script as a principle and an experienced designer’s intuition regarding a particular case as relevant polar pairs of a reflective equilibrium in which neither is prioritized by

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default.5 Many ideas have been presented about how to integrate users and their needs with design activity. These include design for user experience, emotional design, empathic design, affective design, persuasive computing, co-design, end-user innovation, service design, transformation design, and worth-centered design. However, to have an impact on how designers work, we need more than manifestos. Emerging design challenges and new conceptions of design require new ways of working and there has to be some coherence among them. There’s a tendency to formalize ways of working as something we call design methods. As a conceptual structure, a method enables accumulating experiences of its use, sharing these experiences with colleagues, and systematic explorations with it. And a “method” makes it possible to publish about how we work (Keinonen 2009b). P: They seem to be more important for you than for us. S: I don’t object. When we interview your colleagues, many of them say that they don’t use any methods at all, although we were able to use “methods” to describe how they design. But as I said, the methods do not or should not determine practitioners’ actions. A competent practitioner’s designs draw on intuition, reading of the situation, experience, and routine patterns of behavior alike. A simple and open conception of a method, and one that I suggest we choose to use, is to say that a design method is a certain way of working that has been given a name—no more, no less. When the design community has agreed to label a set of activities with enough coherence in objectives, actions, ideology, and such with a particular name, then we have a method. … Sorry. I’m drifting off topic.

A design method is a specific way to work that has been given a name.

P: No reason to apologize. S: Now, a challenge in answering your question about which methods are ethically superior is that the idea of design method itself is open to interpretations. P: That comes with your definition. S: I believe we don’t really have a choice. A more focused idea of methods wouldn’t be relevant. But what we can do is identify categories of methods and use those to analyze what it means to choose an ethically superior method.



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P: Which categories do you mean? S: When we speak about a method or “a specific way of designing that has been given a name,” I think that we refer to a mixture of things that include at least an instrumental kind of a script of behavior, designers’ competences, and how they apply them in practice, as well as an acted-out version of an ideological agenda of some kind.

Instruments and consequences P: I don’t get it. Can you explain? S: Let’s start with an instrumental conception of a method. P: Fine. S: A design method can be understood as a means of aiming at a detailed script, a generic procedure, and a series of defined steps conducted in a specific manner and order, which is transferable over different circumstances with few changes and little variation. It remains essentially the same even when it is applied for different purposes or in different contexts. This is the case, for example, when the method is translated or otherwise localized for different cultural settings. I believe people usually think about something like this when they hear the word “method.” P: We agreed that design methods always have to be adjusted. S: When we think about methods as instruments, adjusting as little as possible is considered desirable. The rationale for this is to ensure the comparability and compatibility of the results. This kind of method is in many respects similar to a physical artifact, such as a tool, that is designed for a certain purpose and used in different settings. P: Like a power drill? S: For instance. The method scripts can be supported with and formalized using computational means or physical materials such as printed forms, templates, props, and so on. These artifacts also “freeze” the method, or parts of it, into a certain format. The method can then be adjusted only as much as the templates allow. The method conceptually merges with an artifact. For instance, visual self-documentation is sometimes simply referred to as “camera studies” (Kumar and Whitney 2007) in the same vein as cleaning by vacuuming is sometimes called hoovering. The instrument merges with the method.

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P: Digging becomes shovelling. S: Yes. P: And a good method is similar to a good instrument—effective and efficient? S: Well, people consider gadgets good for a range of reasons, but from a strictly instrumental view a method does not have intrinsic value. Its evaluation addresses only the results achieved and resources consumed. Effectiveness and efficiency are good indicators for those. P: We need to compare the methods based on the quality of the results. S: Sure. That is included in effectiveness. P: But we’re passionate about methods. We often consider it important to use a certain method regardless of the results it yields. We can be proud of our skills with using another method. I don’t think they are just instruments. S: We’ll need to get to that soon, but let’s remain in the instrumental view for a while. As I said, the results count. Applied to the ethical evaluation, this means that we need to adopt a consequentialist stand. P: Does it mean that we should ground our ethical evaluation on the results the method produces—or we produce with the method? S: Exactly. P: How do we do that? Should we measure how satisfied users become? S: That’s a possibility. We should probably look at the consequences of design beyond the designed products themselves. P: It’s a long way from our choice of a method to a satisfied user. And when we choose the method, we have little knowledge of its impact. S: I’m trying to sketch an ethical evaluation space. Our choice of a method and the resulting quality of human life should both be in that space. Of course, we face many problems in navigating that huge space. P: What do you mean with “quality of human life”? We want to make users satisfied, right? S: This is a big question. We can pay attention to how much happier people become thanks to the design, how much harm we remove, or how much more autonomous and capable of doing things they become. This brings us to the foundations of distributive justice.6 We need to decide if we should measure users’ happiness or something else—and if so, what? We need



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to decide which unit to use for measuring the goodness and ethical merit of our impact. If we follow utilitarian logic in its classical sense, we should regard maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering as our goals, and the measure of success from an ethical perspective (Bentham 1824/2004; Mill 1871/2004). Then … P: Wait. S: Yes? P: Before you continue, I want to say something. Isn’t it the case that if happiness is the criterion of justice, we could basically measure the justice of our design simply by asking users for their opinions on how much happier they became after starting to use the design and then summarize the answers. Or we could even just study their choices of products, if we assume them to be capable of choosing the best options. That would be easy and it would yield a very nice harmony between what is just and nice. S: We can do that if we take preferences as reliable indicators of happiness. However … P: They aren’t? S: Not really. It’s difficult to anticipate the future impact of choices. When we make choices trying to improve our happiness, we make mistakes. P: In human-centered design we have the idea of user experience that deals with happiness in a more comprehensive manner. We could use its methods to gain a deeper understanding of how products really make people happy. S: That’s possible. User experience provides a means to address happiness— or subjective affective responses to products and interactions, as scholars often prefer to say. These aim at arriving at a deeper understanding of the emotionally meaningful aspects of an experience than what we can determine from the spontaneous verbal statements of users, just as you said. But subjective happiness is problematic as a measurement of the quality of life. P: Why? S: Learning new skills and the excitement of gambling make people happy. Do you think those kinds of happiness are equally valuable? P: Well … S: Do you think that if you’re satisfied with very little and your neighbor wants a lot he should get more than you for the sake of justice?

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P: Well … S: Do you … P: Fine! Let’s skip that for now. If happiness has all those problems, we should probably consider something else. Could we pay more attention directly to the products themselves? S: I wouldn’t suggest the products themselves, but the resources people have at their disposal. Another way to address the consequences of design from the justice angle is really to focus on what people have. We can think like philosopher John Rawls and design to create an equal distribution of goods that are of primary importance for a good life. P: Which are those? S: Civil rights and liberties, freedom of movement and choice of occupation, income and wealth and bases of self-respect (Rawls 1971: 92). Just design distributes those equally, and methods that help us to do so are ethical choices. P: That wouldn’t provide anyone with much of an incentive to achieve anything. S: True. Inequalities are sometimes necessary, but they are just only if they improve the wellbeing of the worst-off most. This is Rawls’ difference principle. P: Do you mean that talented people should not be allowed to enjoy the results of their capability and hard work without benefiting the poorest? S: Well … P: Sorry to ask. I know that I wanted to discuss the foundations of just design and then I started challenging what you say about justice. Go on. S: I was about to say that it’s understandable that a talented hard-working designer, like you, asks that and finds the equality principle demanding. Rawls’ rationale is that your talents and appetite for hard work are gifts you have received through no merit of your own. So when you use those, the results should benefit society as a whole, not only you who happened to win those talents in the natural lottery. But as you pointed out, completely egalitarian distribution leads to a society where you would not be rewarded and there would be no incentives for you to maximize the use of your talents for the common good. Thus, you can benefit from your assets, but only if the worst-off benefit most. P: That means we should pay attention primarily to the worst-off and how our designs help them prosper.



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S: Yes. We would look at the resources the worst-off gain as a consequence of our designs. P: I see. But speaking about resources like that doesn’t sound like we’re talking about design anymore. S: The difference principle is meant to guide the design of societal basic structures, so its applicability in product and service design might indeed be questionable. P: That is how I felt too. S: However, I believe that design distributes societal resources. For me, the design of products and services is a practice that influences basic societal structures, even though individual products might not typically have such a far-reaching impact. Don’t you agree that design distributes resources in many ways that are foundational for self-respect and wellbeing and fundamental for needs satisfaction? P: Can you be more specific? S: Think about segmentation and mainstreaming. These are the main strategic choices for design. P: Okay. S: Take public transportation. Should we design a system that has both an economy and business class, or whatever we call them, or a classless system? The first represents the segmentation approach and the second mainstreaming. According to the difference principle we shouldn’t ask which one makes people happier on average, but which is the one that provides the worst-off with the best service. Two classes might be the best option, as the premium prices paid by the wealthy might be used to improve the economy class as well. P: I assume there must be problems with sticking to the distribution of resources too. S: Of course there are. P: If happiness in all its simplicity turns into a problem when we examine it more closely, paying attention to resources seems even simpler to me. Everybody having access to the same means for transportation is good, but people are different. Does the difference principle solve the issue with individual needs if it only addresses the distribution of resources? I mean, catering for individual needs and desires is a central challenge for us and the methods we choose have an impact on how well we manage to deal with it.

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S: It’s up to people to decide how they use the resources they have. They can make these choices on the basis of their personal preferences. But Rawls’ primary goods as the foundation for justice has indeed been criticized for ignoring individual differences. A just designer should also pay attention to what individuals are actually capable of achieving. We call this view the capability approach. It’s based on Rawls’ ideas but criticizes Rawls for not recognizing individuals’ actual possibilities of turning resources into things that are actually valuable for them. The same goods might be of great value in certain circumstances and useless in others. Thus, in order to ensure that our designs are just, we need to know the contextual requirements—or “conversion factors” as they are called in the capability approach—and also understand what people consider worthwhile, what they prefer to do and be. This leads to contextual studies on how people can turn resources into meaningful things. P: This sounds like contextual and ethnographic design (Beyer and Holtzblatt 1998). We need to interview and observe people to understand the two sides of use: users’ subjective interpretation and the more objective behavioral angle. The capability approach, if I got it right, seems to be compatible with the ways we work. S: I think so in many respects. P: I think I need to study it more. S: That’s a good idea and we can get back to it later. But utilitarianism and Rawls’ difference principle are also relevant. P: I see. Or at least I see that this is getting more complicated than I thought it would be. Which one should we choose to study and design for? Should we aim at creating and distributing happiness, preferences, resources for a good life, or people’s capabilities for doing things? How should we choose? S: They all, if considered ethical goals of design, represent a philosophical and welfare economical school of thought and each of the schools aims to be quite self-sufficient, claiming that its approach is the best. They all make good arguments in their favor. As the oldest of the approaches, utilitarianism is always the first target for others’ criticism. I don’t know how to choose. P: No worries. I think I’ve learned something anyways. But don’t you agree that it’s fascinating that the practical measurements we habitually do in design—such as probing users for their pleasures and happiness, paying attention to their choice preferences, testing if they can use our designs, or doing contextual observations—link our work to ethical schools of thought! This allows us to interpret our design inquiries as ethical evaluations.



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S: Of course with the necessary reservations … P: Naturally. But think about the conceptual distance between users’ quality of life and our design practice. And at the same time our habitual design evaluations can assess the justice of design. Users’ responses become ethical stands, which gives them essentially more weight than plain operational measurements for well-functioning designs. S: I agree that what you say sounds fascinating but I don’t think we understand enough about the issue of justice through design to be able to take strong stands.

Users’ responses become ethical stands, which gives them essentially more weight than plain operational measurements for well-functioning design.

Adventures and assurances P: I’m excited. But something bothers me about what you said. You suggested that a method should be evaluated based on its results, regardless of whether the result is happiness, resources for a good life, or capabilities. Right? S: That is the consequentialist stand. P: So a method is good if its results are good. S: There are different versions of consequentialism. We may pay attention to individual acts or the more generic rules behind them. But basically what you say is the core claim. P: Our acts would be just if the artifacts we design create improvements in our lives that can be measured in terms of happiness, resources, or capabilities. But we wanted to assess our choice of methods. Does our logic mean that the means of creating a good life become good if the results are good? I might have stolen or copied the designs from someone, but if they were originally good, the users might become happy or capable. Or the user-centered design method I employ might humiliate the participants, but would allow me to make the users happy later on. S: Criticisms of utilitarianism are full of examples where maximal aggregated happiness is achieved with means that violate individuals’ interests. In your

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examples, our designs would violate another designer’s intellectual property rights and the participants’ dignity. Utilitarianists defend the approach with various arguments. For example, rule utilitarianism says that we should choose rules that, if consistently followed, would maximize happiness rather than adjust our behavior to each separate case. Not stealing others’ property is this type of rule. But the extent to which someone’s wellbeing can be compromised for others’ benefit, like in your second example, is a problem with utilitarianism and it’s always an issue in design. Our user-centered approach tends to forget this. P: We always tend to cater to the good of the user and ignore the non-user. Right? S: Yes. And utilitarianism is not good in setting a threshold here. Rawls and the capability approach are more explicit in their stance that individuals’ or the worst-off stakeholders’ wellbeing should not be compromised for the sake of others’ happiness. P: This has been quite abstract thus far. S: True. P: I wanted to discuss the choice of methods and how these decisions might justify my work, but we haven’t really got there yet. Do you think we could come up with an example to clarify what you’ve been talking about and to approach the core issue? S: Sure. P: Can we use probes as one example? S: Probes? P: You don’t know? S: Why don’t you explain? P: Sure. The probes method is a design approach that makes users pay attention to, record, and reflect on issues relevant for design on their own with the help of tasks we have designed.7 At a practical level, probes are a set of tasks given to respondents using designed artifacts to record their experiences and reflect on them. The artifacts typically include a camera, thematic diary, and reminders of some kind. On a more ideological level, probes aim at taking distance from overly mechanistic, objective, and scientific approaches to doing human-centered design. Probes are also somewhat controversial— the developers of the original version of probes, I mean cultural probes, have criticized others for taking the forms of cultural probes and applying them in a manner they deem too instrumental.8 Was that enough?



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S: I’ll ask you to clarify later if necessary, but this seems like a good example, as probes can be reinterpreted and these interpretations cause tension and discussion. P: Good. Then I’ll continue by telling you an example involving a version of probes we developed a while back. I assume you would categorize it as an instrumental interpretation of probes. We called it mobile probes (Hulkko et al. 2004). When we started, the probes was already a tried and true approach. Especially in industry projects it was considered resource-intensive, because the probe kits had to be always redesigned, crafted with physical materials, delivered to users, and individually interpreted. This required a great deal of planning and manual work. We also noticed that the users often completed the tasks in a retrospective manner; thus, the method didn’t capture immediate impressions during action, which we hoped would be one of the strengths of the technique. S: Retrospective reflections are not without value either. P: True, but this criticism, camera phones that had then been recently introduced, and a start-up company who saw a business opportunity in mobile probes were our starting points. Technically, mobile probes combined a camera phone, a mobile application, and a service for composing and delivering photo assignments, multiple-choice questions, and open-ended questions. The system also allowed collecting and sharing the results online. Our goal was to develop a streamlined solution that could be applied to different kinds of projects and become a business service. Although it didn’t become a massive success, we applied it to develop medical clinical collaboration, to name one example (Koskela 2008). S: As you said, it seems you instrumentalized the creative and critical origin of probes and literally linked probing to a physical instrument—the camera phone, which became “the Probe.” You also introduced a probing process by making certain tasks more easily available and reducing designers’ incentives, opportunities, and responsibilities with respect to project-specific interpretations. P: True. S: But did it work? P: As I said it … S: Sorry, I mean did it work in the ethical sense? Was it a tool that made it possible for you to satisfy user needs and make them happier? Do you think it made your efforts ethically just?

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P: These are exactly the sorts of questions I’ve been struggling with. I don’t think it was a big success in this respect either. It was more efficient in addressing certain aspects of needs satisfaction, I assume, but at the same time violated the nature of probing as a creative approach.

If the method script is too exactly coded, the use of the method doesn’t signify that the designers are committed to user-need satisfaction.

S: If the method script is too exactly coded, the use of the method perhaps no longer signifies that the designers are committed to user-need satisfaction. Maybe a decision to choose to use a method is not, on its own, a credible indication of your commitment, if after the initial decision to use a method one can follow a script without challenging oneself with creative interpretations and deeper loyalty to users. Or perhaps mobile probes signified your commitment to user-need satisfaction and desire gratification, but it didn’t communicate your empathy to users. P: Do you mean that it allowed us to learn about user needs and desires without caring about users? S: Yes. P: I see. It was like reducing users to the status of patients with needs and nothing much else, and that violates the idea of respecting users and regarding them as human. Choosing mobile probes made us consider the users as bundles of needs and wants—our relationship with them was colored by the sense that we were using them for our purposes. S: I don’t know. I wasn’t involved. But it seems to me that a human-centered approach was reduced to a technical skill. P: Perhaps. But technical doesn’t necessarily mean unethical. Why do we so easily think that design becoming what you call technical would be bad? S: Did I say that? P: You used the word “reduced,” which implies that design would in some respects be less than what it could and should be if it wouldn’t lean on methods. S: I guess I’m opinionated. Let me think … I can figure out basically two main arguments against trusting strictly coded methods. First, there is the



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old argument based on the wicked nature of design problems—that is, the question and solution are intertwined.9 This means that you cannot outline a program for design unless you already know the answer and that’s something that we don’t know at the beginning of the process. Thus, if a method is intended to give an answer to a question, it’s doomed to fail because we don’t know the question when we choose the method. This being the case, trusting any method apart from a completely omnipotent one always leads to a solution to the wrong problem, that is, the one we thought the problem was before we learned more about it. Or there might be a chance that we guessed the problem correctly and chose the right method, but it’s more likely that the seemingly successful application of the method just confirmed our guess. P: Do we never know the questions or issues that we want to solve by design? I have a feeling that many of our design assignments are simple, straightforward projects. S: Some say that there is a category of problems that can be solved by applying well-justified and defined methods based on solid research knowledge. The problem with these is, however, that they are not very relevant when it comes to solving meaningful real-world problems. If the designers aim at using these approaches they have to simplify their design space and stick to technical rationality. The problems that matter are more complex and solving them calls for a reflective dialogue, with the attempts to solve the problems and our understanding of the problem going hand in hand. P: And are there no usable methods that are reflective? S: This comes back to the question of how we understand the idea of method. The reflective process itself can be seen as a method in a weak and vague meaning of the word, and there are ways to work that create media for reflection, such as simply drawing or more generally representing the solution attempts.10 However, I’d assume we wouldn’t regard these as methods in an instrumental sense. In a way they represent the opposite of controlled and programmed ways to work that we associate with the idea of method. P: I see. What about the second argument? S: Perhaps this is actually similar to the first argument, but approaches the problem from a slightly different angle. The point is that design should provide more than what you get by just following method scripts. Methods tend to put design into an incremental mode, delivering only small improvements, while a free mind, adventurously scouting for the next valuable interpretation, and the excellence of insightful professionals can provide results you didn’t

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ask for or expect. This can create new meanings and be more generous in its outcomes than a process or a method script (Norman 2005; Verganti 2009; Cockton 2012b). From this perspective, methods look like insurance buffering design against designers’ incompetence. P: Do we really need to regard design as so complex and the design goals as so difficult to define? Are we only looking for completely and radically new answers? Isn’t it the case that more often than not there is an answer to the design problem, and we just need to select and adjust it for the present purpose? That’s how I feel about my work at least. And don’t we tend to fail and fail again? There are thus good reasons to have a buffer against incompetence as a safety measure for us, our clients, and the users of our products. Isn’t design just about making good things better and bad things less bad? Of course, that sounds like a simplification, but in many cases it’s easy to define what is good and what is bad. Take a vehicle of any kind. Isn’t it so that making it safer is always a clear design goal and one that can be measured and tested? Isn’t it also that a vehicle should be more energy-efficient and ecological? If we think about the ethics of design and the use of methods in design, shouldn’t we choose those that make people safer, with nice extras as a secondary priority? S: Safety is a good example. Think about design as an activity consisting of four streams. These are usually called phases, but I prefer to see them as parallel streams of thought and action. They are programming, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Analyzing hazards and accidents to learn about safety is a discipline of its own; it provides plenty of relevant insight for designers (e.g., Tenner 1997; Petroski 2006, 2012) and can utilize a body of rigorous methods. Evaluating designs against safety standards can also be done in a rigorous manner, assuming we have correctly evaluated the risk scenarios. The other two streams, those of programming and synthesis, involve the recognition of unknown risk scenarios and configuring new solutions that decrease the risk. Rooting out problems with existing solutions is one way to go, but when the constraints change that might not be the optimal approach. Thus, even though the general goals of design and the criteria for success are clear, the route towards those is hard to discern. Further on, if we accept the simplification that analysis and evaluation are streams that follow rigorous methods, it seems to me that non-design professionals, ergonomists, and behavioral scientists, for example, could master those competences much better. P: Now you are placing us into a different category from other professionals who participate in product development practice. S: Well, the definition of industrial design by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers says that industrial design aims at “creative



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humanization of technology” (ICSID n.d.) and I think that “creative” here refers to the division of labor. The discussion about the nature of designers’ expertise could be expanded much beyond what I can say now,11 but to put it very simply: Designers are not people who are especially good with rigorous analytical methods. And that might make sense because there’s a need for competences that deal with things for which there are no well-defined methods or right or wrong answers. P: If I have followed your logic, you’re saying that designers’ competence is almost by definition tied to a reflective, or perhaps thoughtful, approach of some kind. S: You could say that. P: It seems to me that your claim that using methods would devalue design is based on an assumption that designers’ total competence pool is a sum of their reflective design skills and methodological skills, and perhaps a few other skills as well—trusting methods would reduce the reflective competence required to create designs. Satisfying users’ fundamental needs by using certain clearly scripted methods and processes might be responsible behavior, but it would not be responsible design, because it would no longer involve much real design work. Our problem wouldn’t be being responsible, but designing responsibly. S: That’s the way I believe we tend to think. P: There’s a problem in your logic. S: Maybe. P: You assume designers’ competence pool to be constant. I think learning to be methodological expands the pool and doesn’t compromise skills in reflective and creative design. I claim that the opposite is true. Strong method skills enlarge our arsenal of means and as the methods require creative thinking in use and interpretation they extend our capabilities to reflect. When you master the method, it stops being a script dictating your behavior, and becomes a platform of reflection. We could have used mobile probes in a creative manner if we had continued using them a bit longer.

Competences and virtues S: I can accept that. P: Thanks.

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S: You’re most welcome. I also noticed that we’ve already departed from the instrumental idea of a method and started to talk about methods as competences for design. P: I assume so, but what exactly do you mean by that? S: A method becomes real and influential during the instance of performance, when it is used. In order to properly understand what a method will eventually be good for, you need to examine it in the context of a designer with her competences, intentions, and interpretations, and the environment in which the method is used. When we look at methods in action, we see the capabilities of the designer using the method. Action depends on the available resources, the environment, and language, as well as the physical, technical, and social surroundings. It depends also on the designer’s internalized tacit skills. A method seen as a competence is different from the instrumental conception in that it includes the designers and circumstances as essential elements of describing a method. Think about the sentence “A uses B to achieve C under circumstances D.” The instrumental conception aims at a full account by merely addressing B and C. A description of a method as a competence needs to specify A, B, C, and D (Keinonen 2009b). P: I guess sketching with a pencil and sketchpad would be an example of this kind of competence-based understanding of a design method. The ideas of method and skill merge. S: Yes. Describing what sketching is as a step-by-step process is not an adequate explanation. P: There are books that do exactly that. Car designers and fashion designers seem to draw like they were taught to follow mannerisms. S: Perhaps so. Still, I think that the personal skill and style of the designer and his or her interpretations and reflections, even flaws, make that designer’s sketches unique. We accept and require subjectivity and look forward to serendipity. Methods don’t determine the results, but support designers’ reflective deliberation. In this respect the “innovative” design methods resemble sketching. They require interpretations and situationspecific judgments, and their success depends on the designers’ skills, social sensitivity, and understanding of the project requirements and available opportunities. P: So, a method is something that keeps on changing and developing. S: A method as an instrument comes with an idea of standardizing the method, while a method as a competence improves with use. Both are needed, as the tendency to standardize is essentially a process of learning



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and keeping what works, as we already discussed. Even though we wouldn’t like to apply design methods using a fixed script, the script crystallizes accumulated knowledge. The idea of method as a competence focuses on reading the script in a critical, reflective, and creative manner. Being transparent with designs contributes to writing the script. P: The question about a good method becomes difficult to answer with the competence-based interpretation. S: Yes, many things get turned upside down. We need to address the influence of a method on a designer’s professional development, for instance. The time spent on learning cannot be regarded simply as inefficiency, as it represents an investment in design competence. The application of a method is not separate from its development, because flexible methods allow us to enhance our expertise and develop unique virtuosity. A method can turn out to be a vehicle for your identity-building and a reason for others to appreciate us. A competence doesn’t need to be invariable. On the contrary, individual styles add value rather than being deviations from the proper conduct of a method. P: Probing can be easily seen as a competence, especially if we look at the empathic approach to probing. S: What is that? P: It’s an interpretation of probing that aims to enable designers to establish a close empathic relationship with users (Mattelmäki and Battarbee 2002; Koskinen, Battarbee, and Mattelmäki 2003; Mattelmäki 2005). I think empathic probes are extensions of designers’ social skills. Following precedents and aiming at probing “correctly” would be alienating; it wouldn’t allow us to leverage our empathy and passion. S: I see. Empathy is a reflective human competence. P: Yes. But what can we say about the ethical evaluation of methods when they are seen as competences? S: The virtue of a professional is to be a good professional. P: Who says that? S: Aristotle (1893/2004: 29). He says, “Proper excellence or virtue of man will be the habit or trained faculty that makes a man good and makes him perform his functions well.” Competence with methods, I think, cannot be separated from the competence with the substance of the work itself. Thus, competence with methods is a core aspect of designers’ virtue.

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The change in our conception of method from an instrument to competence shifts our ethical attention from the consequences of design to designers’ virtues.

P: It seems that the change in our conception of method from an instrument to competence shifts our attention from the consequences of design to designers’ virtues. S: When we speak about ethical competences we speak about virtues. P: Right. But can you specify what you mean by virtues? We haven’t discussed that yet. S: Alasdair MacIntyre (1981/2011: 222) says that virtues need to be understood always in the context of a certain practice, which is a stand that suits us well as we try to understand the justice of design. He defines virtue as “an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods.” P: What are internal goods? S: Internal goods are those goods that can only be specified on the terms of a particular practice. For recognizing and appreciating them, you need to participate in the practice as an indoctrinated member. MacIntyre considers the advancement of the internal goods of a practice to advance the whole practice. External goods are different in this respect. They are things that we compete for—one often achieves them at the expense of others. They are related to money and fame and such. P: Those are needed too for a practice to function. S: Yes, the institutions within a practice aim at achieving external goods. However, not taking care of the internal goods would corrupt the practice and eventually lead to its devaluation. Internal and external goods and working to gain those often require different types of actions. Thus, there is a tension between the two types of goods. Fostering internal goods requires us to be just, courageous and honest. P: That may lead you to risk your wealth and fame (ibid.: 226). S: Yes. P: I wonder which are the internal goods of human-centered design?



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S: … if we now assume that to be a practice of its own. P: I think it is, though I don’t know what MacIntyre would say. S: I guess he would agree. But it’s a complicated practice. It’s a melting pot of behavioral sciences, engineering, and design with an artistic approach. It’s a practice with a somewhat incoherent value base. Internal goods involve scientific rigour and artistic creativity and other aspects that are not always compatible. P: But we have to tolerate the range. As far as I can tell, this gives us a possibility of arriving at personal interpretations of the internal goods. The design community can accept or reject these interpretations. S: Yes. In design, the scope is broad. Design can be for some of us a critical practice, an aesthetic practice, an explorative practice, an ethical practice, and so on. P: If we think about empathy probes, they framed design as an empathic practice and by doing that they in a way created a pool of virtues of their own, I think. They borrowed the virtues of care and transported those into design, including things such as respect, appreciation, reciprocity, humour, authenticity, and a particular focus on commitment to individuals, and possibly others. In many respects, I think, these are in opposition to the business logic values of product development. S: Perhaps product development objectives are the external goods of design. P: I guess so: necessary and corrupting at the same time. S: Let’s get back to the virtues of empathic probes. Even though they were perhaps strange or at least novel within design, design is a dynamic practice and being progressive in introducing new ideas is one of its values. So there is plenty of leeway to choose and prioritize internal goods, but nobody is free to choose the goods alone. They become accepted through the appreciation of one’s peers. P: Is it only the other members of the practice who can evaluate if a design is ethical? S: According to MacIntyre that seems to be the case. However, humancentered design is cross-disciplinary, which allows quite a few parties to have a say. And it’s not easy, even for the members, to determine what is internally good. So there is no clear-cut line between the insiders who know and the outsiders who don’t know. We all need to learn to identify the virtues and become good members of our practice. In that we look for safety and security and dogmatic support from methods. But the methods should not be used

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as given, that is, by simply copying and repeating the given examples. That’s the wrong approach. Working in ways that have worked previously, producing good results, would not be the best way. We need to advance. But learning is almost impossible without following examples of how a method has been used before. Thus, when we look at examples, we should interpret them as things to be both followed and ignored. P: Isn’t that a common challenge in any creative practice? S: Perhaps it’s so that the skillful use of methods seen as competences really requires learning and unlearning. We should have the patience to get through both of those phases. P: I’m starting to think it’s impossible to use a design method in a virtuous manner, because to use it you have to draw from previous examples, but doing that means giving up your higher ambitions, in a sense. No wonder designers have reservations about methods. S: I said that maybe we should understand a method as a specific way to design that has been given a name. Maybe calling what you do with a particular name only means that you share the inspiration and want to be part of a particular tradition within design. P: … Then you define the way you actually work. S: Yes. Actually, according to Aristotle’s ethics that is the criterion of virtue. There is no virtue without deliberation and calculation, and “matters of deliberation, then are matters in which there are rules that generally hold good, but in which the result cannot be predicted, i.e., in which there is an element of uncertainty … It is not about ends, but about means that we deliberate” (Aristotle 1893/2004: 46). P: You do what you do and call it what you want. S: Not exactly. P: Why not? S: Calling your way of working something positions you. That is instrumental when it comes to setting the foundations for how you are appreciated. Using a method label becomes a way to show to which school of design you belong. Methods are not equal to schools or ideologies, but applying and developing methods with certain labels can be seen as manifestations of subscribing to an agenda. P: Before you continue, can I try to recap something? I want to make sure I’m following your thoughts.



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S: … and those of Aristotle, MacIntyre, our design colleagues, and your own. Go ahead. P: The virtue of a designer is to deliberate on our practice, respecting and contributing to its internal goods. The users’ good and our concern regarding that is an internal good of user-centered design, but so is learning and progress. Thus using the method as a kind of “moral heaven” without adjustments and modifications wouldn’t be satisfactory. Its defences wouldn’t last if you plan to stay behind them longer than it takes to draw a deep breath. And the way to be virtuous is to be bold and leave these defences behind. S: Justice, courage, and honesty are what you need.

Agendas and maxims P: And then you said that methods are manifestos or agendas, or do I remember correctly? S: You do. By doing things and by labeling them with certain names we influence what the design becomes. We create and manifest something by the use of a method and the method becomes a tool for promoting something. The ethical value of choosing a method would then be borrowed from the agendas underlying the methods. For example, participatory design is a design ideology with a focus on enabling users to influence their environment—building opportunities, for it is equally or more important than getting feasible and operational results out of the participation. P: I see. Also the paradigm of user-centered design and the usability test as its main method can be seen as part of a mission to make interaction design scientific and increasing the attention focused on cognitive psychology (Cockton 2008b). And in the recent development of humancentered design, giving users increasing responsibility, being increasingly context-sensitive, and avoiding preset frames can be regarded as dogmas (Keinonen 2009c). S: You got the point. P: Thanks. So a method as an agenda turns principles into action. S: We are given means to act on our beliefs—or the beliefs of those who we want to follow. P: Walk the talk.

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S: Exactly. And we don’t need to merely follow. We can take the lead too. But essentially the activity becomes ritualistic in a way that is instrumental to an ideology. In this role it needs to attract attention, challenge the prevailing values, convert the leading practitioners, and mobilize the masses of designers to adopt it. The method is good when it’s visible and attention catching. Its salience in academic and professional discussion may be a practical indication of this. P: But if it’s just about catching attention, isn’t that superficial? S: That’s only one aspect of the picture. Method as an agenda can be also understood as the most fundamental angle on method evaluation. It takes a stand on the objectives and value basis of design. We don’t ask whether the method is good for something, we ask whether the thing we do is fundamentally good. Dealing with this issue forces us to answer questions such as what should designers do, instead of just dealing with what kind of results they should be able to create. Methods become indicators of our values. P: Cultural probes are an excellent example of method as agenda. This technique criticizes overly scientific user-centered design for taking away creative initiative from designers and freezing design due to its scientific rigidity (Boehner et al. 2007). Cultural probes tap into non-reliable, non-generalizable and non-replicable results (Gaver et al. 2004). The process hinges on our ability to creatively interpret user feedback on creative probes employing unconventional tasks. Usually, research methods aim at minimizing, or perhaps disguising, the impact of subjectivity through controlled procedures or the facade of impersonality, but the cultural probes embrace subjectivity. Cultural probes aim to provoke the users and stimulate us. The method has worked effectively in promoting the agenda by encouraging designers to try it out and create their own interpretations. That said, the agenda is so radical that the method has often been moderated and mainstreamed. S: It really is a good example. P: But let’s get back to the agenda. S: Yes. P: How do you approach the justice of methods when they are seen as agendas? S: The ethical evaluation has to address what the method promotes. Think about probes. P: If we evaluate cultural probes in terms of whether they are able or unable to satisfy user needs or achieve other consequential criteria, we might be



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answering an irrelevant question—or at least one with secondary relevance. Instead, we need to consider the ideology of design that this method enables us to act out and its justice. S: If we see the method and the agenda as a single thing with two different appearances, or incarnations so to speak, the method being a principle-inaction, we should focus on the justice of the principle.12 Cultural probes take a rather extreme stand on user-needs satisfaction, claiming that design should not be instrumental in responding to known and obvious needs, but instead take a subjective stand on interpreting and exploring alternative conceptions of good. Or did I get it right? P: You did. S: If we can agree on this principle, then cultural probes would be an ethically sustainable choice. P: But doesn’t this issue also have an instrumental level? We can speak about a method as an instrument for diffusing an agenda, right? S: Right. P: So we should also pay attention to the results of its use in terms of the speed and coverage of agenda adoption and other terms like that? S: Perhaps, but I consider the first consideration to be more foundational. The second takes us back to the first interpretation of a method we already discussed. P: Right. And then we have to tackle a difficult question: how do we know which principles are just? S: Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative is the most famous answer. Kant says that we should act on principles that we could propose as universal laws, but your question really is a challenge for deontology.13 Two principles, both of which can be just, may be conflicting and lead to opposite consequences. Some believe in one, others in another, both having valid justifications, because they have different standpoints from which to look at the case. That said, the value basis of user-centered design is not very homogeneous either.14 P: I agree.

Internal good of design S: Do you think we are getting any closer to the answer you’re seeking?

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P: Well, we’re scratching the surface at least. Or to put it in a more constructive manner, we’re exploring the landscape. I’ve learned about several cornerstones of justice and we’ve discussed design as an ethical practice in many ways. S: Should we start wrapping up? P: Maybe we should. S: Can you remind me of our question? P: You said that it might be possible to compare the ways a method is applied in a particular design project and say which is the best. We have now discussed one method … S: … or a family of related approaches referred to with the same label. P: We agreed that it qualifies as a method for us. S: Fine, we did. Well, we noticed that it is difficult to identify a category of just methods. Utilitarian evaluation of methods might compromise individuals’ interests or violate just principles. When a method is regarded as a competence, then deliberation has to be given plenty of weight—merely repeating something that seems ethically safe would not be virtuous conduct. When method is an acted-out agenda that is evaluated on the basis of how just the agenda is, we tend to have problems in finding commonly accepted maxims for justice. P: That’s not a sufficient answer from a practitioner’s point of view. Even though we don’t have absolutely righteous methods, we should still have the option of arriving at just ways to work by engaging in comparisons. In each situation we have a range of choices and we can behave ethically if we consistently adjust the anchor point in the most ethical direction. One can’t ask for more than that. S: Let’s see. We’ve been working with an idea that a method would have three interpretations: instrument, competence, and agenda. A modification of a method can be attached more strongly to one of these interpretations than to the other two. Probes have served as a good example in illustrating this. It seemed to us that by choosing an interpretation of probes, we also approach or establish distance from ethical schools. Instrumental and consequentialist ethics, competence and virtues, and agendas and the justice of principles seem to be matching pairs. That said, I don’t think that we can exclude other interpretations. Now, it seems to me that modifying a method to align it more closely with any of the three directions enables us to also choose which ethical school becomes more relevant. The different alternatives we compare require different evaluative frameworks.



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P: Jumping between schools like that sounds like something philosophers avoid. S: Yes. Philosophical discussions often seem like a competition of theories. I find such competition counterintuitive and consider certain schools more relevant than others, depending on the case in question. I admit that is a relativist stand. But I think that ethical assessment deals with agents’ virtues, the justice of their acts, the ethics of the consequences, and the needs of the patients15 and that we don’t need to necessarily stick to only one of those. P: Designers, the practitioners anyway, are more opportunistic than orthodox. S: I guess it depends, but I agree we don’t stick to certain schools in ethics. P: We don’t really think about them at all. S: Few do, I guess. But let’s get back to the problem of comparing. Our stand leads us to a situation in which the ethical merit of a method is difficult to present on one single dimension. P: What about considering a model with several dimensions? We could build an evaluation space for the ethical choices of methods. S: What kind of space? P: We could have the three dimensions as we discussed. One would be how well the design satisfies user needs or something else along the lines of consequentialist thought. The second would address the virtue of our behavior. And as the third we would have the justice of the driving maxims of a method and our commitment to them. S: That is a beautiful structure … P: … and a nice conclusion for our discussion. S: Hold on. P: Yes. S: I have to think about this … Now, if we want to compare two methods or two interpretations of a method in that space, there should be a function allowing us to show which one is better in a single diagram. We should be able to combine the ethical merits of a method and compare several methods on one aggregated scale. Do you think we can? P: Maybe. But that would be difficult. S: Quite difficult. How can we compare progress in driving an agenda of artistic exploration of cultural probes against the deepening of empathic engagement with empathic probes?

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P: Hmmm … S: The ethical merits are incommensurable. P: Fine. I see. But we have only discussed one case, that of probes. Based on that, can we say that all comparisons between methods are mutually non-commensurable? Let’s take another example. Other methods include throwing dice, following the most senior designer, or organizing a co-design workshop. It seems to me that they can be quite easily ranked on the basis of their ethical merits within the practice of user-centered design. Throwing dice is random and ethically worthless. A senior designer’s opinion is subjective and may even be patronizing, but is probably informed by his or her previous experience. Co-design seems to get closest to what is just by engaging the representatives of the stakeholders and giving them an opportunity to express what is meaningful and valuable for them. S: We agreed to focus on variations of one method to make the options reasonably comparable. The first two methods are not user-centered, but if you want we can consider your case. P: Please. S: Fine. First, I can answer by contextualizing your example. It might be so that sometimes throwing dice is the best approach, because it is impartial and fast. Impartiality is a fundamentally important aspect of justice. Impartial views can break a tie when there are conflicting opinions on a non-critical issue and when it is more important to move ahead than to elaborate an optimal solution. Sometimes collaboratively made democratic decisions might lead to the dominance of the majority and rejection of the valid interests of the minority, at least if there is a lack of empathy or poor facilitation. These would be consequentialist and deontological justifications for throwing the dice: a fast solution to break a tie and impartiality as a universal ethical maxim. My second answer is that the three methods are fundamentally different, addressing different problems even when they are applied to the same case. Consequently, they are non-commensurable. Throwing dice is a way of choosing between alternatives that have been defined beforehand. Co-design is an approach for collecting insights, issues, and interpretations, for engaging people and enabling them to contribute, as is their right. And a senior designer’s opinion can be used for almost anything, but is probably the best for identifying and elaborating solution proposals within, or within and close by, the defined design space. Even if one would use the three different methods as alternative means of choosing between two design options, the choice between dice, senior, and collaboration would represent more than just a choice between methods. The choice of method would redefine the



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problem itself. Choosing dice would define the problem as an impartial choice between predefined alternatives. Choosing to adopt a senior’s opinion would define the problem as one of optimizing the order of elements within a known design space. And choosing to co-design would result in the redefinition of the problem, creating engagement and commitment. To recap, my point is that the choice of methods redefines the problem. My third answer is to reply with a question. Why do you want to earn ethical merit through choices? Design is not, at least typically, about choosing between defined alternatives, but about elaborating good combinations. If dice, the advice of a senior designer, and user involvement all have properties that make them feasible choices, why not use them all and, for instance, organize a design game session where the dice creates impartial and random scenarios that the users reflect on and elaborate and the senior designer creates projections of what the artifact would look like based on the discussions. P: That would make sense. S: The fourth answer I can give we already discussed, but I want to return to that. Let’s think of a design method as something having two components: script and reflection, which completely define the method so that the method would be equal to the script plus reflection. The script is the invariable, or slowly developing, part of the method, and reflection is the situated action. We’ve discussed different conceptions of methods and can probably agree that the weights of the script and reflection alternate. P: Yes. S: When you choose a method, what do you actually choose? P: I choose the script. S: Yes. Let’s look at three cases. First, we have a case in which the script is thin and the reflection thick. What happens when you make the choice and start designing? P: I choose only very little from the self, so to speak. Almost everything that matters I create myself or it comes with the situation that is given to me. This is the case with probing, I would say. S: Isn’t it quite obvious that ethical merit or lack thereof should be based primarily on your situated reflection? P: I guess so. S: Second, we have a case with a thick script and only little room for

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reflection. This is, in a way, an automatic process where you progress step by step towards the final goals of design. I’m not saying that choosing a script wouldn’t be ethically relevant, but the problem here is that developing solutions without deliberation isn’t really something I consider design. The third case is one where the script and reflection both have an essential and balanced role as components of the method. In these cases, choosing a method means that the choice is a real choice with an impact, and that the activity following the choice is still something we can, without reservation, categorize as designing. P: Choosing a method under these conditions might carry ethical merit. S: But this conclusion, if you were ready to accept it, would mean that the choice of certain types of methods would be ethically meaningful. Throwing dice is not really designing, even though it might be deciding, and the ethical merit of co-design requires us to address how you actually engage in co-design. P: I don’t think that we excluded the possibility that choices between design methods could be seen as ethical choices. S: You’re right, but we limited the scope. In some cases it can be an ethical choice, but at face value I wouldn’t take it as such, because there are cases where that wouldn’t be true. P: I see … S: Something bothers you. P: Even after considering all your arguments, I still find it difficult to accept that methods have such a small role in the ethical practice of design. They help us understand how to make people happier and more capable, to provide people with sufficient means to do good things, and to follow in the footsteps of righteous practitioners. They are a part of our duties to design properly and ethically. S: You think we’ve made a mistake? P: I know that some or many of our arguments are not really watertight, but I don’t think that leakage is the problem. Did we go down the wrong path? S: We answered, at least partly, a question about how the choice of a method justifies a designer’s effort. P: I know it was my question, but maybe that wasn’t what I really wanted to know. S: Asking a well-formulated ethical question is very difficult.



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P: Do we need to start again? S: Let’s iterate the idea of method as a category or container of practical design knowledge and virtues that are particular to design. I have a hunch that we might find something. P: That sounds promising. S: Good. A virtuous designer contributes to the pool of professional competence, to the internal goods of design. P: We discussed that. S: How does she do that? P: By designing well, I guess, whatever that means. There might be many other ways. S: Yes. She contributes to the pool of design competence. And methods are categories for organizing that. P: I see where you’re going with this! Even though much of this knowledge is tacit and about skillful and thoughtful reflection and deliberation on particular issues, there is a component that is universal and that can be uploaded, so to say, into the database of professional competence. We have called this the script of a method. It might be thick or thin, but it’s there. It changes slowly based on how the competent practitioners collectively develop the practice. Sometimes, fast changes can occur thanks to method breakthroughs. It’s possible that we contribute to the scripts by rational speculation or by organizing experiments like scholars traditionally do, but that’s not a very designerly way of doing things. Our way is to design and contribute through design practice. S: That was what I thought too. When we use methods we put principles into action. This is what we have to do, because we cannot fulfill our duties with regards to righteous design and as righteous designers without some type of action that is compatible with scripts that we consider to represent the right ways to design. So ethical design practice runs a righteous script and contributes to it. But neither of these roles of the method makes the designer’s actions just. Rather, the actions make the method just. P: But thoughtful action wouldn’t be possible without methods. S: Yes. P: I said we might’ve been going down the wrong path, but maybe we took the correct one, except in the wrong direction.

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S: Maybe. Let me continue. Appropriate and ethical deliberation with methods is a foundation of virtue in design. Without method scripts, a designer would be ignorant of the appropriate means to achieve goals, the tradition of the internal goods of design, and the best contemporary knowledge of how to design. P: But the use of a method doesn’t make designers’ efforts just or more just. S: Listen. Making use of the methods is a process of deliberation or reflective equilibrium between the script and the action. A virtuous design practitioner contributes, and her contribution is the measurement of her virtue. The contribution requires entities that mediate the contribution. Published designs are the most obvious examples of such entities. They benefit users in a casespecific manner. If they are especially remarkable they can become examples and forerunners for later work and gain recognition beyond their case-specific merits. Method scripts are another category of structures that mediate the designer’s contribution. P: They don’t benefit the users. S: No. Instead, they contribute to the practice of design. Design action is positioned between the practice of design and the practice of use. It contributes to both and a method script is a platform for deliberation and a medium for accumulating procedural knowledge. Virtuous designers apply good methods and contribute to those. And if the method is in better shape after you’re done with it, your efforts are justified by the improvement of the method. Method, as we have defined it, overlaps with competences and ideologies. P: I’m not sure if I understood. S: The choice of a method is not a measure of your virtue, but your contribution to the method is.

Your choice of a method is not a measure of your virtue, but your contribution to the method is.

P: Are you suggesting that formalizing design, writing more scripts, is the ethical way to design? S: No. Sometimes erasing the script would be the necessary thing to do. I’ve irritated some of my students who’ve been developing elaborate and laborious methods by asking them in which respects their approach is better



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than having a chat over coffee and biscuits. They have their reasons, but questioning the thickness of the script makes as much sense. P: We haven’t really defined what we mean by the script. S: I said that a method is a script plus reflection, which would mean that the script is a method minus reflection. P: But you also said that a method when seen as a competence includes the designer’s skills. So the designer with her competences would not only reflect on the script, but would actually also be part of the script. S: Correct. This means that you contribute to the script by improving your skills, including the tacit ones. Before you ask me about it, I’ll say that when we speak about complicated things such as design methods we naturally face the problem of understanding what it means to leave something behind us in a better shape than it was. Indeed, we can make a mess of things and end up corrupting something noble. The usual stand—one which was also taken by MacIntyre—is to refer to collaborative approval by competent practitioners, ones who have been indoctrinated into the practice and who understand its standards of excellence. P: But if we want to make any progress, we cannot refer to them, because they are conservative. S: And they have to be to a certain extent. P: True. S: We might need to trust our generic virtues of justice, courage, and honesty. P: The justice of design now seems to be very design-centered, very inbred. S: I didn’t speak about how design in general can contribute to the development of a just society. I only spoke about the role methods have in ensuring that designers’ actions are just. The methods are not for users, and ensuring the ethics of our effort by means of a user-centered approach doesn’t seem to work, as we noticed. P: Or we had problems in making it work. S: Yes. It’s the duty of designers, and everyone else, to contribute. Designers contribute to users by making designs. The justice is in what they contribute and to whom they contribute, in their virtues and maxims. I might be proven wrong, but I think that the role of how designers contribute is secondary from the point of view of the users. In addition to contributing to users, designers contribute to the design practice. Methods seen as shared resources of

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the practice contribute to the internal good of design. The contribution of methods to users is indirect and takes place by improving competence in practice. This was our blind spot. P: What can we say about the ethics of probes based on this? S: I believe everybody who participated in the development of cultural probes, mobile probes, and empathy probes did so in a way that gave more to design than what they took from it. Cultural probes saved the subjective stand in design from the danger of being buried under excessive rigor. Empathy probes took a step towards engaging with individuals in an immersive manner. Mobile probes tested the limits of the approach. P: That is quite an extreme example. It’s not enough to improve the method script—you need to improve the practice itself. This sets the bar high. It would make virtue also very much a project of convincing people to agree with you. S: We need to address the practice rather than a method, because otherwise one could elaborate a trivial method and improve it. That would have little merit. But I think that the minimal contribution is to use a method in a way that is honest to the nature of the method. Methods are public goods that improve with use. If they are sound, they become stronger with use. The impact doesn’t need to be global. It would be enough to have a local impact. Even the development of the designers’ own competence can qualify. In some other context I might take a different stand, but here I believe that high ambitions with moderate interpretations make sense. P: What kind of a choice of methods or ways of designing would then fail to contribute to design and corrupt it? S: Think about the question you asked earlier about dice, intuition, and user involvement. Even though I said that randomness might be appropriate on some occasions, it’s a method that doesn’t contribute to the internal good of design. In fact, it compromises the accumulated credibility of design every time one uses it. It’s occasionally necessary for us to rely on randomness for the sake of the external good, but in the long run it would destroy the worth of the practice. The same applies to design based on designers’ intuition unless the seemingly intuitive choice is based on well-trained seasoned experience and sophisticated professional insight. P: I see. I think I would now like to once again repeat the question I asked at the beginning. How do I know which method to choose if I want to be as ethical as possible? S: The way the question can be answered now seems to be based on virtues.



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You need to contribute to virtuous practice and work for the internal good of design. So, what do you think? Which is the method that you should choose? P: I would choose the method that enhances design when I use it. S: Likewise.

Choose the method that enhances design when you use it.

Notes 1

Practitioner refers to Henry Dreyfuss’ Designing for People (1955/2003) and Gregor Paulsson’s Vackrare vardagsvara (1919/95), which are classics in outlining a human mission for design.

2

There is a substantial body of literature on the social and environmental responsibility of design and growing literature on the value foundations of design. Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World, first published in 1971 (1971/2006), was a seminal work on designers’ social and environmental responsibility. The often cited opening sentence of the book tells a lot about his uncompromising attitude: “There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them” (ibid.: ix). More recently, questions dealing with the justification of design and its values have been addressed by the Value Sensitive Design research group (Friedman and Freier 2005; Friedman et al. 2006; Borning and Muller 2012). See also Nigel Whiteley’s (1993), Jonathan Chapman’s (2005) and John Thackara’s (2005) insightful approaches to design ethics.

3

The terms “user-centered” and “human-centered” design are used interchangeably.

4

Practitioner and Scholar regard user-centered design as a broad umbrella covering several approaches that partly conflict, but share a general orientation towards responding to the users’ needs and wishes. These include human factors and ergonomics, participatory design, usability measurements and inspections, i.e., usability engineering and design for user experience. More recently, approaches such as service design, transformation design, and worth-centered design have broadened the umbrella. The core of earlier approaches, i.e., usability engineering, was built on relatively strong and rigid methodological foundations, leaving little room for participants’ initiative and proactive contribution. More recent branches often reject a priori frames and fixed criteria, and instead trust proactive user contributions and designers’ informed and situation-specific interpretations. For design ethnography, see Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt (1998) and Boehner et al. (2007); for transformation design, see Burns et al. (2006); for worth-centered design, see Gilbert Cockton (2006, 2008a, 2008b, 2012a, 2012b); for participatory design, see Joan Greenbaum

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DESIGNERS, USERS AND JUSTICE and Morten Kyng (1991), Schuler and Namioka (1993), and Yngve Sundblad (2009); for usability, see the ISO standard (1991, 1998), Jacob Nielsen (1993), Donald Norman (1993), and Nielsen and Mack (1998); for user experience, see, e.g., Patrick Jordan (2002), Ilpo Koskinen, Katja Battarbee, and Tuuli Mattelmäki (2003), Norman (2004, 2005), and ISO (2010).

5

Philosopher John Rawls (1971: 20) speaks about reflective equilibrium, which is his approach to developing philosophical principles of justice. In a reflective equilibrium, he compares actual cases and his intuitions about them with generic philosophical principles, and if they differ he adjusts either or. With a growing number of cases and with more trained intuition, the principles gradually evolve. Essentially there is no default priority between practical intuition and the generic principles. Scholar will keep returning to Rawls’ ideas, which is well justified, because John Rawls, a professor at Harvard University, has been acknowledged as the most influential thinker in distributional justice in the twentieth century.

6

Distributive justice deals with fair and righteous ways to divide the goods and responsibilities in society between individuals, and is a repeatedly addressed question in political economy in addition to ethics.

7

William Gaver and his colleagues presented an article on cultural probes in 1999 (Gaver, Dunne, and Pacenti 1999; see also Mattelmäki 2005, 2006; Boehner et al. 2007). Since then, dozens of papers have been published about probes with a wide range of interpretations. Their aims have varied from collecting data from environments and practices that are difficult to reach for designers to creating a communication channel between stakeholders of design to provide surprising inspiration for the designers. Probes studies are often run at the beginning of a project to inspire the next phases. They seldom take the designers to final conclusions or to specified requirements. The approach places trust on people themselves to take notes on events, phenomena, actions, and interpretations in a manner that can be of interest to designers.

8

They do not claim that these projects are worthless, but consider that it is misleading to associate them with cultural probes based on these kinds of superficial similarities (Gaver et al. 2004; Boehner et al. 2007).

9

Horts Rittel and Melvin Webber’s (1973) article about the nature of ill-defined design problems in the early 1970s was a seminal work in putting an end to the 1960s design method movement that aimed at developing overanalytical methods for solving design problems.

10 Donald Schön’s (1983: 79) short script for reflection-in-action is as follows: “the designer’s moves tend, happily or unhappily, to produce consequences others than those intended. When this happens, the designer may take account of the untended changes … the situation ‘talks back,’ and he responds to the situation’s back-talk.” 11 Design researchers have tried to characterize professional designers’ unique competences from a multitude of angles. Some recommended references include Donald Schön (1983), Brian Lawson (1997), Nigel Cross (2007), Jonas Löwgren and Erik Stolterman (2007), Brian Lawson and Kees Dorst (2009), and Kees Dorst (2011).



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12 Ethics dealing with the justice and moral merits of choosing and following principles and maxims without justifying them by their consequences is called deontology. 13 It is in the core of MacIntyre’s criticism on deontology. In our individualist society we often cannot agree on universal rules. 14 Gilbert Cockton’s (2006, 2008a, 2008b, 2012a, 2012b) discussions on the conflicts between dogmatic methodological behavioral science-driven, user-centered design and the more creative and exploratory engineering and design-driven approach is an example of this. 15 Soran Reader (2007) has claimed that the satisfaction of needs should be taken as the foundation of ethics rather than the more traditional consequentialist, virtue, or deontological ethics.

2 The Second Dialogue on Quality of Use or Life Co-authored with Lutz Gegner

I

n this dialogue Practitioner and Scholar discuss how to evaluate the quality of use—and life—and how that influences our thoughts about design that contributes to a just society. They identify usability and user experience as the main paradigms of the quality of use in human-centered design. They identify and scrutinize users’ interests and the standpoints where usability and user experience post users, and they notice that the different standpoints lead to conflicting interpretations. They find a user with a multiple personality disorder who simultaneously plays the roles of a sponsor, beneficiary, operator, and experiencer. Once they have identified the various standpoints, Scholar and Practitioner suggest that user experience increases as users make greater efforts, and decreases in step with the results generated by the interaction. User experience starts to equal anti-usability. They expand the evaluation space by introducing an impartial “neighbor’s” standpoint on the use of the design. The “neighbor” is interested in the impact of use on the development of practices without having any direct or immediate role in interaction. For her, the evaluation criteria of use, results, and resources have different kinds of meanings. Scholar and Practitioner link the neighbor’s stand to Gilbert Cockton’s idea of worth-centered design. Scholar and Practitioner continue with a fictive example dealing with digital technologies for spatial design. They suggest replacing the poorly justified assumptions underlying usability and user experience with a more impartial and thoughtful foundation for the quality of use. Practitioner concludes by saying we need to design for the neighbor’s peace of mind. The dialogue begins …

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P: Hi, Scholar. I’m here again to bother you with my questions. S: Hi. Don’t worry. Sit down. I’m not bothered. What’s our topic today? Do you want coffee? P: No thanks, I just had some. I’d like to discuss the consequentialist avenue of responsible design a bit more. S: Okay. P: During our last talk, we focused on virtues. That was eye-opening. I didn’t really think that one way of ensuring that design benefits a just society would be to improve the practice of design. I’m glad we learned that, but I still think we need to be able to somehow articulate how our work contributes to societal justice by paying attention to what we can offer to the users. S: That sounds reasonable. P: Good. What I mean is that I work face to face with the future users of our products—every now and then at least—and I think I should be able to articulate what good I can provide them. If I were to present the “the internal good of design” argument to a nurse or a forklift driver, that wouldn’t motivate them to collaborate with me. I should be able to say what I provide to him or her. S: Sure. That’s fine with me. How shall we begin? P: Products are designed to be used. Thus, for us to be able to evaluate whether they are good or not and our efforts have any moral merit, we should address their quality of use. I might be naïve but I believe that products that are good to use somehow justify our efforts. S: Maybe. P: But I’m confused about the ways we study the quality of use these days. S: Not all products are meant for practical use. And they are not necessarily used for purposes we consider good. P: True, but I speak about those that are. I believe we can say that the quality of interaction between a human user and a piece of equipment in context is a major concern in design. We should be able to evaluate that properly. S: I agree that this applies to a great many products. P: Let’s speak about those. S: Fine. P: Ultimately we want to ensure that the encounters between people and



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products are more good than bad, not only from a practical but also from an ethical perspective. To this end, we need to harness a range of things, from designers’ skills and design processes to design tools, collaborative platforms, and such. S: We also need insight, persistence, and luck. P: Yes. And don’t you think we also need criteria for evaluating the quality of use? They would help us strive towards higher quality of use. S: Criteria or a framework helping us to identify issues that have or might have an impact on use would be beneficial for our reflective exploration. That is true. But I don’t believe in the effectiveness of a formula seeking to predetermine what is good or just use. A loose framework gives us direction, but preserves the conceptual slack (Schulman 1993) to consider what is relevant in a particular case and doesn’t excuse us from doing something just for the sake of the framework. P: Fine. S: Last time, I mentioned the three consequentialist approaches. Do you want to continue with them? P: Perhaps we can get further if we look closer at the use of products and the indicators of quality of use. Maybe the goals of achieving happiness or capabilities are too distant, as there are too many intervening variables in play. That’s the impression I got after our previous discussions. I think quality of use might be something we have a reasonably good possibility of influencing with our designs. S: I see. You want to link the justice of design to an operational framework, which can quantify the quality of use. P: Wouldn’t that be good? S: Perhaps the framework might merely help us to justify the decisions that have been made. P: Well, that would be useful as well. S: I’m not convinced of the benefits of rigid evaluative frameworks of use, as I’ve already said, without proper reflection. However, I agree that the effort needed in defining such a framework can be an enlightening learning experience and reveal implicit assumptions. I believe you have something more in mind to start the discussion. P: I do.

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S: Go ahead. P: I’m bothered by our conceptualizations of the quality of use. Nevertheless, I think we should employ them as a starting point. In interaction design, we usually employ two main frameworks to evaluate the quality of use. By the way, is it okay if we focus on interactive technologies and the design concepts within them? I think when we speak about use, that is the branch of design that has driven development. S: Fine with me. For me, interaction is a broad category anyway. P: Good. S: So which are the frameworks you have in mind? P: Usability and user experience. But I think something essential is wrong with them or missing. They don’t cover issues that are necessary to design for the justice of use, but I’m not quite sure where the problem lies. S: There are other frameworks apart from those that might cover the missing aspects. Under the umbrella of human-centered design, usability and user experience are only two of many approaches. Others include participatory design focusing on user involvement with a view to ensuring a democratic agenda of design as well as design ethnography that addresses use as a grounded practice. Then there are approaches such as service design, transformation design, worth-centered design, and others. After the heyday of usability engineering in the 1990s, these approaches have criticized and departed from from usability. P: I’m very familiar with this. The main lines of criticism include pointing out the rigid methodology and narrow scope of usability (Boehner et al. 2007; Löwren and Stolterman 2007; Redström 2008), the lack of attention to creative and innovative design processes (Norman 2004, 2005; Cockton 2008b, 2012a, 2012b), neither truly trusting users nor respecting them, and ignoring a range of motivations that drive users in their interaction with products (Hallnäs and Redström 2001; Hassenzahl and Tractinsky 2006). User experience has been mostly criticized for its conceptual vagueness and hedonism. But of all these approaches, usability and user experience are the ones that have aimed to quantify the quality of use. They are, or aim at being, practical. If we stick to them we can also keep our discussion more focused.1 They also have a strong authoritarian stance because they have standardized definitions that are clearly formulated. The normative documents of the alternative frameworks either don’t exist or are more difficult to agree on.



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User with a multiple personality S: Fine. Let’s keep focused and discuss usability and user experience. P: Thanks. S: Would you like to summarize how you understand usability? P: Sure. In the 1980s, information and communication technology became increasingly commonplace at offices and production plants. The adoption of these new technologies and related work practices was not an easy process. The tasks, objectives, contexts, expectations, human capabilities, and system features were not aligned and productivity gains were difficult to achieve. Thus, the quality of use had to be addressed and conceptualized for practical product development purposes. The human–computer interaction community responded by outlining, elaborating, and formalizing the concepts of usability and user-centered design.2 Since then, usability has become a ubiquitous concept and is used in a range of ways (Hertzum 2010), sometimes referring to a discipline, to design and evaluation orientations, sometimes to the qualities of a system, and often to the quality of use (Keinonen 1998: 21–63). S: The last one is what we’re interested in now. P: Yes. It’s a contextual view of the interaction between human operators seeking to achieve goals with a system. This is the way usability is defined in the ISO 9241-11 standard, which has become the established default definition of usability (ISO 1998).3 S: Do you remember the exact wording? P: Sure. According to it, usability is the “extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (ibid.). S: But you are not satisfied with usability. P: I already mentioned how it has been criticized. It borrows from experimental psychology and cognitive science. It focuses on goal achievement and ignores human experience. It also omits creative and constructive design approaches (Jordan 2002; Cockton 2008b, 2012a, 2012b). It deals with measuring rather than improving. It is also difficult for users to assess usability, so its contribution to the commercial success of a product might only be marginal (Keinonen 1998). S: And it does not say anything—or much—about the ethical quality of use. P: I was coming to that …

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S: Do you still think it helps us to take ethical stands? P: Well, as I said I had this idea that our designs are just if they are of high quality in the actual contexts of use. But I understand that if we want to see usability through ethical lenses we need something more. At the very least, we need a new point of view. S: Do you have any suggestions? P: Not really, just a hunch that we might find something. S: In that case we could perhaps look at whose interests the usability criteria—effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction—aim at serving and safeguarding. P: Do you think that would help? S: I don’t know, but we could give it a try—just a hunch. P: Right. Well, the ISO 9241-11 standard doesn’t mention, not explicitly anyway, whose point of view it takes. S: Then we need to find out ourselves. What do you think? P: I believe it serves the interests of the industry and some say the interests of psychologists and other behavioral scientists (Cockton 2008b, 2012a, 2012b). By the way, I guess we could use ISO 9241-11 as our reference for usability without broadening the discussion beyond that. S: Let’s be focused and stick to that.4 But back to your answer: I’m not referring to the interest groups behind the standard, but the more immediate stakeholders of the use of a product as implied by the standard—though at the end of the day they might be identical. P: The standard doesn’t specify the stakeholder groups. It only mentions a generic user. S: I think that the users’ roles are quite clearly described there, but we have not really thought much about them. However, they can be deduced from the criteria set out in the standard. P: How? S: Usability depends on effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in goaloriented use. Effectiveness includes the accuracy and the completeness of the results. Efficiency refers to the ratio of effectiveness and resources. Resources include financial resources, time, and effort. Efficiency and effectiveness are both desirable parameters of use (ISO 1998).



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P: Right. User satisfaction is also one of those. S: Let’s get back to that later. In whose interests, do you think, is effectiveness? P: The users. S: Do you think that using a product means that you can enjoy the results of the use? P: Well, not necessarily. S: Exactly. The results are valuable for those who own the results or have a right and an opportunity to enjoy them. Indirectly also those who are influenced by the results should care. The user, I mean the one who interacts with the product, doesn’t necessarily own the results or have the right to enjoy them. P: For her the results can actually be meaningless. S: Yes. The one who interacts and the one who enjoys the results are not necessarily the same individual. Let’s call the ones who own the results and can enjoy them beneficiaries, but exclude those who are influenced only indirectly. The beneficiaries, in their roles as such, don’t have any other link to the use apart from their interest in the outcomes that they might enjoy themselves or allocate forward, for instance, by exchanging them. P: Let me think what this would mean. S: Sure. P: There might be, for instance, an instrument, say a clinical laboratory analyzer—I used to design those a while ago—operated by a nurse. The desirable results of the interaction are accurate, error-free, and complete analyses of a sample such as a patient’s blood. The substance concentrations need to be measured exactly and all the relevant substances need to be identified. These results are useful for the doctor diagnosing the patient, the patient who gets a correct diagnosis and is provided with the right care, and the owner of the healthcare center whose business depends on the results. If we broaden the network, we might identify even more beneficiaries. The different beneficiaries might have different interests concerning the results. S: They might, and probably do, but let’s leave that for future discussions. What about the resources of use then? P: The standard gives examples that include time, money, and effort allocated to use. Efficiency is calculated by dividing effectiveness by resources consumed. Thus, everything else being equal, increased resource consumption reduces usability.

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S: Correct. In whose interest is it to save resources? P: The user’s … I mean the user who owns the resources. Or perhaps the owner is actually not the user in the meaning of the word that we usually apply. I say those who own the resources are interested in efficiency. S: True, and if I generalize a bit more we could say that these are the people to whom the resources are valuable and who can decide about the ways they are allocated: whether they are applied for a particular use, for another purpose … P: … or saved for future use. S: Exactly. P: What should we call them: owners, possessors? S: Let’s call these people sponsors. Their interests are limited to saving and efficiently consuming the valuable assets they own or manage. P: In my clinical analyzer example, the sponsors would include the healthcare center, which has invested in the equipment, is perhaps leasing it, and pays the salaries of the nurses operating it. I think that the nurse can also be seen as a sponsor, as her effort is needed for its use. And obviously the health insurance company sponsors the use, as it pays the healthcare center’s invoice. The patient may end up paying too. The patient and the doctor can be seen as sponsors if we think that they invest their time into the use of the analyzer. Also, a taxpayer is a sponsor when we speak about public healthcare. There is a whole network of sponsors as there are beneficiaries. S: True, they are a heterogeneous group, but all share an interest in efficiency of use. Is there anybody else who might have an interest in use? P: The usability criterion of satisfaction addresses the viewpoint of the agent, who is the “person who interacts with the product” (ISO 1998). We already mentioned the nurse as a sponsor. S: Let’s consider that person as a particular type of sponsor. ISO 9241-11 calls this person a user, but I propose we choose another term for clarity and call these agents operators. P: Why not user? S: Sponsors also “use” the system by fueling it with resources, and beneficiaries “use” it by harnessing and exploiting it for valuable outcomes. They are all users, but we are now trying to understand the different standpoints of users in their different roles.



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P: I see. S: Operators’ interests lie in being “free of discomfort and having positive attitudes towards the use” (ISO 1998). The operators in that role don’t sponsor the use or own the results, so they have limited—or, if we are strict and consistent, no—interest in the effectiveness and efficiency of the use. Of the three roles—sponsor, operator, and beneficiary—only the operator contributes human effort. Only she provides the effort, even though the sponsor might compensate her for it with a salary or some other form of compensation. P: The operators of the clinical analyzer are the nurse who loads it with samples and inputs patient data, the maintenance and cleaning staff of the facility, the technical experts who install and calibrate the system, and perhaps the technicians who develop new analyses for the machine, and so on. S: Yes. They interact, but neither sponsor nor enjoy the benefits. P: I see that the three different roles make sense with the analyzer example, but when I’m exercising with my heart rate monitor there are no sponsors, beneficiaries, and operators—only me, using the gadget. S: The three standpoints don’t need to refer to three separate agents. P: You’re saying that the standpoints exist independent of particular agents holding them. S: Yes. It’s possible that one single agent assumes all the roles, that is, becomes the beneficiary, sponsor, and operator. This is the case when individuals, like you, use their private time and independently possessed resources to sponsor their own interaction with a system. In such cases, agents have the right to own, enjoy, and apply the outcomes for their own purposes. The roles of the sponsor and the beneficiary often overlap, as the sponsor typically needs a rational reason to allocate resources to the use—one such reason is to obtain the results. This is the case in regular occupational settings where an employer invests in equipment and employees to use a system to create outcomes that belong to the employer. In the analyzer example, the healthcare center takes on both of these roles. Other combinations of the roles are possible. What is essential is that the three roles are needed to explicate the interests implied by usability as a quality of use. Of course our analysis of the roles is preliminary and still very rudimentary, but I think the basic setting is quite clear. P: The emphasis that usability puts on sponsors’ and beneficiaries’ interests, although it’s not explicated in ISO 9241-11, is compatible with a use scenario in which information technology is applied in industry and business settings. S: Yes.

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Sponsors’ interest has been used as the indicator of the quality of use and we have thought that this is human-centered.

P: Putting it this way, usability appears to be equally investor-centered and user-centered as a measurement of the quality of use—or actually even more investor-centered. S: It is. In fact, it’s quite peculiar that the interests of the sponsors and beneficiary have been used as the indicator of the quality of use and that we’ve thought of this as being a human-centered approach. P: Money-centered design. S: Something like that. P: It would be much more human-centered if there was an assumption that the human operator owns the resources and results of the use. S: There isn’t anything like that apart from the ISO standard saying that human effort as such matters, not only as the denominator of efficiency. P: I’m starting to think that user experience is much more ethical and fundamentally more user-centered than usability. It focuses solely on the users and on their holistic experience.

Anti-usability S: Let’s move on to user experience. As you said, we’re starting to see why it’s been regarded as a necessary concept. How would you explain it? P: In the 1990s, interactive technology began to penetrate domestic and leisure spheres. Consequently, usability as a framework for the quality of use became unsatisfactory. S: Why? P: I think that a big problem with usability, apart from other major issues such as the lack of user-centeredness, was its instrumental conception of use. Use was understood as something that creates value independent of the use itself. Usability ignored the way the interaction is subjectively perceived.

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S: The usability criterion of satisfaction brings a subjective angle to usability evaluation. P: Yes, but it didn’t provide the means to deeply and emphatically address the intrinsic, emotional, and hedonic values of use and push the idea of use beyond the achievement of practical goals. It didn’t help us to design products that people like to use. S: I would add that its focus on resources and outcomes became problematic because allocating less time on a rewarding, internally motivating activity is hardly a relevant measurement of increasing quality of use (McNamara and Kirakowski 2006; O’Brien 2010). So something else was needed and people started to call that user experience.5 But before going any further, how would you define user experience? P: This is a tricky one. Some have said the only thing that can be agreed on about user experience is that it is difficult to define (Law et al. 2009). The range of definitions and angles that have been suggested as belonging to user experience has made it a very inclusive and vague concept. They cover pleasure of use, long-term use including past experiences and future expectations, the social and collaborative nature of use, the aesthetics of interaction, and holistic and empathetic conceptions of users and use.6 It can be just “something desirable” (Law et al. 2009, italics original). S: The conditions influencing user experience and the indicators of good user experience are difficult to define, but our approach might provide some clarification. User experience assumes a particular standpoint on the evaluation of the quality of use. Which is that? P: The user’s. S: Hmmm … P: Sorry, I need to be more specific. The operator’s, but not exactly in the manner we just defined. S: Yes. We used ISO 9241 part 11 to define usability so let’s continue with the newer part 210 of the same standard and use it as our reference for user experience. P: Okay. As we said, user experience is difficult to define, but we need something. ISO is a tried-and-true standard. It’s a safe choice. S: The definition is also very inclusive. Do you remember it? P: Sure. According to it, “user experience” is a “person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system



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or service” and “includes all the users’ emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviours and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use” (ISO 2010: clause 2:15). S: Good. “User” in the standard refers to persons who themselves interact with the systems. P: We have already identified an operator’s standpoint. S: Introducing another is necessary to clarify the differences between usability and user experience. Let’s further specify the standpoint of the operators by assuming that they have extrinsic motivation to use a system. This is compatible with the definition of usability as a goal-oriented activity. Other standpoints derived from usability consider use as instrumental for achieving goals that are external to the use itself. So do the operators. Because of this the operator doesn’t get pleasure from the use of the device as such. P: The nurse as an operator of the analyzer doesn’t get kicks from interacting with the device, but just wants to get the work done without any hassle. Her motivation is to help people to recover from whatever condition they have, or something else, but not the machine or interaction with it. S: That’s the idea that I tried to express. P: And for user experience we need another kind of user whose motivation is intrinsic. S: Agreed. Let’s call her an experiencer. She interacts with a product because the interaction is rewarding and gives positive experiences. Or she has another reason for interacting with the product, but the experience is a welcome side effect that motivates her in some way. P: I can operate and experience at the same time. S: As I said, an agent can assume several standpoints. A person interacting with a product may be both an operator and experiencer depending on the phases of interaction, or maybe even simultaneously. P: So, for explaining user experience two standpoints are needed, both of which belong to agents in immediate interaction with a product. S: Yes. The different interests involved in the standpoints are related to the motivation for use and the value of interaction itself. For the operator, interaction creates discomfort that should be minimized by design, and for the experiencer it is rewarding, and good design provides more of that. The definition of user experience in ISO 9241-210 puts a clear emphasis on subjectivity and individualization of the quality of use, which is compatible

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with many other user-experience approaches. The experiencer is influenced by the resources spent and results achieved with a system, but these matter only insofar as the experiencer perceives and responds to them. The conception of user experience does not require positions of interest other than that of the operator and experiencer, and in the standard there are no explicit or implicit references to others whose interests would matter. P: We need to assume that others’ opinions and reactions have an impact on the users’ responses. S: We can also assume that their influence on the quality of use is channeled through the users’ holistic experiences. Co-experience (Battarbee 2004, Battarbee and Koskinen 2005) is a branch of user experience that emphasizes the social nature and reciprocal processes involved in generating experiential value in use. Still, I think, the angle can be seen as fundamentally subjective and individualistic. P: What do you mean? S: Take a situation in which others enjoy making fun of me or my gadget or my clumsy use of it. Even though I’m participating in a fun event that provokes laughter, it isn’t a positive experience for me. P: They might also share your experience, build on it, and amplify it. S: That can also be explained as the impact of the social context on the user’s individual experience. P: You might be building a straw man argument. Another more socially oriented stand would be defendable, but let’s work on the individualistic interpretation. S: Different stands can be taken. I agree.

User experience has narrowed the evaluation of the quality of use.

P: Let me now try to compare usability and user experience based on your approach. Compared to usability, on the one hand, user experience has narrowed down the number of standpoints to be considered by dismissing the viewpoints of the beneficiaries and sponsors—unless all these roles coincide within a single agent. On the other hand, user experience seems to be a utilitarian type of dimension. It includes everything that influences the



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experience and is thus more inclusive than usability. Everything can have an influence on an experiencer’s perception and interpretation. S: That is a good summary. The advocates of user experience claim that usability is a part or an element of user experience and that user experience subsumes usability (Norman 2004; Hassenzahl 2008; Vermeeren et al. 2010). Now we’ve noticed that this is a misleading interpretation, because user experience acknowledges a different and more limited range of standpoints than usability. User experience does not recognize that sponsors’ and beneficiaries’ interests would matter. P: Also the advocates of usability have tried to include user experience as one of its aspects by adding the experiencers’ standpoint into the newer definitions of usability (Bevan 2009, 2010). S: This standpoint reveals that the claim would require essential redefinitions of usability and poses the danger of leading to internal inconsistency of the idea, because the goal orientation of use is so central to usability. But naturally developing bridging interpretations are always possible. P: True. S: So, now we have the stakeholders. P: What next? Are we any closer to understanding the connections between quality of use and the justice of design? S: You were interested in quantitative measurements and indicators of the quality of use. I had some doubts, but let’s go there now. I know that speaking about quantitative criteria turns many people off. I don’t believe that these qualities can be expressed in exact numbers, either, as I hinted earlier. P: But when we say X is better than Y we’re already close to engaging in quantifying and that’s something that we wanted to be able to do. S: You’re right. A driver for developing usability criteria has been to enable the presentation of quantitative hard facts for decision-making purposes. Quantifying user experience is not a completed mission. However, amounts matter in experiences too and so do the standpoints. So how would you value the quantitative criteria of use from the different standpoints? P: What do you mean? S: For a user in standpoint X, would more or less of quality Y be preferable? P: Okay, I see. But isn’t this quite self-evident? S: Let’s see. First, think about the operator.

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P: Operators along with the sponsors appreciate the sparing use of resources. Their dream interaction would be as brief as possible and in which little conscious effort is required. Not touching the product or thinking about the use would be the best. S: The experiencers’ view is different, isn’t it? P: I believe experiencers who are internally motivated consider time and effort spent on use as something valuable. They would spend more if possible, because that is something they like to do. S: Or to be more exact I would say that their voluntary use of resources can be seen as an indication of higher quality of use. If the experiencers have an opportunity to do so, they spend more resources on use: their resource expenditure becomes a positive indicator of the quality of use. P: What about the results of use, then? I guess for experiencers, any results external to the use itself are secondary. S: They might even consider results that the beneficiary is interested in as incentives necessary to externally motivate them to do something that they don’t want to do. But of course only the results they themselves experience matter to them. P: Do you mean that if results are needed to motivate the experiencer, whose standpoint is supposed to be internally motivated, there’s something wrong with the experienced quality of use? S: Yes. In that case incentives are needed. If I only play to win money, that doesn’t say anything good about the user experience of the game. If the game gets even worse, I’d need to win even more to continue playing. The results of the interaction become indicators of lower quality of use. P: Though this sounds very counterintuitive. S: I don’t think it’s counterintuitive. If the playing is rewarding, I’m ready to pay—and people indeed do. I don’t need to be paid. Thus, the pay—results I mean—can be used as a measurement of the unpleasantness of the activity. The results necessary to keep the interaction happening become an indicator of the experiencers’ aversion. P: Quite a radical view.

Voluntary resource spending with decreasing incentives is an indicator of increasing user experience.



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S: Thanks. It has its logic and it leads to a conclusion that voluntary resource spending with decreasing incentives is an indicator of increasing user experience. P: You’re saying that user experience is the anti-usability. S. I think it sort of is. P: I haven’t heard that, even though there are quite a few ways to understand user experience. S. I think it’s logical. P: But then one product cannot be good in both respects. S: In practice when dealing with real-world interactions, we need to assume that operators’ and experiencers’ interests swap during the use, with both internal and external motivations playing roles. This makes it difficult for us to see my point in practice. P: Let’s leave the practicalities of analysis for later discussion. It seems that we have arrived at a conclusion: in the usability and user experience paradigms, the qualitative indicators of the quality of use are the inverse of each other. Still, the experts claim that one is a subscale of another. I’m no longer surprised that I’ve found those concepts confusing. S: Me neither. But explaining our point can be difficult, because people are already accustomed to thinking about user experience as an aggregated criterion of subjective wellbeing, as something that’s always a desirable property of interaction. According to our approach it is not.

Neighbor-centered design P: I feel that we’re still missing something essential and I’m afraid that it will further complicate the evaluation of the quality of use. I think that all these standpoints have a problem when it comes to using them in ethical evaluation. S: What is that? P: The cost–benefit analysis of usability evaluations and the subjectivity of user experience somehow look at use from very particular standpoints, don’t they? S: They do.

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P: The immediate interests of these stakeholders, I feel, are too strongly represented. S: We tried to clarify those. P: They seem selfish to me. S: Well … P: I feel we should also establish distance from the strong personal interests we identified. I don’t know if I’m right when I say I should have the possibility of complaining, or being happy, about the way others use technologies even if I’m not an experiencer, an operator, a sponsor, or a beneficiary. My opinion should still count. I think the five standpoints are too exclusive, only allowing the insiders to decide! According to usability and user experience, my opinion about you using something has no role if I don’t sponsor your use or enjoy the results of use myself, and even that was something that we realized only a while ago. It’s funny to put it this way, but I think that we tend to be too user-centered in user-centered design.

I’m not an experiencer, an operator, a sponsor, or a beneficiary but my opinion should count in the evaluation of the quality of use.

S: I agree that you should have a say. Even if you don’t use the design, your views should matter. Since the 1990s and the appearance of user experience in our vocabulary, interactive technologies have become increasingly ubiquitous in our society. There has been a lot of fuss about intelligent, ubiquitous, and this and that, but we’ve also faced plenty of actual changes in the ways services are provided and the kinds of technologies and practices people are expected to master. Interactive technologies are no longer used only in certain work practices. They are part of the service infrastructure that’s vital for everybody’s normal active way of life and wellbeing. Using interactive technologies is now almost a fundamental need. P: It is a fundamental need. S: I can accept even that. Non-use jeopardizes your autonomy and endangers your access to services that you’re entitled to have. This is something everyone should care about. We should care about how fundamental needs are satisfied. And I don’t want to make a sharp distinction between interactive technologies and other infrastructures.



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P: Even though there’s a clear and recognized trend towards the ubiquitous spread of interactive technology, the design community has struggled to respond. I think our focus on user experience has made us concentrate on understanding the experiencer, and the discipline has turned towards private conceptions of the quality of use. S: I agree. P: But the impact of people using ubiquitous services is not a private issue. S: That is exactly the point. The quality of use of ubiquitous interactive services and technologies can, of course, be evaluated and improved by applying the existing frameworks and related standpoints. The standpoints of beneficiaries, sponsors, operators, and experiencers all remain relevant; however, we ignore essential perspectives if we regard the use of designs either as an extremely individualistic matter based on the user experience or as being relevant for a limited number of stakeholders on the basis of usability. That is, we must not dismiss the interests of people who don’t have an immediate role in the use, but whose life is indirectly influenced. P: Or maybe not even their life, but their beliefs and values. S: That is important. Thanks. P: But they need to have some type of attachment to the use. Don’t you agree? Otherwise their stands might be completely irrelevant. Prejudices based on ignorance are a bad foundation for opinions. S: I think that they are affected and become involved through their membership in the practice within which the use takes place. Thus, when use has impacts on practices, the standpoint of each participant needs to be recognized and respected. P: Participation is used a lot in design talk. Could we choose another term? And as I suggested they don’t need to participate. It’s bad enough that their values are violated. Our term should refer to someone who understands the design, cares about it, is close to it, and might be impacted by it, but has no direct or immediate role. S: What do you suggest? P: Perhaps a neighbor would be an apt name. S: Neighbor? P: Yes. S: I like “neighbor.” Neighbor is someone who is close to you but not directly involved.

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P: Neighbors need to tolerate each other and help when there is an obvious need. S: But otherwise they respect privacy. P: Good neighbors do. S: The word has also the Christian meaning referring to anybody who might need your help. P: You said that neighbors’ link to the use is via their interest and involvement in the practice. That sounds good, but why not speak about culture or something else that is even broader? S: Staying within practice rather than extending to culture has the benefit that practice allows us to be specific with regard to particular value systems that might be important for design. I think that “practice” builds a tighter link between the neighbor and issues taking place within practice than “culture” does. Within sports, for example, not accepting doping makes sense, while in medical care, chemicals are accepted as a means to enhance or rehabilitate performance. A neighbor is someone who has an informed opinion about these types of practice-specific values. When use becomes prevalent—or even before that, when it leaves the margins and becomes a recognized part of a practice—the practice starts to change. The use of new technologies influences not only those who have an immediate interest in them, but all who are involved in the practice. A citizen has legitimate interests concerning societal development beyond the things that immediately touch upon her as beneficiary, sponsor, operator, or experiencer. P: Taxpayers are sponsors. S: You don’t lose your right to vote even if you don’t pay a cent of tax. The same should perhaps be the case with the use of technologies. P: Probably. But what do you mean exactly by practice? S: That is a discussion of its own, but I think I could refer to Alasdair MacIntyre again. P: He helped us last time. S: He did. He gives a definition that suits our purposes. He makes a point that virtues, which he considers the fundamental concepts in ethics, need to be positioned into particular practices for them to make sense. Wait a second, I have his definition somewhere here … Right, for him a practice is “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the



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course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended” (MacIntyre 1981/2011: 218). Put simply, practices are doings and sayings with a certain level of coherence linked by understandings, procedures, and engagements.7 A practice has its standards and rules that a novice needs to learn, but those are not immutable. Competent actors within a practice are capable of adjusting the rules and re-evaluating the values of the practice. We already discussed the idea of virtue and its relationship with practice. P: The definitions seem vague. S: Trying to make them more focused would exclude too much. P: I guess. But if we go back to the standpoint of a neighbor, could we call a neighbor also a non-user? S: I wouldn’t say so. I think a good way to understand the idea of a neighbor is as an agent who belongs to a practice or has valid interests concerning the practice. A person who doesn’t interact with a system can be a neighbor, but so is one who interacts. “Neighbor” is a set including users and non-users. When I use a device, you are my neighbor; and when you use it, I’m your neighbor. P: We are neighbors independent of our own use or non-use of the device. S: I would say so. We are neighbors if others around us use it. P: A neighbor’s interests must be different from the standpoints we’ve recognized this far. What can we say about them? S: This takes us back to what you missed. P: Ethics and justice. S: I think so. A neighbor looks at the practice in a more general and impartial manner. Other standpoints are particular, with each defending their immediate benefits. Neighbors have knowledge and an interest in the development of the practice, but they don’t have a particular immediate interest in the practice with reference to the specific use under evaluation. Thus their interest is impartial, and they can address the fair and just development of the practice. Their position in the practice can be seen to be comparable to John Rawls’ (1971: 17–22) participants in the original position8 who decide about an institutional order behind the veil of ignorance.9 The veil blinds them to their position in the society and that is why their decisions need to ensure that the worst-off do alright, as they might belong to that group themselves.

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P: Right. So the neighbors know how things work and they care about the practice, but they don’t care about their particular interests. So we could see them as experts of a sort who distance themselves from the issue and decide rationally by weighing the options. S: I don’t think that neighbors would be experts in the traditional sense of the word. For example, in the practice of healthcare, the participants with interest and insight include the patients and family members as well as the doctors and nurses. P: Don’t they occupy the standpoints we listed before? S: Sorry. You’re right. A healthy citizen of the community can be concerned about her health services. She is a neighbor.

You recognize a neighbor by her knowledge, concern, responsibility, and impartiality.

P: I’m not sure if I understood that correctly. I’ll try to summarize: I would say that you recognize a neighbor by her knowledge, concern, responsibility, and impartiality. S: There is no correct or incorrect. We merely try to elaborate. P: True. You also said that neighbors’ interest in the use of a device is mediated by the ways its use changes the practice. This too sounds a bit abstract. Can you explain? S: I don’t think it’s so abstract. Let me repeat the basic rationale. P: Please. S: Emerging use is influenced and even driven by new designs and can change the value of skills, social capital, societal positions, commitments, and possessions within a practice. Several old professions and practices have disappeared with the emergence of technologies, and several old habits have been transformed into different new forms. The opportunity space within the practice can also change, allowing people to make more or fewer choices. Human value and dignity related to the practices can change or the appreciation of the whole practice can grow or be corrupted.10 The conception of what health is changes along with the technologies, allowing us to diagnose new health risks. Neighbors are interested in these types of developments for which the use of new designs is instrumental.



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P: I see, but I still believe that this standpoint is a bit elusive and that neighbors’ interests are easily overlooked. S: That’s why the responsible designer has to consider those especially carefully. Other stakeholders have much better possibilities to look after their own benefits. As a participant, a neighbor is weaker—or at least she might be—and we should protect her interests. P: The usability and user-experience paradigms don’t help us to do that. S: Not much. P: We started with usability and user experience and anticipated that, as concepts, they are not broad enough for proper evaluation of the quality of use—now that we’re discussing neighbors and practices, I’m starting to feel that we should leave usability and user experience behind. We are moving somewhere else, to different kinds of discussions. This is no longer about the quality of use. S: Neighbors’ interests definitely have already been covered in many other discussions, but I’d like to understand the neighbor as one of our standpoints that should be consulted when we evaluate the quality of use. I know that the neighbors’ angle overlaps and intertwines with several other discussions, theories, and academic traditions that are capable of positioning the use of products and technologies in broader contexts of meaning, development, and values. To mention a few, these include the ecological approach to design (Kaasinen and Norros 2007), actor network theory (Latour 2007), cultural historical activity theory, and social shaping of technology (Bijker, Hughes, and Pinch 1989). There is also growing interest in applying the frameworks of distributional justice and societal development to design. Discussions within interaction design and usability have also started to deal increasingly with social responsibility (Cooper 2010; Melles, de Vere, and Misic 2011) and values of design (Friedman and Freier 2005; Friedman, Kahn, and Borning 2006; Borning and Muller 2012). P: Are we able to say anything new? S: We can say that neighbors’ standpoints are not yet a recognized part of the frameworks of the quality of use in a way that would be somehow compatible with usability and user experience. These are concepts that aim to directly help designers. Discussions about use and societal development tend to be descriptive rather than normative, and holistic rather than operational. Well, I’m probably generalizing too much. But the aim of our discussion is to seek out simplicity among complexity, even though occasionally we come close to doing the opposite. By linking the more generic interests of fair development

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of practices to usability and user experience, we might also be able to say something about the interpretation of the quantitative criteria of the quality of use. We might be able to contextualize usability and user experience. P: It seems to me that the criteria for evaluating use from the neighbors’ point of view merge with generic criteria applicable to any societal development and any progress within a practice. I mean there might not be anything particular to evaluate in the quality of use from the neighbors’ point of view. Neighbors are just interested in good practices. S: True. However, we should note that the criteria for usability and user experience are similar. P: What do you mean? S: Efficiency and effectiveness, accuracy and completeness are generic criteria for evaluating any systems with or without interaction, human agents, and technical components. A person’s perceptions and responses, which comprise the core of user experience according to the ISO standard, are also generic criteria that can be applied in assessing the impact and value of any kind of stimulus. The object of evaluation needs to be added to employ them as criteria for usability and user experience. Only adding “to be used” and “resulting from use or anticipated use” makes the usability and userexperience definitions specifically applicable to the quality of use (ISO 1998). Correspondingly, the neighbors’ interest can be expressed in generic terms. These terms become criteria for evaluating the quality of use, when we use them for that purpose. P: I see. S: Good.



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Worth of use P: The standpoint approach illuminates the changing interpretations of quantitative indicators of use. What about the neighbors’ point of view? Is it better to invest more or less resources in the use of the design? Is it better to achieve more or fewer results? S: I was looking forward to these questions. P: You can trust me. S: I know. As I said, the neighbors’ interests are linked to the development of a practice. Consequently, the neighbors wish—assuming they are rational agents—that the uses of the design within the practice would be developed in a way that increases the worth of the practice. Good things should be spread to benefit more people. The practice should become more appreciated. Perhaps we could speak about internal goods, as we did last time. P: But how can we build a connection between the use of a piece of technology within a practice and the appreciation of the practice? Isn’t money the standard measurement of appreciation? S: It can be used in some cases. We can examine how the monetary value of entities within the practice changes with the increasing use of technology. However, money is not the only measurement of our appreciation and sometimes it may change how we appreciate things (Sandel 2009, 2012). I think the answer is quite simple, even simpler than money. If the use of a product increases the appreciation of a practice, its use should be promoted. P: So? S: A neighbor who is interested in the development of the practice wishes that the type of use that results in greater appreciation for the practice would become more prevalent. A neighbor wants to see the design being used more frequently in ways that improve the practice. P: And the neighbor wishes that those uses that corrupt the practice would be discontinued. That is clear by now, but—sorry to insist—can we establish a connection between use and the quantitative indicators? S: Resources and results. P: Yes, though there might be others. S: Everything that we measure can easily fall into the two categories. For the neighbor, resources or results as such are not important, but they both serve as indicators of the amount of use. The amount of use can be measured in terms of

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resources or results and increases in either. It may also be an indicator that the neighbor can use to identify desirable development. For a neighbor, resources and results both indicate the amount of use, which is good or bad in its own right and doesn’t depend on the mutual relationship of resources and results.

Resources and results both indicate the amount of use, which is good or bad in its own right.

P: So it doesn’t matter if we measure how much one consumes or gains. This is a bit strange. S: Consider exercising for physical health or the learning of new skills. P: Yes. S: In both, the time and effort allocated to the use can be seen as resources on the one hand, but on the other hand they are also outcomes or so closely related to the outcomes that they cannot really be separated. P: I don’t get it yet. S: The 45 minutes I allocate to exercising when I go jogging is a resource that I could’ve used for something else, but through the activity of exercise it becomes a result and an achievement. The 45 minutes of jogging time is the result of my effort and the resource I used for the exercise. That time allocation thus becomes a 45-minute achievement that makes me feel good both physically and mentally. When I’m sweating out there with my exercise gear, the resource and the result are one thing. When I’m using a heart rate monitor during my exercise, there is a link to the quality of use of interactive technologies. If the heart rate monitor makes me exercise more, the neighbor wishing for good health for all becomes satisfied. When a child interacts with educational software, the more time he spends with it, the better. P: Shouldn’t learning be efficient? S: We can think that efficient learning would be the goal and thus usability the best evaluation framework. From its standpoint as a sponsor, the Ministry of Education wants learning to be efficient and incentivizes educational institutions accordingly. But this misses much of the point: learning is not only an instrumental activity to achieve goals that are independent of the activity itself. Learning is also valuable as such, and doing it is what makes humans human.



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P: We don’t learn merely to achieve something but because learning itself is valuable. S: Yes. P: We can speculate about the idea that future technologies will enable us to download knowledge and skills into our nervous system (Nozick 1974: 44). S: That would be a major change in our educational system and our value system. The appreciation of knowledge and skills would collapse and perhaps the whole idea of what it is to be human would change radically. Thus, the results of learning are meaningful and increase the value of use, but this is equally true of the time allocated to learning. Both the time and the results can be used as positive indicators. If I evaluate my use of the heart rate monitor and a child’s use of educational software from the sponsor’s angle, I would appreciate efficient learning and short, intensive exercise. If I look at these from the experiencers’ point of view, I would appreciate the commitment and effort fostered by rewarding interaction. As a neighbor, the amount of use is what I’m interested in and both resources and results can be used as indicators. Any indication that the use of technologies increases physical exercise and studying would be good. P: Hmm … I’m still struggling with this. S: The concept of using resource spending as an indicator of good development is not unique. Higher expenditure of the gross national product on education, for instance, is considered good, even though strictly speaking that doesn’t tell us anything about the quality and impact of the education, as it might actually indicate that the schooling system is inefficient. There are other examples where resource consumption is interpreted as results. In many of these cases, consumption is a substitute for the measurement of the output, which might be too difficult to measure or communicate. P: Do you mean cases like when we habitually believe that the power rating of a vacuum cleaner in terms of kW tells us how effective it is at sucking up dirt? However, it just indicates how much energy it consumes. S: Exactly. All clear now? P: A bit clearer, I guess. But do you agree that a neighbor’s perspective requires a name of its own? It’s clearly a different take on the quality of use. S: If we’d like to spread the message, we need to brand it. To this end, we also need methods so that the neighbors’ standpoint can be taken into consideration, as we discussed before. If we only want to clarify our own thoughts, branding with names and rituals wouldn’t be that necessary.

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P: What do you think? S: I’m quite happy to speak about the neighbor’s standpoint. But I also realize that our choice of terminology associates our approach with others’ thoughts and previous work. P: Is any of the prior literature relevant? S: I think professor Gilbert Cockton (2006, 2008a, 2012a, 2012b) has criticized narrow usability and user-experience focused conceptualizations of the targets and mission of human–computer interaction in a way that shares our concerns in many respects, or we share his. He has looked for a way to express how we could aim for the “lasting value of enduring outcomes.” His (2006) answer is to focus on what is worthwhile for users and to concentrate on developing “things that will be valued, as manifested in people’s motivation, individually or collectively, to invest one or more of time, money, energy and commitment.” He (ibid.) says that worth-centered design aims at “designing things that will motivate people to buy, learn, use or recommend an interactive product, and ideally most or all of these.” P: I think he speaks about experiencers. S: I’d say that even though worth-centered design addresses what we would call experiencers’ motivations, it aims also to acknowledge more comprehensively what makes products meaningful for people rather than consider designers’ work as a technical discipline to make interactions instrumentally good for the purposes of questionable utility or passing pleasure. Thus there are commonalities between worthwhile designs and the impartial neighbors’ interests. Both aim at solutions that look for value that goes beyond the immediate experience of interaction and that is not tied to particular immediate interests related to use. Instead of increasing the conceptual confusion by introducing more new terms, the neighbors’ interest could be considered as an alternative approach to understand and characterize the worth. Consequently, the quality of use that resonates with the neighbors’ interests is the worth of use. P: Am I over-interpreting if I say that you’re proposing a model for evaluating the quality of use that includes three components, which are usability, user experience, and worth of use? S: I think you are. I’m suggesting that we should include in our arsenal a framework that addresses the standpoint of an impartial but informed evaluator. I also want to say that none of the three frameworks we have now discussed subsume any other. Their differences can be articulated by paying attention to the different standpoints they represent. Usability aims



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at safeguarding the interests of sponsors, beneficiaries, and operators, being essentially a cost–benefit analysis of use. It’s a relevant angle in goal-oriented use where interaction is instrumental. User experience focuses attention on the private interpretation of quality and addresses operators’ and experiencers’ points of views. It’s especially relevant when use is internally motivated and the subjective angle matters the most. Worth of use is the evaluative angle of an impartial neighbor. She is interested in the development of the practice. If we say that these three are the angles that create a model, we should also say that they are enough. Thus far we’ve only made the claim that they are needed and do not subsume each other. There might still be other aspects to consider. P: One single standpoint, I believe, is unlikely to be enough for a proper evaluation of use. This leads to a dilemma in the interpretation of the quantitative indicators of the quality of use. S: Correct. We need to consider several conflicting standpoints. Usability increases in step with the growth in amount of results and the decrease in resource expenditure. For user experience, a greater resource allocation is a positive indicator of quality and the results can be seen as compensating incentives and indicators of lower user experience. For the worth of use, both the increase in resource consumption and results signify higher levels of quality. P: The difficult issue is not so much to correctly measure the results and the resources consumed, but to choose the standpoint and interpret the numbers accordingly. S: We’re very used to efficiency thinking and also accept pleasure-oriented thinking. We consider these self-evidently dominating models.

Imagining a practice P: Can I get back to something we dealt with only in passing? S: Sure. P: Proposing that the amount of use would be the criterion for evaluating the quality of solutions seems overly simplistic. S: There is a condition. The neighbor has to believe that the use increases the appreciation of the practice or some essential aspects within the practice. It should promote the internal goods, and perhaps the external to some extent. An informed decision must be made about the significance of the indicators before their use for evaluative purposes makes sense.

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P: Usability and user experience are much simpler. S: They are not. The condition is equivalent to the assumptions we need to make when evaluating usability. When we evaluate usability with efficiency and effectiveness we assume that the resources spent on use are scarce, transferable, and valuable, but we seldom explicitly discuss these assumptions. If time is of no value, rapid interaction is meaningless. If I’m stuck on a desert island or retired, with a lot of time on my hands, I don’t need to be efficient. Unless the assumptions about the value of resources are true, saving resources would make no sense and would not be a meaningful indicator. So I don’t think that the worth of use simplifies more than usability. Actually by addressing these assumptions it simplifies less.

When we evaluate usability we assume that the resources spent on use are scarce, transferable, and valuable.

P: Maybe I’m insisting again, but how does the neighbor know that use increases the value of the practice? S: That’s a very good question. P: Thanks. S: You’re welcome. We need to trust the neighbors to have relevant and appropriate criteria. P: We should be able to say more. S: Well, the likely candidates for the neighbor to look at include protection from harm, the autonomy of agents, the freedom and capability of individuals to achieve what they consider worthwhile whether that is their wellbeing and happiness or goals meaningful for other reasons, human worth and dignity, everybody’s equal right to be dealt with as an end and not only as a means, and the more instrumental interpretations of these terminal values of fair and just life and development. P: Big issues. S: Indeed. P: People tend to disagree on how to interpret them. S: There are different opinions. This doesn’t mean that the value of practices



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cannot be assessed, but it means that an absolute answer everybody can agree on might be beyond the opportunity horizon. P: Fortunately when we evaluate the quality of use we have a tradition of ignoring the requirement for unanimous agreements. Usability is defined as something that depends on the user, context, and goals of use. User experience is fundamentally subjective. S: That’s true and that’s why we can cut ourselves some slack and accept that if we are to expand the evaluation space of use to cover the impacts of use on a practice, we don’t need to combine this with major, or any, developments in our ability to generalize evaluation results. We can accept that what is good for a practice depends on the particular practice we deal with and that there are conflicting opinions. Thus, we could stop here and just say that the way to evaluate the worth of use is to ask neighbors to choose between “like” and “dislike.” P: That is something people know how to do these days. But perhaps we should still try to make this more understandable. Can we take an example to illustrate what the impartial neighbors’ angle might look like? S: I don’t have a good one in mind. Do you? P: The other day I had a discussion with a few architects and spatial designers about virtual reality systems and how great they would be in design. They weren’t very enthusiastic. We didn’t agree on much. I think they were more bothered about design practice and its values than usability or experience. Would that be a suitable case? 11 S: Sounds like a good example. However, there is one issue—your discussion addressed design as a practice of use. We obviously need to address design as a practice that proposes solutions for use. So we might get confused about the double role of design. P: I hope we manage to deal with the issue. We might also learn something about the internal good of design. We spoke about that last time, but not in any great depth. S: You’re right. P: So how would an architect or a spatial designer answer if we were to ask the following questions: Virtual reality systems have become increasingly usable and feasible. If they become more commonplace, how would that change architectural practice? Do you consider the changes welcome? S: That’s as good a formulation as any.

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P: Thanks. S: So what kinds of answers could we get? P: Shall I just give you an example of something that they said? S: Please. P: Well, someone said that state-of-the art systems, virtual reality caves and all those, are expensive. Details matter, so mediocre visualizations do more harm than good. S: Right. I think that what he or she would actually be worried about is not related so much to the technology itself, but the way bigger investments might change the profession. Do you agree? P: You might be over-interpreting, but basically I think I agree. We value the ideal of a free independent profession. However, the necessity of making greater investments in modeling technology or the like might curtail our freedom, or in fact already has. We’re forced to accept any commission that comes our way to cover our expenses. S: So what would the neighbor say? P: The neighbor might be worried about the threat the technology poses to the quality of design in general, the freedom of her lifestyle as a designer. S: She might also have the ideological conviction that liberty is the most fundamental principle in ensuring that knowledge in society is used in the most appropriate way for development and everybody’s good (Hayek 1969/2011). If technology or anything else for that matter coerces us to deviate from a path of our own choosing, that would in the long run be harmful for the practice and society. In addition, the answer deals or can be seen as dealing with the changing motivation to work—the necessity of investing in tools makes the practice more externally driven, as earning more money becomes a must. P: Motivations are key concepts in user experience. S: Yes, but motivations are normally used to explain why people use certain artifacts. This answer deals with the motivation to design at a more general level and the foreseeable changes in motivations as a result of the adoption of technologies. Internal motivation might be replaced by an external motivation. If the emerging uses of technology change the reasons why we engage in a practice, that is a foundational change and the neighbor would definitely react to that. P: Yes.



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S: What else did they say? P: I don’t remember, but how about I share my own thoughts on the matter? Is that okay? S: Yes. P: I’m not too excited about the new digital systems, but when we design with them the results are more useful for our customers. The systems keep us on schedule, my colleagues are happy that they have secure jobs, and the city is happy that we can provide them with exact documentation for use in their decision-making on building permits. All these have more weight than my personal preferences. I know everybody in the business does the same, so in this respect the systems provide us with no competitive advantage. All in all, I think that adopting new technology represents a natural way forward for any design practice. S: You mentioned your own attitude as an evaluation criterion, but mostly you spoke about the utility of applying technologies. P: Sounds like usability? S: There’s a difference between what you said and usability. Usability focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of the use of products, but you spoke about the outcomes and utility of design practice that is influenced by the use of the new technology. Your rationale is utilitarian, as you compared the happiness of the many against the unhappiness of the few, namely yourself, and came to the conclusion that greater accumulated happiness justifies the adoption of these artifacts. Unlike the previous answer, which addressed the internal good of architecture in MacIntyre’s terms, you spoke about external goods and changes that might make the practice more profitable to all. P: Your turn. S: Fine, I’ll try. What about a designer who says that she’s worried about systems that make design look very easy, allowing uneducated amateurs to enter the business. P: And why is she worried about that? S: The quality of design is one concern. P: That’s a noble worry. S: But I think that her worries about the internal good of the practice overlaps with concerns about the external good as well … maybe I’m a bit shallow. But another worry might be that the new entrepreneurs have to compete with price, which eventually puts pressure on experienced and established

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professionals to sell their work cheap. Or at least they are concerned about this. P: They are still protected by the architects’ union and construction law. But I see the rationale. S: Unions guarantee their members benefits and to protect them they have control mechanisms that screen entry into the practice. New technologies can break through the old defences of practices, open and democratize innovations, and consequently redistribute the good within the expanded practice. Our respondent might have only been speaking for herself, but her opinion might be at least distantly connected to discussions about distributional justice. Perhaps she believes in the process of entitlement (Nozick 1974), which allocates goods to those who have acquired them, like established professionals have acquired a monopoly of their domain in a way they consider just. The new technologies might redistribute and democratize the opportunities to design and allow anybody who wants designs and needs designs to make their own. Any other angles we can come up with? P: I know a senior architect who is really old-school. His studio is an amazing piece of architecture in itself. I believe he would say that he enjoys the low-tech atmosphere of his architecture studio. I feel that his drawing boards and paper link him to the tradition of architecture. His architects use computers in his studio, of course, but he doesn’t think it would be appropriate for him to install more gadgets. They even try to keep all their current digital tools out of sight. S: That is a good angle. A practice is also about the premises, ambiance, and the ways people organize their material environment. It’s about where and how they want to be. Your senior architect feels that new technology is alien in the environment, which is essential in the way it defines the practice. The studio is where architecture is created and where the architect feels at home. Maybe having his own studio was the driving motivation for him to become an architect and architecture is just a necessary activity that enables him to afford the studio and perhaps the lifestyle that comes with it.12 The activity can be secondary to the ambiance of the studio and to his identity. The studio is essential to his understanding and love of architecture. The values of the practice are subjective and he defines them in an existentialist manner. This being the case, all the things that enter the sacred space of the practice need to share the spirit of the studio. P: It sounds strange that he would practice architecture to have a studio, and not the other way round.



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S: We need to challenge our assumptions of causality. P: These discussions make me realize that. And thanks for that. Do we still have something to add to the neighbor’s list of concerns? S: Yes, I think so. Based on what my students do, my next answer would be something along the lines of I like seeing how the younger guys play with the technology. The results aren’t always that convincing, but I like their excitement. And if the systems inspire them to stay longer in the studio to try out the technology, regardless of what they’re working on, I believe that’s time well spent. P: It’s fun. S: It is. And I agree that spending time with a system that engages students in a playful activity is time well spent. The use as such is not meaningful, but their playful spirit and extended presence in the studio are. Young designers and architects have alert minds. They’re always working on serious projects for which they need to find solutions and they all dream about creating a breakthrough design with which they’ll win their first big competition and gain recognition. This search combined with coincidental play that is enabled and stimulated by the new technology—whose use has not yet been established as a routine practice—might make it possible for them to find something they weren’t looking for and recognize its value once discovered. P: You’re speaking about serendipity. S: Yes. P: Do you have more answers in mind? S: I seem to be warming up to the subject. I started to think about my ex-colleague. He thought that practitioners have more in common now that they are playing with new digital toys. It might be that designers and architects work on commissions that are so confidential, or something, that they can’t talk much about their own work. They tend to get kind of isolated. But he said that he now gets calls from colleagues every day because they know he’s ahead in using state-of-the-art technology. He’s not a guru or anything like that but he’s happy to share what he knows. The new technology became a shared novel interest within the community and it created a new role for him as a local expert. P: Technology changed their social roles. S: It created a shared topic of interest and new roles. Actually my colleague is in a wheelchair and therefore faces challenges in his social life, as he isn’t able to participate in many of the activities his colleagues engage in. This new

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interest created a layer of expertise, which equalized the practice for him and made him socially more included. Thanks to the new technology, he can be what he wants to be and do what he wants to do. P: Nice story. S: Let’s squeeze out a couple more. I have a hunch that we’re still missing something. P: Are you sure? S: Quite. P: Fine. What about this: Quite a few of us working in design, media, and architecture are artistic in our attitudes and interests, but our profession also has a technical and practical side. The technical things need to be done properly and correctly too. I believe that little by little the use of computers helps people to understand that. The use of the technology requires exactness or new skills of some sort. In a way this takes us somewhat closer to engineering, but the new tools enable us to take this step in a natural and good way, I think. Slightly different kinds of people are now becoming interested in our practice than in the past. Perhaps students will take minors in computing and so on. The new tech will attract the kind of people we haven’t had many of in the past and who we need. S: That is again a new angle. It deals with professional competence and the identity challenge of design being technical and artistic, creative and systematic, surprising and trustworthy. Without the ambivalence and oscillation between these, design wouldn’t be design and the balance is a result of an ongoing negotiation. The ideals of design tell us in each situation what is enough and what would be too much. That said, all the components of the practice redefine our ideals. Our new tools inevitably have an influence on the nature of the practice. This can attract new kinds of people into the design field and inform the choices they make in becoming what they think is a good practitioner. P: Scary! S: Natural. P: I have one more. S: Good. P: Especially with private customers, architects sometimes encounter the problem that the clients cannot really read the plans or even renderings and become annoyingly nervous about the project. In these cases virtual modeling



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would probably be useful in really helping them see what the designers mean, even at the beginning of the project when they propose a concept for further elaboration. What I see as a challenge here is that I wouldn’t like to be so firmly committed to the first visualizations I share with my clients. S: Why? P: Sketchy visualizations give us more leeway and it’s also obvious to the clients that the pictures are not final. S: I understand the clients’ concerns. P: But I simply don’t like the idea that the rest of the project would only involve realizing the image that was shared in the beginning. That’s not design. The clients should trust designers. I have another example that might be similar to the previous one. S: Yes … P: Technologies make it too easy to create photorealistic visualizations of your design, and complete those with decorative elements—however, in spite of how realistic these images look, they aren’t really real. I’ve heard someone suggest that they should actually be forbidden in competitions. Plans and elevations don’t lie, and reading them is what an architect needs to master. S: Great. I don’t agree with those opinions, but that doesn’t matter. They are good examples of worries related to the changing of the profession, and they represent different aspects from the ones we’ve already recognized. The first is a fundamental one. It assumes that the new technology will change the way designers are used to working. Technology that enables early realistic visualizations might end up dominating the process, especially if such visualizations are submitted to clients for their approval. Design would lose something that is characteristic to it and which we also consider very important: namely the reflective process, where options are kept open and the elaboration of solutions creates new challenges and opportunities throughout the process. Also, many designers feel that overly precise early visualizations are dishonest. Then the opposite angle … P: The clients’ angle? S: Yes. The clients need to feel secure when they’ve commissioned a house building project—which, for private clients, is typically the most expensive project of their lives. The new technology has an impact on how architecture can respond to their needs. If these needs are considered fundamental, they set norms for architectural practice. What is a fundamental need is not an

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absolute, but always depends on what is possible and reasonable. Thus, the level of need satisfaction depends on the available means. The weaker stakeholder in architectural dialogue, the layman client, should perhaps be given a maximum sense of security about the project outcome as soon as technology enables that. P: This explanation goes close to looking at beneficiary’s and sponsor’s interests. S: If you think that the client should expect predictability, the practice would have to change. P: What about my second answer? S: Right. The new artifacts might deskill architects, so that they are unable to read and create two-dimensional representations and then, based on them, mentally construct clear images that might in some essential respects be truer than the virtual reality representations. P: Digital systems don’t deskill designers, but allow and stimulate us to develop skills that are more relevant than the older skillset. S: You think that competence builds competence and that there are no tradeoffs, which actually reminds me of a colleague (Heikkinen 2013) who wrote a dissertation about developing his own design approach through building interactive design tools. We could say that the use of technology can be a fundamental way to generate new insight into design. The use and development of technology became a vehicle for reflection and change. P: Not all of us turn new technologies into vehicles of personal learning. S: No. Only some do.

Impartially opinionated P: Do you remember what we managed to gather? S: No. P: Let me try to recap. I think we mentioned the following: MM

Practitioners’ freedoms and motivations to work and be engaged;

MM

Money and fame created by and distributed within the practice;

MM

Democracy and opportunity to enter and influence the practice;



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MM

MM

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Ambiance and aesthetics of the premises and conventions of the practice; Engagement, creativity, and serendipity in collaboration; Inclusivity, affiliation, and social capital that the practice provides and enables;

MM

Competence development opportunities;

MM

Honesty of values and behavior in the practice;

MM

Safety, security, and trust inherent in the practice;

MM

Self-esteem and self-reflection opportunities.

S: Good summary. P: Thanks. The answers seem to cover almost anything. S: We need to remember that those are only the points we remember. Memory tends to be fallible, mine more than yours, and it’s also swayed by imagination. However, I think that these points demonstrate that the impact of use on a practice is, as you say, very versatile and comprehensive. In our short analyses, or starting points of analyses, we found several links to theories that can be used to understand the changes. These include theories about ethics and morals, about development and social change, theories of distributive justice and fair institutional order, theories about the particular practice and its values and conventions, and also those theories that usability, user experience, and worth of use have in common, but which can be used to position, for instance, the idea of motivation and competence somewhat differently than is done within usability and user-experience frameworks. P: Including the neighbors’ standpoint is really demanding. S: Yes it is. It broadens not only the topics of discussion, but also the choices of theories and alternatives for conceptualizing good use. P: May I still return to your definition of “neighbor.” S: Sure. P: You said that the neighbors are impartial, but in our answers they had clear interests and strong opinions. S: The neighbors are not impartial when it comes to the practice. They have their standpoints, which make their insights justified and meaningful, but the way they reflect on the changes in the practice doesn’t depend on their immediate role with respect to the use of an object. Or perhaps it would be

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more correct to say that their reflections go beyond immediate experience and utility. In our examples, the architects and designers also sponsor the use of the design and benefit from its use, and experience it, but are capable of reframing what they see from those positions into a more generic perspective, that of the change of the practice. P: Basically a neighbor is someone for whom the practice is meaningful. S: That is a good approximation. And if we follow that interpretation, we could define the criterion of good design as a neighbor’s answer to the question: would the design improve something that is meaningful and worthwhile for you? This assumes interest and relevance, projects a liberal interpretation of who qualifies as a neighbor in a practice, leaves all the imaginable dimensions in which things can be improved open, and doesn’t fix things to instrumental goods or first-hand experience. Furthermore, this is subjective in the respect that it’s the recipient’s opinion that matters, but not necessarily her subjective experience only, and it’s not about responding to predefined briefs but about discussing what is good on the basis of the terms set by the neighbors, the practice, and the design. P: That is very open-ended. S: Yes. P: Do you think we could build a questionnaire for measuring the worth of use and its impact on a practice in the same vein as there are formalized and validated questionnaires for measuring usability and user experience? S: No. P: But based on our fictive examples, such a questionnaire would probably have scales such as economic impacts, impacts on ambiance and environment, impacts on social structures, impacts on ideological stands and identity, impacts on the capability of the practice to recreate itself, safety and trust, and probably also a number of other scales that could be derived from additional fictive and eventually factual samples of value statements and their correlations. S: The value of building such an inquiry would lie in the process of forcing us to clarify and explicate the dimensions typically having a role in neighbors’ decisions with respect to the development or corruption of practices. As a practical and operational instrument, the questionnaire might have a marginal role. Because each practice is valuable on its own terms and not on the terms of another practice, a generic questionnaire would most likely fail to be a useful tool for designers. My verdict might be biased by my belief that design is also creative in the use and configuration of tools and processes. But as I



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said already and as we have discussed, a method would allow us to act out the principle of including an impartial neighbor’s angle. That would be the real benefit of having a questionnaire. P: I worry that if we don’t suggest tools and means for evaluation, the evaluation from the neighbor’s perspective will remain a very interpretative process. It’s very different from usability, which is well-framed, clearly defined, and operationalized. Even user experience seems to be easy to evaluate. S: I don’t think they are so clear either. P: Why do I think they are? S: We are just more used to them. We discussed this already, but maybe it’s good that I repeat my point as it summarizes the main message of our discussion: Usability and user-experience based evaluations of the quality of use are conceptually clear only in those cases in which we know that a limited cost–benefit analysis or users’ subjective perception is valid or even the most valid angle of evaluation. When we know that use has a positive impact on the development of a practice, then the evaluation from the point of view of an impartial neighbor in the practice also becomes conceptually clear. We can use the resources allocated to use and the results of the use as simple, easy-to-measure quantitative indicators. Also, evaluations based on usability and user experience become questionable if we, as we should, seriously first ask whether the paradigms are valid. P: Thanks. And how would you now answer the question I asked to start this discussion? S: And that was …? P: How should we evaluate the quality of use in a just manner? S: Good. May I throw the question back to you? P: Well, taking a user-centered approach starts to seem weird to me, because there is very little of anything that we could call centered, focused, or convergent in the idea of a user who is a team. The user is fragmented, and in internal disagreement. The ethically important incarnation of a user is the neighbor—or perhaps the neighbor is the forgotten and ignored one, but we cannot meaningfully speak about neighbor-centered design, because the neighbor is anywhere but in the center. It would be like speaking about periphery-centered design. S: Metaphors can be contradictory. P: Sure?

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S: Yes. P: Well, then I think I would simply say “design for the neighbor’s peace of mind.” We covered many things, but this is where we arrived.

Design for the neighbor’s peace of mind.

Notes 1

Practitioner and Scholar exclude participatory design, collaborative design, and end-user and lead-user innovation from their discussion. These branches of design have a more democratic and equalitarian agenda than usability and user experience. They solve some of the justice-related issues that will be discussed in this and the following dialogues. Practitioner and Scholar are old-school designers in that they consider designing for users to be an essential aspect of their professional identity and scope of responsibilities. They are more interested in the distributive than procedural justice of design.

2

Influential early references include, e.g., K. D. Eason (1984), John Gould and Clayton Lewis (1985), Donald Norman and Stephen Draper (1986), Brian Shackel (1991), and Jacob Nielsen (1993).

3

See also Bevan and Macleod 1994, Bevan and Curson 1999.

4

Some authors regard usability as an aspect of acceptability, e.g., Brian Shackel (1991) and Jacob Nielsen (1993), bringing it closer to what is often referred to as technology acceptance (Davis 1993; Venkatesh and Davis 2000). The ISO 9241 definition of usability includes both the user’s ability to operate a system and the system’s and user’s joint ability to achieve goals, which makes it broader than many other definitions.

5

Expressions such as affective human factors, pleasure, emotional design, and empathic design have been used to refer to similar ideas.

6

For a range of different approaches to user experience, see, for instance, All about user experience (n.d.), Masaaki Kurosu and Kaori Kashimura (1995), Tractinsky (1997), Patrick Jordan (2002), Lars Hallnäs and Johan Redström (2001), Hassenzahl (2003), Koskinen, Mattelmäki, and Battarbee (2003), Battarbee (2004), Judy Forlizzi and Katja Battarbee (2004), John McCarthy and Peter Wright (2004), Battarbee and Ilpo Koskinen (2005), March Hassenzahl and Noel Tractinsky (2006), Gitte Lindgaard et al. (2006), Tractinsky and Zmiri (2006), and Satu Luojus (2010).

7

Reckwitx (2002: 249–50) defines a “practice” as “a routinised type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one another: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, ‘things’ and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge … A practice



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is thus a routinised way in which bodies are moved, objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is understood.” See also, e.g., Schatzki (1996: 89) and Warde (2005). 8

The original position is a hypothetical situation where a social contract— the design of the institutional order of the society—is defined by a representative group of participants. The participants do not know their own future position in the society, so they cannot design with a view to gaining benefits for themselves. However, they know how society in general and people usually behave. This being the case, they have the knowledge and interest to design the society in a way that they are as well off as possible, whatever positions they happen to occupy. According to Rawls’ intuition, they would not take chances, but design for equality and ensure that the position of the worst off is as good as possible, as they might be the worst-off members of the society themselves.

9

The veil of ignorance is a theoretical concept meaning that the people behind it are ignorant of their own position in the future society about whose order they are deciding. See previous footnote (Rawls 1971).

10 See Michael Sandel (2009, 2012) for discussions on the corruption of practices. 11 What qualifies for a practice as defined by MacIntyre is not self-evident and that is a non-trivial problem when Practitioner and Scholar want to evaluate the quality of use based on its impact on a practice. However, architecture is something MacIntyre (1981/2011: 218) explicitly presents as an example of a practice. 12 A master thesis (Naves Pinheiro 2013) dealing with designers’ business management approaches in Helsinki revealed that regarding design commissions as an instrument to afford a studio is not a strange idea for designers.

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n this dialogue Practitioner and Scholar compare usability with the capability approach. They realize their earlier ignorance about the broader objectives of usability to improve wellbeing and quality of life and they decide to give it another chance. They discuss the basics of the capability approach and its compatibility with usability from several angles. They agree that both usability and the capability approach link resources to achievements. They notice that they have to advance from the narrow-goal orientation of usability to the more user-initiated application of technologies to ensure respect for the dignity of individuals. They speak about how certain users—whom they call devotees—prefer meaningful achievements over convenience; they term this conviction-critical use. They are not happy with the loose way in which “user” is defined in usability and call for normative accessibility, with a few well-articulated exceptions. They discuss the problem of adaptive preference and agree that usability takes appropriate countermeasures against it by giving users a first-hand experience with novel solutions. Practitioner and Scholar conclude by rearticulating usability. They propose that its criteria be adjusted to tolerate emergent scenarios of use. Usability should allow users to elaborate their own goals and terms of appreciation that unfold during use. They adapt usability so that it is sensitive to human capabilities and call it applicability. Practitioner defines applicability as the extent to which a product can be applied by the widest range of users for appropriate, sufficient, and worthwhile achievements in their lives. The dialogue begins …

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S: Hi there! P: Hi, Scholar. S: Thanks for the discussion last time. P: My pleasure. Do you have time for another talk now? S: Sure. P: Great. S: So, what do you think? Are we making progress? P: Well, I think … do you mind if I go straight to what I have in mind? S: You’re not so sure about our progress? P: You know how it is. You learn something, but at the same time you have so many new things to think about that it’s really tough to wrap your head around them. The more we discuss, the more questions I want to ask. S: Fine. Let’s skip the small talk. P: … that we wouldn’t have had anyway! S: Right. P: Okay. I think we were too hasty in deciding that the usability paradigm is ethically inadequate or too limited. Frankly, we hurried too soon to user experience and the worth of use. Sorry. S: No problem. Why do you think so? P: Usability is a ubiquitously applied concept for evaluating the quality of use. The ISO 9241 part 11 standard has become the well-recognized definition of the concept. It’s been repeatedly challenged, certainly, but these criticisms have been addressed in part 210, published later to supplement the definition in many essential respects. The standard links usability to the design process and user experience—and to a broader and more versatile value basis. It says that human-centered design “enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.” I think we oversimplified usability in our previous discussion. The goals of the standard go beyond the creation of efficient and effective products that are used only for achieving instrumental goals. The standard explicates that usability is an element of a good life, including objectives such as wellbeing, accessibility, sustainability, and health and safety. Thus, considering usability only as a narrow measurement of performance wouldn’t



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do justice to the intentions of the standard as a whole, even though I don’t object to the way we interpreted the quantitative indicators.

Usability is an element of good life, including wellbeing, accessibility, sustainability, and health and safety (ISO 9241-210).

S: The standard doesn’t give particular advice on designing for a good life apart from the generic human-centered process. P: Maybe we can address that. But let me continue. S: Sure. P: Usability is a ubiquitous term within human-centered design, going far beyond the focused standard definitions.1 S: Inclusiveness is somewhat in conflict with the definition set out in Part 11. P: On the one hand, in my view usability is a broad landscape concept that’s applied with plenty of slack. On the other hand, the Part 11 definition is a prominent landmark within that territory. It provides a clear-cut framework for discussing usability. When we speak about Part 11, I think our discussion serves as a salient example of interpreting usability. S: Fine. So you think usability and especially Parts 11 and 210 are ethically more relevant than we acknowledged. P: Yes. And I consider it essential that usability is instrumental with respect to users’ abilities to achieve something with technologies. In its instrumentality and focus on achieving goals, usability comes close to the capability approach, which links justice to individuals’ capabilities to do and to be what they want, within reason. S: I see. You’re claiming that if we create products that help people achieve their aims, within reason, our design improves justice. P: That’s what I’m trying to say: usability aims at a better life at the level of human–product interaction and I think the capability approach is a more generic construct that is compatible with usability. This means that usability inspections could also be inspections of our design ethics. Usability as a proxy of design that contributes to the development of a just society would set a practical limit to our responsibility so that we don’t need to consider, for instance, aggregated happiness. We would avoid many problems.

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S: Not all usable products are ethical. They can be designed for evil purposes. P: Well, yes. S: But I agree with you that we could go back to usability. Addressing usability would broaden our perspectives. We’ve talked about the ways we work and for whom we design. Now we can perhaps address the objects of our design more directly. P: What do you think about my idea of linking usability to the capability approach? S: I assume you took your promise seriously and studied the capability approach more closely. P: I did. S: Maybe you have a point. And you’re not the first one to notice a link between the capability approach and design in general. P: I know. Ilse Oosterlaken (2013: 16) has already said that … I have a quote here … “capabilities can be seen as the implicit or ‘missing link’ between more comprehensive ideas of the good life and concrete technical artifacts” … and another … “[it] can help designers to explicitly and systematically reflect on their work in relation to social change and development, which should ultimately lead to designs that contribute more to the realization of the values at stake, like well-being, agency and justice” (ibid.: 6). S: But without a compatible framework of evaluating the quality of use, the capability approach remains too generic. P: You see. Usability lacks a link to broader discussions on values and justice, and the capability approach is not operational at the micro level of development that design typically represents. They need each other. We should discuss their mutual compatibility. S: It might lead us to something. Perhaps we’ll identify how usability should be adjusted to make it more sensitive to human capabilities.2 But first, can you summarize how you understand the capability approach? P: I think, or hope, I can explain the basics. S: Perfect.

“Capabilities can be seen as the implicit or ‘missing link’ between more comprehensive ideas of the good life and concrete technical artifacts” (Oosterlaken 2013).



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P: The capability approach is a complex concept that has been discussed, criticized, and defended widely and repeatedly.3 Its fundamental setting is, however, relatively simple, I think. S: Right. And it is exactly what? P: People may have commodities such as economic resources, products, and public services. It’s not important as such to address these when we assess justice, the quality of life, and wellbeing, because they are only means to achieve something else that can be valuable. However, commodities have meaningful characteristics that may be important for individuals. The characteristics contribute to individuals’ capabilities to do and be what they aspire to, within reason. Amartya Sen calls valuable beings and doings functionings. All functionings together make individuals’ life what it is. Functionings are things that happen in individuals’ lives. Individuals’ experiences of the functionings lead to subjective wellbeing or other achievements they appreciate. S: Why are capabilities so essential? P: Capabilities are at a junction point on this continuum from resources to achievements for several reasons. First, individuals have varying capabilities to turn characteristics into functionings. The things regulating the characteristic–functioning transformation are called conversion factors. They include individual factors such as physical abilities, sociocultural factors such as behavioral norms, and environmental factors like climate and infrastructure (Robeyns 2005). An individual is capable of turning resources into functionings only when the characteristics of resources are compatible with the conversion factors. S: Can you give an example? P: A newspaper is of little use to me if I’ve lost my glasses or otherwise can’t read the small font, if I don’t understand the language, or if there isn’t enough light to read. The focus on capability turns attention to individual and contextual differences and the individuals’ actual possibilities of making use of the resources. Things that are available in principle aren’t meaningful if they aren’t actually attainable. S: Thanks.

The unit of evaluating wellbeing and development should be human capabilities that allow individuals to do and be what they want, within reason.

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P: The capability approach is a “framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements, the design of policies, and proposals about social change” (Robeyns 2005). Whether it is, or should be, normative or only comparative is a question of ongoing debate. The fundamental claim of the capability approach is that the unit of evaluating wellbeing and development should be human capabilities that allow individuals to do and be what they want, within reason. It expands the evaluation space of wellbeing from subjectively experienced happiness4 or the distribution of resources5 towards a more information-rich space consisting of individuals’ capabilities and agency. It’s based on economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s work, as we already discussed. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum and others have further developed the capability approach and made their interpretations that sometimes deviate from Sen’s. S: Good. I think we’ll keep coming back to the basics later on. So are usability and capability compatible and linked? The links between design and the capability approach have been discussed, but now we’re speaking about usability and capability.6 Usability isn’t equal to design. P: I don’t know, but I thought that we could discuss that. Maybe I took a short cut somewhere or maybe I’m just blinded by the similarity of the terms, but here’s how I see it. While the capability approach is an evaluative framework for the quality of life (Sen 1993), usability is a measurement of the quality of use (Bevan and Macleod 1994; ISO 1998; Bevan and Curson 1999). In the present technical world these are overlapping categories and separating the use of artifacts from human behavior and way of life in general is impossible. The idea of quality of use approaching the quality of life becomes more intuitive, if we consider artifacts not only as odd objects here and there, but as a ubiquitous ecosystem of products and services in which we live. S: The capability approach hasn’t been developed to evaluate products. P: But my hunch is, as I tried to say, that usability and capability could be applied together as two mutually complementing approaches to the ethical evaluation of designs. Applying them together could be a way to link what is instrumentally good within the limits of the context of use with what is ethically justified in life. This link, if strong enough, would make usability the operational arm of design that contributes to the development of a just society, while the capability approach would be the grounding body. Together they would help us design the right things correctly. S: Maybe we can start by simply asking whether the capability approach says anything directly about products and their impact on the quality of life? Does that make sense?



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P: Sure. S: I mean the capability approach usually deals with high-level concepts touching human life from an angle that’s much more generic than what design typically deals with.7 P: I agree. When Sen writes about capabilities he means things such as staying alive, which is, to put it mildly, a much more profound issue than being able to use a product. But products have a role in keeping us alive and leading meaningful lives.8 S: However, we can survive without many products. P: Let’s not get stuck on that. Sen writes briefly about products like mobile phones (Sen 2010b), clothing and bicycles (Sen 1985; Oosterlaken 2009), and their impact on capabilities. S: But these are sidetracks in his discussions, and the reason for mentioning bicycles, for instance, as far as I remember and understood it, is to give an understandable example rather than to draw an equivalence between a simple vehicle and the political freedoms that are at the heart of his interests. P: Are you sure about that? According to the logic of the capability approach, there’s no difference in principle between democracy and a bicycle. If you don’t have the means to get to the voting booth, your constitutional right to vote is useless. You lack the positive freedom, the real opportunity, to have an influence. A bicycle might give you that. Without that bicycle, there’s no democracy, no freedom. S: And the bicycle here is not only a physical object but also a metaphor for any means of mobility. You’re right. Practical means are equally as important as anything else. P: There are so many systems in addition to bicycles and traffic infrastructure that have an impact on society’s fundamental functions and individuals’ wellbeing. We discussed this last time when you introduced the standpoint of the neighbor. S: Yes. We live within such systems.

Usability and capability lay between means and ends, resources and welfare, goods and the good.

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P: Usability is a quality of interaction between human beings and technology and an attribute of use that is crucial in including or excluding users. Design and usability as its result mediate and create interfaces between individuals, products, and services, and these—if their usability is suitable for their purpose—can be turned into things that are valuable. Being able to use something is like being literate. Don’t you agree? S: That is a metaphor. P: The digital divide is essentially about people being able to do things. Like usability, the concept of capability also lies between the means and ends of a good life, resources and welfare, goods and the good. It’s situated between what’s possible in principle and in practice, and what’s provided for people and what makes a difference to them. Both usability and capability are bridging concepts between the provisioning of resources and what people can actually achieve. And capability is a still-developing approach that’s fluid and can be adjusted to make sense for practitioners in different fields.9 This should include us. There should be space and tolerance to accept designers’ efforts to explore capability and try to link their concepts to it. S: In some texts I’ve read about the capability approach, I noticed a tendency to embrace dogmatic purity. But go on. P: I feel we’re in agreement that discussing the capability approach would make sense. As you said, the discussion has already started. However, what hasn’t been done, as far as I can see, in spite of the growing interest in applying capability to design, is an analysis of the compatibility between it and the evaluative frameworks within design, especially usability.10 So if we were to say something about that, it might be a novel contribution.



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Ignored use S: What do you think we should say? P: Well, I think we already mentioned the similarity of the concepts in addressing the bridging of what is available in principle—I mean resources and systems—and actual achievement. Maybe next we could discuss liberty of choice, which Sen considers fundamental for the quality of life. S: Fine. P: A central principle in the capability approach is that individuals choose to ignore or reject a major part of the functionings that could contribute to subjective wellbeing simply because these functionings don’t match their preferred way to live. However, they need to be there because the choice is so essential. Thus, capability refers not only to individuals’ ability to do and be something, but also to their possibility of choosing what’s worth achieving. I have a quotation by Sen (1993) here. He says that “acting freely and being able to choose may be directly conducive to well-being, not just because more freedom may make better alternatives available.” S: But if this is the case, isn’t it difficult to study the capabilities? We need to study things that are merely hypothetical choices that might perhaps never turn into real action. P: That’s a reason why practical assessments often don’t measure capabilities, focusing instead on other factors. Functionings, wellbeing, and commodities are necessary proxies in practical evaluations (Robeyns 2006: 355). Other reasons to address functionings rather than capabilities are related to situations where an individual’s agency to choose can be ignored, because they may not be ready to decide for themselves or the choices for a good life are self-evident. S: What do you mean? P: We can assume that everyone would like to live without domestic violence, for instance. We don’t need to consider a scenario where someone prefers to be beaten up by a family member. S: When it comes to design, I think safety is an equivalent example. We don’t need to consider giving people the freedom to choose hazardous products, with some rare exceptions. P: Exactly.

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S: This seems to make sense, but it also means that the capability approach doesn’t focus on capabilities. P: The capability approach is complicated. It’s more appropriate to say that this approach enters the evaluation space of wellbeing and justice via capabilities, rather than focusing exclusively on them. S: Can you try to link that to usability? P: Sure. The definition of usability in Part 11 states that it is “the extent to which a product can be used,” which refers directly to something users are able to do. The standard also says that usability “is connected with the extent to which the users of products are able to work.” This says quite directly that usability is about measuring users’ capabilities, at least in the everyday meaning of the word. S: But what can we say about the freedom of choice? P: The standard doesn’t require actual use. A verified possibility of use is enough. What users, or actually the representatives of future users, do in a usability test and how satisfied they are with the product are accepted as proxies of what actual users could do in the future. That’s a good match with the capability approach. S: True. The standard could have formulated usability as “the extent to which a product is used” or as “attributes that bear on the effort needed for use,”11 or as something like “a person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use.”12 P: But it did not. S: No. The first alternative wording refers to actual doings. P: You mean functionings in capability terms. S: Yes. The second refers to characteristics available for the user and to resourcist evaluation à la Rawls. The third refers to the individually experienced results of use. P: Part 11 (ISO 1998) has been anchored to users’ abilities to convert means to ends. This is one of the possible units of evaluation that theories of distributional justice disagree on. It enters the evaluation space of quality of use in the same way as capability enters the evaluation space of wellbeing, justice, and quality of life. S: You’re right. P: Capabilities refer to the things individuals might choose to do if that is



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their preference. Thus they deal with hypothetical future options. This aligns capability evaluations close to the problems we have in conceptualizing future interactions and designs. S: I never really thought about that, but according to Part 11 usability really doesn’t require a system to be used for it to be usable. The most usable product might be one that is never used. P: Usability through ignorance! S: Indeed. This compels us to look at how the encounters between technologies and humans that actually take place, or may take place, can be used as proxies of defining usability in hypothetical encounters in the future. As you said, the capability approach prefers to stick to capabilities, because they refer to both selected and potential functionings, and thus limit the evaluation space to the feasible options and individuals’ freedom to choose. Usability seems to share similar intentions. Those systems that are usable are possible choices for an individual and the more usable systems there are, the more attainable choices individuals have. P: I wonder why usability focuses on options rather than actual use. S: I would try a historical explanation. The development of Part 11 took place in the late 1980s and in the 1990s.13 That was an era when information technology migrated from specialized solutions for trained users to standard office equipment and eventually to consumer commodities. This migration was accompanied by a change in product development practice. The previous model of developing systems for a clearly specified use and identified user groups changed to designing off-the-shelf commercial products. It became necessary to think about usability as the ability of a potential user who is not known to the developers rather than as a measure of the performance or satisfaction of a known operator. The focus on hypothetical use may also have been inherited from the separation of the activities of design and use. Even though usability is a “quality of use,” we position usability engineering in the processes of design and development. Before a system is ready, installed, and adopted, the use that can be studied, evaluated, and improved is hypothetical. The use and thus the users don’t exist. Thus we can only specify hypothetical options that might later turn out to be representative of users’ actual behavior. P: The separation of design and use has been criticized. S: More recently. That’s because the process of adoption is complicated and involves users’ innovations. Products are not merely used for “achieving specified goals” as the standard defines—the goals tend to change as

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products find their roles in everyday practices. Thus, the “post-usability era” of human-centered design has been increasingly interested in what technologies are actually used for and how the options and restrictions inscribed during the design phase unfold. The idea of a product as a coherent piece of equipment has given way to the concept of flexible platforms that active users configure to match their needs and allow them to achieve goals that they define. P: If the definition of usability were written today, it would address adoption, how products actually become useful or enjoyable and how they are actually used rather than how they could be used. S: Most likely. P: In capability terms, the attention has shifted towards functionings. S: Functionings and wellbeing I would say. P: The conclusion, however, seems to be that usability and capability share the same entry point into the evaluation space via addressing potential future use. S: That seems to be the case. The similarity is not intentional as the motivation and justification have been different, with one looking for distributional justice and the other for commercial mass acceptance. However, the resulting formulations are rather similar.

Conviction-critical use P: There’s one more thing related to the freedom of choice. S: Yes? P: The focus on freedom to choose doesn’t only mean that an individual should be able to choose between different ways of enhancing her wellbeing. Capabilities also include choices that lead individuals to sacrifice their wellbeing for a worthy cause. S: Choosing to suffer is seen in a positive light. P: Yes. In this respect, the capability approach is different from utilitarianism. Hedonic happiness is not the ultimate goal in life, and consequently it shouldn’t be the unit used to evaluate the quality of life. People voluntarily compromise their wellbeing for the benefit of others or other causes. They experience negative feelings, stress, or physical suffering, or willingly risk



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their personal comfort or safety, but still choose to do what they consider to be the right thing. The capability literature frequently refers to political activities such as hunger strikes as examples of people choosing to suffer for what they regard as being more important than their personal wellbeing (Robeyns 2005; Sen 2010a; Nussbaum 2011). That’s why the evaluation of capabilities involves individuals’ opportunities to advance their own wellbeing and also voluntarily suffer for a relevant reason. S: If they voluntarily choose to suffer they might feel some sort of pleasure from being faithful to their principles, but let’s not get stuck on that. P: To formalize the vocabulary of choices and gains, Sen (1993) has separated wellbeing from agency, and achievements from freedoms, thereby creating four categories of evaluation. These are “well-being achievement,” which is something actually completed to enhance personal wellbeing; “agency achievement,” which is something valuable completed for a cause other than personal wellbeing; “wellbeing freedom,” referring to an option to choose functionings for personal wellbeing; and “agency freedom,” which allows a person to choose to do something for a more relevant cause than her wellbeing. S: Right. So now the question is how does usability conceptualize the agency achievements and freedoms. Or does it? P: Yes. S: What do the definitions say? P: Part 11 (ISO 1998) mentions satisfaction as a usability criterion and defines it as “freedom from discomfort, and positive attitudes towards the use of the product.” Part 210 (ISO 2010) further emphasizes the wellbeing angle, stating that “when interpreted from the perspective of the users’ personal goals, [it] can include the kind of perceptual and emotional aspects typically associated with user experience, as well as issues such as job satisfaction and the elimination of monotony” and that the “resulting human activities should form a set of tasks that is meaningful as a whole to the users,” and that user experience “includes all the users’ emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviors and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use.” Thus usability clearly includes wellbeing. S: Yes, but it’s not as obvious that agency and compromising wellbeing are usability goals. P: Let me think about this … S: Take your time.

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P: Well, here’s a typical real-life example. The use of technologies may cause suffering or mild frustrations at least. Use doesn’t necessarily lead to personal satisfaction, but the products and services are used for other purposes that are more important than wellbeing achievements. In spite of her dissatisfaction, a user may volunteer to use a product because she believes that’s the only or best, perhaps the most effective and efficient, way to behave so as to yield more valuable results than her own happiness. S: Many of the administrative computer programs I use are like this. They are really annoying but still I use them. P: I believe we all have experienced such frustrations. The objective performance criteria of usability are effectiveness and efficiency. They—or actually the accuracy and completeness of results that’s part of both of them—are beneficiary-neutral, unlike satisfaction. S: What do you mean? P: I mean they refer to benefits that may belong to parties other than the operator herself. So the way usability is defined doesn’t exclude agency achievements. S: Excluding satisfaction. P: Yes. S: We need to accept that the operator’s subjective satisfaction might have to be ignored or compromised. Otherwise usability covers altruistic motivations for use, although it doesn’t underline that aspect very clearly. P: The standard (ISO 1998) actually explicitly acknowledges this issue by stating that in the case of safety-critical and mission-critical systems “it might be more important to ensure the effectiveness or efficiency of the system than to satisfy user preferences.” That seems to include agency achievements. The requirements of capability set by agency freedoms would suggest that satisfying performance criteria rather than satisfaction should be given priority also when the use is “conviction-critical.” S: Conviction-critical? That’s a new idea.

In mission-critical use, external forces compromise the user’s satisfaction. In conviction-critical use, the user’s values compromise satisfaction.



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P: I think we might need one here. By conviction-critical use, I mean interaction in which the user’s firm beliefs regarding appropriate, just, and worthy behavior are given more weight than his or her personal satisfaction. Such users are ready to compromise their comfort and accept pain, frustration, and other such negative subjective consequences in order to do what needs to be done. In mission-critical use, external forces such as the danger of a traffic accident set obligations to compromise operator wellbeing and satisfaction. In conviction-critical use, the obligations are internal, emerging from the user’s own values and principles such as a commitment to ecological choices. S: This user is neither an operator nor experiencer in terms of her attitude. P: No, she isn’t. We seem to have three separate cases when it comes to the subjective pleasure of use. First, we have an experiencer. She is motivated by the pleasures of use, and she uses the product because it provides a rewarding positive experience. Second, we have the operator, who uses the product to achieve goals external to the use itself; in her case, user inconvenience is a problem and she needs to be cushioned against it. She is sensitive to discomfort and if the product is too inconvenient, she will quit using it. S: Or she needs to be compensated more. P: Exactly. Third, we might have devotees who don’t mind the effort and struggle, but use the product owing to the importance of the outcomes. S: True. Do we have a new standpoint? What shall we call it? P: Devotee. S: Devotee? P: Why not? S: That’s a good name. But it seems to me that a devotee’s interests are the same as those of a beneficiary. She ignores her own dissatisfaction with the interaction. P: Beneficiaries don’t operate the product, but devotees do. S: True. But aren’t these devotees a rather marginal group? P: I don’t know. You just said you keep on using your admin software. We all use terrible systems because we’re committed to getting things done. Maybe we, the whole discipline, have been too carried away with looking at the issue of pleasure. Really, think about the things that people do, especially at work. Many of these things are necessary rather than entertaining. And we often use devices and systems because they are necessary for working effectively as responsible professionals, and not only because we are paid to use them

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by our employers. At least I believe that modern professionals do frustrating things because they feel these things are part of their responsibilities rather than their obligations. But obviously, completely voluntary action would be a clearer example. S: Many are ready to walk an extra mile for sustainable choices, because they believe in doing the right thing rather that enjoying doing it. P: True … Summing up, I think we’ve agreed that usability aims at ensuring users’ wellbeing even though it has been criticized for its narrow focus on goal achievement. It’s not as clear whether usability recognizes users’ agency, but the beneficiary-neutral performance criteria make it possible to focus on agency achievements and freedoms. We only need to remember that use can be mission-critical and conviction-critical, not always aiming at subjective satisfaction. Usability can also be used to evaluate the quality of use from a devotee’s standpoint. S: I agree. What next?

Justified exclusion P: What about this? Human capabilities are amalgam concepts consisting of inherited and learned competences together with the opportunities provided by the environment.14 They combine individuals’ inherited potential, upbringing, learned skills and predispositions, material objects, sociocultural resources, and other contextual opportunities. What is biologically human, social, and cultural and what is artificial don’t appear as separate categories, but as a single system of capabilities. S: Combined capabilities seem to be close to many other approaches that regard human actors, environment, and artifacts as a single system rather than separate entities (Coeckelbergh 2011; Verbeek 2011). P: Yes. A person, a road, and a bicycle are not separate elements, but a system of riding and the capability to ride. S: Usability is a similar construct in this respect. It is “a property of the overall system: it is the quality of use in a context” (Bevan and Macleod 1994). It includes the working practices, the product, individual differences between users, and so on. The attributes of a product are only one element of the quality of use in an overall system. Usability is always studied in relation to users, goals, and context and it doesn’t refer to product properties or the users’ abilities separately, but instead requires a system view. It’s often



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criticized for its overly narrow definition of what constitutes a system, but the idea of a system-level approach lies at its core. P: Thus usability is like combined capability. I think the main difference is the point of view. Usability approaches apply a product point of view while the capability approach adopts a more human perspective. S: Considering the explicated system approach of usability, the wording of the Part 11 definition is somewhat in conflict with this approach in that it clearly separates “a product” from “users.” P: Can you explain? S: In using and being used, the user and the object of use became inseparable and together constitute something that can be evaluated in terms of usability. “Interact,” “assimilate,” or “adopt,” for instance, would be better terms than “use” for describing the shared agency of human and artificial actors. I think in this respect as well the standard would be worded differently if written today. It wouldn’t say “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users” but instead something like “the extent to which a product can be applied by specified users.” P: By “apply” you mean something like “make relevant.” S. Yes. That would underline the reciprocal process of domestication, absorbing, integration, and digestion in addition to use. It would also recognize the possibility that in some respects products can be seen to be using users. P: They make us do things. S: And they should to some extent. At least they should nudge us to do good things rather than bad. P: I think “apply” is more compatible with human capabilities than “use.” It’s also less paternalistic. S: True. It allows the users to deal with and appreciate the products on their own terms. P: May I continue to another angle of the capability approach that might be relevant here? S: Sure. P: According to the capability approach, the reason why individuals may not be able to turn resources into functionings is that there are restricting factors that are related to personal abilities, social settings, and environmental

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conditions (Robeyns 2005). These are called conversion factors. Physical abilities, for instance, set limits on how much one can get out of certain resources. A disabled person cannot ride a bicycle. S: Not a standard design in any case, depending on his disability. P: Yes. Also, social and cultural factors and environmental conditions influence what kinds of resources are needed to achieve goals. Infrastructure and weather conditions influence what is sufficient for an individual to have adequate shelter. Thus the capability approach underlines the importance of the proper scrutiny of conversion factors. S: Usability is often associated with usability tests conducted in laboratories. These aren’t able to capture the impact of social and environmental conversion factors. Thus it might be that usability addresses a narrower range of capabilities than the capability approach. P: The standard doesn’t advise sticking to laboratory settings. That’s just an easy way to evaluate something. Part 210 actually encourages us to go into the field. S: Okay. You’re right. P: Technology provides potential for functionings, but individual and contextual factors can limit whether it really can be utilized (Eason 1984, Nielsen 1993). Resources aren’t enough if they cannot be turned into valuable ends in practice, and usability is the angle to address the conversion. Part 11 explicitly recognizes conversion factors, including users’ abilities and the context of use. It (ISO 1998) lists users’ characteristics, including “knowledge, skill, experience, education, training, physical attributes, and motor and sensory capabilities.” The focus is on skills to use technology and skills with the tasks. By “a specified context of use,” Part 11 refers to the “relevant characteristics of the physical and social environment … wider technical environment … the physical environment … the ambient environment … and the social and cultural environment.” The last one includes work practices, organizational structure, and attitudes. All of those seem to be compatible with what the capability approach means by social and environmental factors. S: True. But the whole point in the capability approach is to address the just distribution of capabilities, and the way in which it suggests we should deal with the conversion factors has to be based on just distribution. This emphasis is missing from usability or at least it’s not part of the main message. P: Perhaps.



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S: By the way, did you say something already about the way the capability approach suggests that capabilities should be distributed? P: No, I didn’t. And that’s perhaps one of the main weaknesses of the capability approach. One of its main principles is, however, to consider each person as an end (Nussbaum 2000: 74). Here the capability approach subscribes to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative in its second, not so well-known, form, requiring us to consider everyone as an end and never only as a means. The principle means that the conversion factors need to be addressed at the level of individuals, and aggregated indicators of wellbeing and justice have to be avoided. The norm15 for the fair allocation of resources and development of capabilities is that such provisioning should be arranged to ensure that it compensates for the shortcomings of each individual in order to enable them to enjoy levels of combined capabilities that clearly meet the minimum threshold (Nussbaum 2011: 36).

The capability approach subscribes to Kant’s categorical imperative, requiring us to deal with everyone as an end and never only as a means.

S: Where should the threshold be set? P: There is no exact answer. But when we deal with users who are close to the threshold of having sufficient capabilities, technology should be seen to compensate for the uneven spread of conversion factors and contribute to equal opportunities—or if not equal, at least sufficient. S: This type of egalitarian motivation stretching to some sort of positive discrimination doesn’t belong to usability thinking. Or maybe I could say it more strongly: it has no role in usability. P: This is understandable as usability isn’t typically limited to the most essential capabilities for human dignity, which the capability approach focuses on. S: Right. Usability evaluations apply to all tasks instrumentally necessary in goal-oriented interaction. Some of those require special skills that go beyond what we can reasonably assume everyone is capable of doing and being. Not everyone needs to know how to drive a train, because that isn’t an essential capability for human dignity. Being able to ride a train is another issue entirely. But when we deal with capabilities at a more general level of relevance,

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usability can be complemented with the requirement of accessibility. Part 210 (ISO 2010) defines accessibility as “usability of a product, service, environment or facility by people with the widest range of capabilities.” P: ISO doesn’t require that usability should be interpreted as accessibility. S: It doesn’t, but it should when the interaction deals with capabilities closely associated with central capabilities. Nor does it prioritize compensating for the lack of capability. Improving the performance of the most capable individuals to even higher spheres as well as giving the least able better access to basic functionality can both yield usability gains. Even though that isn’t a typical emphasis in accessibility, the definition can also be considered as a reminder or request that we should make sure that the most capable individuals have the opportunity to employ their competences to the fullest. P: True. I hadn’t thought about that. S: Me neither. It just occurred to me. P: I agree that usability could’ve been defined much more strictly in this respect. Instead of saying “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users” it could’ve said “the extent to which a product can be used by people with the widest range of capabilities.” S: I’m not sure about this. Think about the train driver. P: If we would allow the interpretation of “widest” in a relative and contextand practice-dependent manner, my formulation would work. The superlative doesn’t need to be unconditional. There are capabilities and lack of capabilities that go beyond the scope of “widest.” Trains and ticketing services should be accessible for the visually disabled and the blind. However, driving a train with poor visual perception goes beyond the limits of the widest possible capability for that responsibility. Thus “widest range” wouldn’t mean all-inclusive, but instead the widest possible range with reasonable and fair criteria. S: I like that. Whatever we end up saying about usability and capability, I think this is something we should consider. The standard formulation of usability for “specified users” is too loose from the perspective of justice. Designers need to understand the fair exclusion criteria that the practice, context, and its requirements allow, and design so that all the others are included. P: Excluding more than that would be discriminatory. There have to be wellfounded reasons for exclusions. S: I agree.



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P: Thanks. S: But do you think our discussion is converging on something? Are we approaching a conclusion? P: Let me see. I’ll try to summarize. First, we agreed that capability and usability enter the evaluation spaces of the quality of life and quality of use in similar manners, focusing on individuals’ abilities to convert resources into achievements. Second, in the case of both capability and usability, these abilities are seen as combined properties of individual actors and their environment. However, the replacement of “use” with another verb such as “apply” would better refer to the users’ active role, the combined nature of capabilities, and the systemic nature of use. Third, neither approach takes for granted that given resources would be of benefit to individuals; instead they both focus on understanding the impact of individual, environmental, and social conversion factors on attainable doings and beings. Fourth, both capability and usability reject subjective satisfaction as the only criterion of quality. However, in conviction-critical cases of use, usability evaluators should give priority to beneficiary-neutral evaluation criteria and make satisfaction an optional criterion to respect the devotees’ motivation for the use of the product. Fifth, in ISO 9241, the definition of usability doesn’t assume that the evaluated use is linked to the essential and unavoidable human capabilities that are relevant for all individuals and set normative implications for design. If these assumptions are imposed, there is a need to ensure accessibility and that there are good arguments in favour of fair exclusions. S: Impressive. P: Thanks. I started to think that based on these findings we might be able to sketch a capability-sensitive version of usability. What do you think? S: Or something reminiscent of usability but with another name, because usability is what it is. We cannot change it any more. P: Maybe so.

Tolerance for emergence S: There’s one more thing that I don’t understand yet. I think we should discuss it before trying to create anything new.

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P: Yes? S: Individuals’ agency to choose their preferred goals is a fundamental value in the capability approach, but I guess it wouldn’t be possible to aim for unrealistic goals. P: That’s a difficult one. S: Sorry. P: Sen and others stress a liberal and non-paternalistic approach to distributional justice and wellbeing. However, they also aim to avoid value relativism. Individuals’ choices need to be reasonable. How these reasons are defined, measured, and judged in the liberal agenda is a problem. The capability approach, for instance, struggles with the problem of expensive taste. Everyone should be able to be in public without shame,16 but is it fair if to do so I require a much fancier outfit than you do without a compelling reason? Sen has underlined the importance of public discussion to identify the relevant capabilities that everyone should have and their threshold levels. Nussbaum (2011: 33–4) is more explicit and has presented a list of central capabilities. S: What are the central capabilities she lists? P: Life. Bodily health. Bodily integrity. Senses, imagination and thought. Emotions. Practical reason. Affiliation. Other species. Control over one’s environment. S: Thanks. P: Her heuristics for putting items on the list is that sufficient levels of these capabilities are necessary for human worth and dignity. This means that subsistence doesn’t define the minimum level; the threshold is set in terms of what is needed for individuals’ worth and dignity. This means that each individual should be dealt with as an end, as I already said, and not as a means for something or for somebody else. An instrumental attitude to dealing with individuals leads to exploitation and humiliation. Thus, satisfaction and suffering as qualities of life cannot be evaluated from the point of view of justice and wellbeing without placing them into a context that pays attention to human worth and dignity. Suffering because of unavoidable circumstances may be a humanitarian tragedy, but doesn’t necessarily violate individuals’ dignity and is thus less devastating than unjust decisions about the distribution of capabilities (Nussbaum 2011). S: Can you elaborate on this from the usability angle?



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P: I’m not sure. Usability doesn’t say much about how it deals with human worth and dignity. S: That’s not quite true. Part 11 mentions sustainability and social responsibility. Part 210 (ISO 2010) says that human-centered design supports economic, social and ecological sustainability and it refers to Bruntland’s commission report (United Nations 1987). Part 210 claims that “a humancentred approach results in systems, products and services that are better for the health, well-being and engagement of their users, including users with disabilities.” Apart from that the standard doesn’t discuss ethical norms. How the promise of social sustainability is interpreted in the other parts of the standard isn’t transparent. P: There might be more than that. S: What do you think? P: I have a hunch that the goal of use being efficient and effective is somehow related to human worth. We might be able to find something even though the standard isn’t explicit in this respect. S: Well, if using products is seen as an instrumental means to achieve goals, the question about the dignity of effectiveness and efficiency is irrelevant or at least not very interesting. The goals are definitive, and effectiveness and efficiency are just technical measurements. P: That might be a simplified view. We’ve discussed that already. S: True. P: Technology is not just a means but also a component in a more complicated reciprocal system involving human capabilities and agency. This system functions as part of individuals’ life in society and the qualities of use can and should be seen as qualities of life. Thus the criteria set on the quality of use should address a more comprehensive entity than use in an instrumental sense. S: So let’s see if we can say more about effectiveness and efficiency. P: Part 11 defines effectiveness as “accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals,” and efficiency as “resources expended in relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals,” as we already said. Do you agree that “accuracy,” “completeness,” and “resources” are the key words? S: Yes.

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P: They are reasonable indicators of the quality of use, but only within welldefined systems where the ideal goal and course of action are known. S: What do you mean? P: “Accuracy” implies that it’s known what is correct and precise and, according to the standard, both good and desirable. Evaluating something in terms of accuracy requires that the exact location of the target is known so that the deviation can be measured. If we don’t know the goal of an activity, we cannot measure the accuracy of the tools employed. “Completeness” implies that it’s known what constitutes the whole amount, and thus what is necessary, enough, or perfect. We cannot measure completeness without knowing how much is “all.” We need to know what the full amount is. “Resources” implies that what is considered as expenditure and thus avoidable is known. Calling something a “resource” implies that the entity isn’t important as such but instrumental in achieving something else. It’s something that is consumed during use, something whose value decreases with use. Time is a resource when its value decreases when it is consumed for a purpose. S: Here we return to the topic of our previous talk. These assumptions are hypothetical when it comes to using technologies. P: Yes. With the exception of well-defined goal-oriented tasks, use and its goals unfold together in a dynamic manner, the standpoints of sponsors, operators, beneficiaries, experiencers, and neighbors become valid and cease to be valid and re-emerge, and the value of inputs and outputs may change during the course of action. It seems that accuracy, completeness, and resources create an overly tight framework from the perspective of dignity. When the goals defined for evaluative purposes match the actual experienced nature of the tasks, everything is fine and fair from the point of view of the stakeholders. If there’s a mismatch between the actual dynamically developing goals of life and work, and the rigidly applied criteria of effectiveness and efficiency don’t match, then we face experiences of humiliation and disrespect. S: Do you mean something like this: If you use a tool, say 3D design software, to learn a new skill or to gain a firmer grasp of certain nuances of your trade, and if your superiors evaluate your performance in terms of efficiency criteria, you feel your efforts aren’t respected. P: Yes, but even that is a simplified example. S: I see your point. There might be much more fine-grained situations where an approximation of the goal of use against which the use is measured is



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different from the actual goal that emerges when the design is used. John Rawls (1971: 440–6) says that the basis for self-respect is the most important primary good that needs to be provided. Without self-respect, people don’t see the worth of their life projects and believe what they do is without meaning or they stop striving to achieve anything that is valuable for them and others. The support for and fair appreciation of our efforts is essential, and if our efforts are rejected or criticized based on terms that are irrelevant for our life projects and goals, the effect is frustrating. Perhaps also MacIntyre’s (1981/2011) opinions about the internal goods of a practice, the development of which makes us virtuous practitioners, are relevant here. But now we’re building a long bridge from the way our use of gadgets is evaluated to how our self-respect and dignity is respected. P: If we want to be consistent in saying that technology is an important component of the quality of life, we have no choice. If we as professionals have to work with tools whose use is optimized in accordance with criteria that aren’t in harmony with the way we and our colleagues understand the virtues of our practice, we feel that our worth as professionals is ignored and we become frustrated. In simpler terms, think about design software that limits your freedom of expression. I’m trying to say that if the quality of use is evaluated based on fixed ideas about its goals, we run the risk that these ideas are wrong. If they are, frustrations will occur. S: Individuals’ behavior when they seek to achieve doings and beings that are relevant for wellbeing, worth, and dignity is also goal-oriented, even in cases where the goal isn’t very clear. In this respect, the ethically relevant capabilities and what usability measures aren’t different. P: But the problem really is that trying to achieve health, rewarding social relationships, or meaningful ways to contribute to society aren’t tasks that can be exactly defined, and usability requires us to be exact in our specification of

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goals. If we design something for social connectivity, it would be insulting to set a fixed number of new acquaintances you should aspire to link up with. The goals can be defined only in very rough terms. The ill-defined nature of life projects has an impact on the ways artifacts are used in life projects. Browsing the Internet is a serendipitous rather than focused activity—the results and intermediate results are emergent rather than specified a priori. S: Fine. This echoes the old criticism of usability being too goal-oriented. Now you’re saying that’s not only a validity problem, but also related to usability being paternalistic. It builds on designers’ assumptions.

From usability to applicability P: What if I can fix the problem? An idea occurred to me. S: That would be amazing. What do you have in mind? P: Let’s see if this leads to anything. But the idea is this. The elements used to specify performance in Part 11 are only meaningful for well-specified tasks. However, the definitions of the usability criteria could be relaxed without breaking their logic. S: What do you mean? P: We don’t necessarily need to know the target of the use and the value of resources if we adjust the definition slightly. Accuracy, completeness, and resources have parallels that share the same essence, but don’t require us to assume well-defined goals. Accuracy without a priori knowledge of what is correct is … S: You tell me. P: It’s close to “appropriate.” The idea of appropriateness deals with something that is relevant and hits the point, but doesn’t require us to know the exact target before we reach the goal. It tolerates that we define and achieve the goal simultaneously. We go picking berries but find mushrooms instead. Our haul doesn’t meet the initial specification but it’s still appropriate. Completeness without an a priori set value for the full amount is “sufficiency.” How much is sufficient becomes known when it has been collected, but not necessarily before. A “complete” exercise is one that has burned a defined amount of calories. A “sufficient” level of exercise is right for the circumstances where I exercise and might be less or more than the “complete exercise.” A “sufficient” amount of berries picked might not amount to a full bucket; depending on the circumstances, half a bucket might be a good



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achievement, while there are times when more than a bucket would be “sufficient.”

Accuracy, completeness, and resources have parallels that share their essence, but don’t require well-defined goals.

Rephrasing usability so that it assumes tolerance for emergence would make it more applicable for ethical evaluations of use.

S: What about resources? P: Resources in Part 11 mean “mental or physical effort, time, materials or financial cost.” The standard assumes that spending these decreases the quality of use. S: This doesn’t need to be the case, as we discussed. P: Exactly. Mental and physical efforts can be rewarding and essential for human flourishing. Time and money invested in the use of a product can be indications of value rather than expenses. Instead of considering that spending effort, time, and money inevitably decreases the quality of use, we could look at them as indicators of value or worth. The worth of time spent on use can be positive or negative. If we find berry-picking rewarding, spending a longer time in the forest is a gain and doubles the wellbeing achievement; if it starts to rain or there are too many aggressive mosquitoes, we stay in the forest only as long as it takes to pick the berries, and the time there is a necessary evil to be minimized. S: You propose that appropriateness, sufficiency, and worth should replace accuracy, completeness, and resources. P: Perhaps I’m asking rather than proposing. But I believe they might help us to discuss and question how we express desirable qualities of use when the tasks are ill defined. Using them, or similar criteria that have a tolerance for emergence rather than accuracy, completeness, and resources would help us to ensure that the quality of use is evaluated in ways that are sensitive to

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what makes life worth living. Rephrasing usability criteria to assume tolerance for emergence would make them more applicable for ethical evaluations. S: Makes sense. I agree. P: Great. S: In addition to what you said, we need to remember the previous changes to usability we discussed earlier. Do you still remember those? P: I’ll try to summarize. We wanted to replace “use” with “apply” and we wanted to be stricter with how we choose the users. Satisfaction should also be an optional criterion because of conviction-critical use. S: I think we need to return to satisfaction. P: Do you have something to add? S: We’ve ignored one interpretation mentioned in Part 11 (ISO 1998). It says that satisfaction can also refer to “the extent to which particular usability objectives such as efficiency or learnability have been met.” I think we should take a stand on that. This interpretation is different from what the capability approach requires, isn’t it? P: It is kind of utilitarian. S: Exactly. Satisfaction becomes a single summary criterion like happiness in utilitarianism. P: And the capability approach rejects satisfaction as the single criterion of wellbeing and the quality of life. There are several reasons for this. The importance of agency, we’ve already discussed. Adaptive preference is another reason. People formulate their preferences based on comparisons: what they have or want to have are compared with an available reference level. The things people have experienced themselves and what they regard as attainable future options set limits to what they want. Me desiring, or tolerating, something is not a question of absolute levels of quality, but a comparison I make between my actual situation and a reference level that I consider reasonable. People living in substandard conditions might not see a flourishing life as an option and thus adjust their tolerance to accept their suffering and don’t see it as suffering. S: People also adapt to luxury, starting to regard it as the norm (Frank 1999; Layard 2005; Teschl and Comim 2005). P: Exactly. So the capability approach takes the stand that the fair evaluation of wellbeing and distributional justice has to be based on a more informationrich evaluation space than individuals’ subjective satisfaction.



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S: We discussed that already. P: Sorry. S: Referring to adaptive preference has been an argument against humancentered design, too. Its opponents say laypeople are so used to their habits that they cannot see any other options apart from small improvements to the existing systems. This being the case, asking them makes no difference. P: Do we ask when we evaluate usability? S: Usability has a strong behavioral component. It underlines the importance of not trusting subjective responses only. When evaluations of subjective usability are based on individuals’ immediate first-hand experience with new products, the evaluations are grounded on actual performance and experience of it, which is—if not completely but to a remarkable extent—independent of the user’s adaptive preference. The evaluation procedure itself creates a level of reference, because the user gets first-hand experience with the object of evaluation during the test. P: Comparing routines and long-term preferences to new and perhaps radically different solutions, which are presented as partly working prototypes, is not a fair comparison. Resistance to change may ally with adaptive preference and lead to conservative preferences. S: However, the experiment-based approach, giving the users first-hand experiences with alternative capabilities and applying both objective and subjective criteria, is a good strategy for resisting adaptive preference.

The close link between embodied interaction and satisfaction inherent in usability can neutralize adaptive preference.

P: Perhaps so. The close link between embodied interaction and subjective satisfaction in usability is a fair approach to neutralizing adaptive preference. S: Part 11 also recommends applying multidimensional questionnaires for measuring subjective satisfaction.17 They make the user present opinions about learnability, clarity of terminology, and such. With these, subjective satisfaction could be considered to be equivalent to an assisted expert evaluation. Users take the role of experts, and satisfaction as a usability criterion becomes understood as perceived usability (Hertzum 2010) rather than hedonic satisfaction. Satisfaction becomes equivalent to users’ beliefs about the qualities of use.

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P: Right. So, how shall we deal with satisfaction? S: Maybe it doesn’t need to be mentioned. Maybe we could instead speak about “experienced worth” or “perceived worth.” P: Or just “worth” as we discussed. S: Maybe. P: Do you think it would be too daring to wrap all this up … S: … and propose a new formulation for usability? P: Yes. S: It definitely would be daring, but go ahead. P: A capability-sensitive (Oosterlaken 2013) phrasing of usability would go something like this: the extent to which a product can be applied by the widest range of users to achieve their goals with appropriateness and sufficiency and their relationship to the worth of inputs, with or without satisfaction in the users’ context of use. S: Hmm … Maybe we could speak about “life projects” instead of “context of use.” But as a rough version yours isn’t too bad. P: Thanks. But I want to refine it. Do you have other suggestions? S: I think the formulation is perhaps too long. Why don’t you remove the reference to the relationships of the indicators? I’d also leave satisfaction out. Saying satisfaction may or may not be included doesn’t add anything. Mentioning worth should be enough. P: So it would be something like this: the extent to which a product can be applied by the widest range of users for appropriate, sufficient, and worthwhile achievements in their lives.

Applicability is the extent to which a product can be applied by the widest range of users for appropriate, sufficient, and worthwhile achievements in their lives.

S: That’s better. It’s good. P: Would usability be usability anymore if we require these changes? S: Accessibility and beneficiary-neutrality are already included in the ISO standard, and underlining their importance doesn’t conflict with the ideas



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and expressions of the standard in any important respects. Tolerance for emergence and conviction-critical use, however, would result in greater changes to the nature of the concept. Both are basically consequences of adjusting just one of the underlying assumptions of usability. That deals with dignity. Usability is not based on an idea that use would be an essential element of human dignity. If this requirement is added, the evaluation of use should include an ethical dimension and our suggestions become more necessary. P: But as we noticed, usability gave us a good stepping stone. S: It did. P: So we could call what we have dignity-sensitive usability. Or perhaps we could call it capability-sensitive usability, because we’ve used the capability approach as our scaffolding. S: We could consider another name too. We need a framework that’s capable of linking evaluation of particular interactions to more generic principles of a good life and good design, and usability without adjustments isn’t enough for that purpose. So maybe it would make sense to distance the framework from usability by using a different name. P: Applicability? S: That connotes taking initiative in defining how the design is used in addition to merely interacting with it. I don’t think I’m very clever in these language games, but “applicability” has the kind of meaning I like. P: Shall we stick with that for now? S: Let it be “applicability.” That doesn’t refer to ethics directly, but it does refer to personally relevant achievement. The lack of that was a problem we identified with usability. P: I’m happy with the choice. S: Good. P: I think it’s almost time to present my one-liner to conclude the discussion, but before that I still have a question. S: Yes? P: Do you think the users’ roles we identified last time are still a good fit with applicability? S: We’ve been painting a picture of a user who is more active than the fellows we discussed last time. You might be right. The previous roles don’t cover the new standpoint.

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P: That of an applier. Do you think that would be an apt name? S: Sure. P: Fine. I think appliers’ interests are quite different from those of the others, in that they don’t want interactions that are optimized for particular tasks. They want to participate and define the purposes of design. That’s why any measurement of optimized use is in a way misleading. It’s a standpoint that makes one excited about opportunities to improve things. Perfection of design doesn’t give appliers opportunities to act, but a promise of something new does. Perhaps they don’t exactly want design to be bad, as that might be a hopeless starting point for fruitful appropriation, but they probably want design to be unfinished. An unfinished design doesn’t motivate them to use it, but to change it or perhaps change the scenarios of use. They probably don’t get excited about plentiful or few results or huge or limited consumption of resources within a given scenario of use. They would look for an ambivalence in design that leaves them the freedom to adjust and look for the opportunities to use it. If we want to be provocative, we could say that an applier wouldn’t like to be satisfied, because that wouldn’t stimulate her to act. S: An interesting elaboration. P: Thanks. S: We might have here a standpoint from which the lack of results and excessive consumption of resources look attractive. P: Yes. S: But we need to be careful with this now. What the applier likes is not the lack of results and excess of resources, but a personally relevant opportunity for application and adoption. Maybe we could say that the indicators of quality of use, in their present form, mean little to her. She’s similar to the devotee. Neither of them care about usability or user experience, but for different reasons. For a devotee, getting something done is so meaningful that the quality of use doesn’t matter. For an applier, the actual use will be something different to the present use anyway, so why bother. P: Do you think an applier is like an end-user innovator (von Hippel 2005)? S: I wouldn’t require an applier to innovate with the design. It’s enough that she’s active in considering alterative ways to understand and appreciate the products. Perhaps she’s an end-user innovator of meanings.18 P: That’s a nice conclusion.



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Notes 1

Morten Hertzum (2010) has interpreted usability as an inclusive concept that covers widely different research interests and design practices. It includes universal usability, which aims at accessible solutions for everybody; situational usability, which refers to the quality-in-use of a system in a specified situation; perceived usability, which deals with subjective evaluation of a system; hedonic usability, which focuses on joy and pleasure rather than accomplishment-related criteria; organizational usability, which deals with people collaborating in organizational settings; and cultural usability, which addresses cultural differences between users.

2

Oosterlaken (2013) speaks about “capability-sensitive design.”

3

See, for instance, Sen (1985, 1993, 2000, 2010a), Nussbaum (2000, 2011), Alkire (2005), Robeyns (2005, 2006), and Gasper (2007) for generic discussion on the capability approach; Oosterlaken (2009, 2013) for the application of the capability approach to design ethics; and Pogge (2003), Jaggard (2006), and Reader (2006) for critical stands.

4

The utilitarian approach.

5

Rawls’ approach to distributional justice.

6

Andy Dong (2008; Dong et al,. 2013), Ilse Oosterlaken (2009, 2013), and Murphy and Gardoni (2010) have linked the capability approach to participatory design, product service system design, risk management, and design for all.

7

These include financial resources, economics, political practices and institutions, freedom of thought, political participation, social or cultural practices, social structures, social institutions, public goods, social norms, traditions, and habits (Robeyns 2005).

8

Peter Corning (2012: 107) says that more than 90 percent of consumers’ income is spent on satisfying the basic needs of subsistence he has listed.

9

Robeyns (2006: 371) says that by “having a common theoretical framework that allows for a range of applications … the capability approach opens up a truly interdisciplinary space in the study of well-being, inequality, justice and public policies.” Des Gasper (2007: 336) seconds this opinion by saying that “underdefinition allows everyone to perceive space for themselves in a project. It gives, fittingly, a lot of freedom for people of varied backgrounds to grow out from a small kernel in diverse ways, according to their interests and skills.”

10 Searches with “usability” and “capability” as the terms return several hits, but in those capability refers to the organizational capability to develop usable products and does not deal with the capability approach and justice of design (Jokela 2004, Jokela et al. 2006). 11 This is the ISO 9126 (1991) definition of usability. 12 This is the ISO 9241-210 (2010) definition of user experience. 13 See, for instance, Bevan, Kirakowsky, and Maissel (1991), Bevan (1992), and

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14 Martha Nussbaum’s (2011: 84–5) terms for the different capabilities are basic, internal, and combined capabilities. Basic capabilities are ones that a child inherits and naturally learns by being part of a community. Internal capabilities refer to the matured capabilities that the individual has developed with the support of her environment. Combined capabilities are internal capabilities exercised with external provisioning. Des Gasper (2007) speaks about potential that a person is born with, skills that one can acquire, and outcomes that appear with the use of external means. 15 When the capability approach is seen as normative. 16 Amartya Sen (1993) emphasizes, referring to Adam Smith (1776/2004), that appearing in public without shame is fundamental for an individual to lead a worthwhile life with dignity, and that avoiding shame requires the individual to wear appropriate apparel. 17 For instance, SUMI (Kirakowski and Corbett 1993) measures usability along subjectively reported efficiency, affect, helpfulness, control, and learnability, and QUIS (Chin, Diehl, and Norman 1988) along scales titled screen, terminology and system information, learning, and system capabilities. 18 She might be combining Eric von Hippel’s (2005) and Roberto Verganti’s (2009) ideas, sharing something also with Lévi-Strauss’s (1966) idea of bricoleur, creating new meanings by collecting and assembling things and ideas.

4 The Fourth Dialogue on Utilitarian User Experience

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n this dialogue Practitioner and Scholar compare contemporary models of user experience with Jeremy Bentham’s and John Stuart Mill’s classical utilitarianism. They notice several similarities, of which the most important is the belief that happiness is the single aggregated criterion of good. They admire how well Bentham’s comprehensive analysis of the dimensions of happiness matches today’s user experience design models. Scholar gets an opportunity to speak about wooden boats and sailing. They discuss the philosophical criticism of utilitarianism, which includes the problems of assessing the value of different types of pleasures, adaptive preference, and Robert Nozick’s “experience machine,” which points out the importance of actually doing things rather than just “experiencing.” They consider this criticism valid for user experience too. They respond to it and redefine user experience. Their definition addresses actual behavior, the embodied and socially reciprocal nature of experience. They consider calling the newly framed idea “user exertion,” because they regard deep immersion in a meaningful activity as the key attribute of an experience. Before they conclude, they wonder why the user experience community has rejected utilitarianism and “utility” in spite of the obvious similarities. They realize that “utility is a word with opposite interpretations in utilitarianism and the field of human–computer interaction. Practitioner summarizes their discussion by saying that all you need is a good experience, unless you need ethical priorities. The dialogue begins …

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P: Hi, Scholar. S: Hi. P: Here I am again. S: With new questions I believe. P: Exactly. I was quite surprised by how our last discussion turned out. We made usability look like something quite different. S: You pushed us, but I agree that it was a good exercise. Maybe it was the start of something. P: Good that you agree, because encouraged by that I propose we also return to user experience and discuss it a bit more. I’d like to see what kind of justice- and ethics-related dimensions and angles we might find there. S: I don’t know how much more I can say about it. The design and human–computer interaction communities have been speaking about user experience since the late 1990s. In spite of the ample interest it has attracted, it has remained elusive. Proper theoretical framing and universally accepted strong definitions are still missing. User experience is said to be “a sea of utter confusion” (Lindgaard and Kirakowsky 2013), an idea without distinct meaning that just refers to “something desirable” (Law et al. 2009, emphasis original). User experience scholars acknowledge, in the spirit of possibly sarcastic compromise, that the only thing we can without a doubt agree on is that user experience is difficult to define (ibid.; also McCarthy and Wright 2004). P: But we have an international standard, ISO 9241-210 (2010: clause 2:15), that defines user experience. According to it user experience is “a person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service.” The standard further specifies that “user experience includes all the users’ emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviours and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use.” So we do have something. S: The standard gives user experience a very generic character.1 P: It does, but in design we need to be able to deal with those kinds of concepts as well. I also find it important that ISO 9241-210 (2010: clause 6.4.1) gives user experience a normative role, as another chapter states that “human-centred design aims to achieve a good user experience.” S: That is true. The standard gives human-centered design a mission—and one mission only. And that is to create good user experiences.



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P: I think we should take that seriously. S: Well … P: I suggest we take the ISO 9241-210 definition of user experience as the anchor point of the meaning of user experience. That would also be consistent with our previous decisions to stick to the standard in our elaboration of usability. S: It would. But this decision can be criticized for simplifying the concept of user experience and the lively and wide-ranging discussion about it into a few sentences. We can be criticized for using ISO as a kind of straw man that can be easily criticized for its lack of originality, rather than taking into account the full scope of user experience that pays attention to a range of things that are important in design. P: Which are those? S: I mean its emphasis on the positive psychology and the pleasures of use (Jordan 2002; Hassenzahl and Tractinsky 2006); the long-term temporal dimension of use (Hallnäs and Redström 2001; Mäkelä and Fulton-Suri 2001; Forlizzi and Battarbee 2004; Law et al. 2009; Luojus 2010); the social and collaborative aspects of use (Battarbee 2004; McCarthy and Wright 2004; Battarbee and Koskinen 2005); empathy (Mattelmäki and Battarbee 2002; Koskinen, Mattelmäki, and Battarbee 2003; McCarthy and Wright 2004; Battarbee and Koskinen 2005; Wright and McCarthy 2008); and aesthetics and creative design (Kurosu and Kashimura 1995; Tractinsky 1997; Hallnäs and Redström 2001; Lindgaard et al. 2006; Tractinsky and Zmiri 2006; Lindgaard 2007; Lee and Koubek 2010; Tuch et al. 2012). P: Including all those aspects in user experience makes saying anything about it almost impossible. If we agree with those who think that the difficulty of definition is the only property of user experience that we can agree on (Law et al. 2009), there isn’t much we can say about it. But I think the concept has some sort of meaning. So I suggest that we make ISO 9241-210 our straw man and find out what happens. As an ISO standard, the definition enjoys a status that should make it durable enough to take some criticism. S: Okay. And it’s our role to keep testing established definitions to see if they stand up to criticism. P: I agree. S: Fine, but I suggest that we should supplement the definition by paying more attention to the angle of rewarding subjective experience, by which I mean pleasures, affect, and positive emotions that play an essential role in

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user experience thinking, but which ISO doesn’t discuss. Paying attention to the positive emotions, affects, or hedonic aspects of interaction has been a very central topic in user experience and something that the user experience angle has pointed out as a reason to criticize usability (Jordan 2002, Hassenzahl and Tractinsky 2006; Hornbæk 2006; Desmet and Hekkert 2007). User experience strongly prioritizes positive experiences. Stimulation to learn and develop oneself, products’ role in communicating the consumer’s desired identity, and products’ roles in evoking nice memories are essential positive hedonic dimensions of user experience.2 The sources of positive emotions have been linked to psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, relatedness, popularity, stimulation, and security.3 P: So we’ll stick to the ISO definition but keep in mind that positive experiences should be given particular attention.

Bentham today S: How shall we continue? Like I said, I’m not sure how much more I can say about user experience. P: We spoke a bit about utilitarianism and happiness earlier. Especially now that you underlined that positive feelings are an important aspect of user experience, I started to think that we might find something by returning to utilitarianism. I have a feeling that if we want to say something about user experience and justice, we cannot ignore utilitarianism. S: That’s a good idea. Both user experience and utilitarianism focus on creating happiness, but user experience scholars haven’t really built on utilitarianism. I suggest we go back to the roots and start with Jeremy Bentham. P: Who is he? S: He was a British philosopher born in 1748, died in 1832, who focused on law and especially the principles of fair legislation. He has been regarded as the father of utilitarianism together with John Stuart Mill. This duo laid the foundations for ethics and distributional justice for the industrial era.4 P: And what did they say? S: Many things, but the short version is that utilitarianism is an ethical stand according to which the moral value of an action needs to be judged based on its consequences, and more particularly on the amount of happiness it creates within the population it has an effect on. The radical equalitarian stand Bentham and Mill presented in the late 1700s and early 1800s was that the



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happiness of everyone is equally relevant: the peasants and nobles should not be treated any differently. P: You want to start with Bentham’s version. Isn’t Mill’s more famous? S: Bentham’s version is, as far as I can see, closer to user experience as defined in ISO 9241-210 and by many others. Well, I’m not sure actually. We have to discuss this, but at least Bentham provides heuristics that might work as design heuristics. P: How does he define utilitarianism? I mean in his exact words. S: I have it somewhere, wait … Right, here it is. He (1824/2004: 65) says, “By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words to promote or to oppose that happiness.” I have Mill’s (1871/2004: 278) definition here too. He says, “Utility, the Greatest Happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.” P: They are quite similar. S: The definitions are, but they disagree on some essential questions. For Bentham, utility and happiness as its unit of measurement is an all-encompassing principle. It “approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever” and there are no differences between the happiness of A and B if the amount is the same, even if the sources of happiness are different.

“Utility, the Greatest Happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness” (Mill 1871).

P: Happiness is all you need. S: That might have been a more recent way to put it, and Bentham is strict in allowing no exceptions to this. The source of happiness doesn’t matter, be it gambling, art, or philosophy. P: What about Mill then?

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S: He takes a different stand. He also believes that happiness alone is the guideline for ethics, but he speaks about higher and lower pleasures having different moral values. P: Does that make a big difference? S: It might seem like a minor disagreement, but the existence of one single criterion of good is a question that sharply divides ethical theories and frameworks. Critics of utilitarianism say that wellbeing is fundamentally a pluralistic concept consisting of several dimensions that are non-commensurable.5 The non-commensurable dimensions of good include, depending on the theory, a range of different basic needs, primary goods, or capabilities. These deal with health, autonomy, freedoms and rights, economical and other resources, societal positions, and the practical means to strive for one’s conception of good. Non-commensurability means that any of these cannot be compromised for more of something else. But if there is a single criterion of good, anything else is good only insofar as it contributes to that particular criterion. P: And Bentham thinks that happiness is the single criterion while Mill opens the gate for questioning this. S: Yes. P: I see. Bentham is kind of alone with his opinion, it seems. S: Well, now we come to something that’s potentially quite interesting: namely, that user experience agrees with Bentham. That’s why I wanted to address Bentham’s version. They both say that a single aggregated summary criterion for good exists. The ISO (2010: clause 2:15) standard explicitly states that user experience “includes all the users’ emotions” and then provides an exclusive list of mental and behavioral perceptions and responses, and what is important is that the standard designates “good user experience” as the only objective for human-centered design. P: This cannot mean that we should believe user experience is the only thing that matters. S: The standard definitely takes a strong stand that it’s the only goal we have in human-centered design. P: What about other opinions apart from the standard? S: There are many indeed. For example, Pieter Desmet and Paul Hekkert’s (2007) product experience refers “to all possible affective experiences involved in human–product interaction.” That is close to the standard. Marc Hassenzahl (Hassenzahl and Tracktinsky 2006) says that only pleasure matters, not pain: “the main objective in the future is to contribute to our quality of life by



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designing for pleasure rather than for absence of pain. User experience is all about this idea.” The most inclusive and ubiquitous take on user experience is perhaps John McCarthy and Peter Wright’s (2004: 54) approach. For them, experience is the “irreducible totality of people acting, sensing, thinking, feeling, and making meaning in a setting, including their perception and sensation of their own actions.” Experience is aesthetic and ethical. It deals with the individual’s self in the social world and with his or her friends and peers and how we change. In their approach the subjectivity of experience is distributed in the social world. The emotions involved in experience cannot be separated from cognition and behavior. They use categories such as phases and threads to address the experience, but they stress that any of these discussion tools must not be used to split an experience into elements. Experience is the lived life, all of it. P: I find that difficult to handle. S: Anything else requires us to reduce the experience, or in other words take a stand that alienates us from what an experience actually is as an individual lives it. But I agree with you. P: We probably want to be practical rather than pragmatic. S: Maybe. But it seems to me that user experience scholars don’t really want to accept that there would be anything else that might make a person happy about a product apart from user experience. Bentham says that thing is utility. Bentham and user experience agree in trusting a single aggregated criterion of good.

Bentham and user experience agree in trusting a single aggregated criterion of good.

P: They must have a reason to disagree with the pluralistic views. S: The advantage they have is that the merits of any two actions can be compared, as they all have a utility value, or user experience value, that includes all the aspects of good. There is a one-dimensional scale. Bentham needed one as the basis for legislation to decide on punishments to ensure their fairness and rational relationship to the offence. For us, knowing which product creates, or enables, better user experience would be a foundational piece of information that would ensure that our design solutions contribute to the development of a just society.

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P: Does that make user experience different from other conceptions of the quality of use? S: Yes it does. Think about usability. P: It’s fresh in our memories thanks to our previous discussion. S: Don’t you agree that usability takes a different stand? P: I don’t know. S: It includes three dimensions. P: Efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Which we wanted to adjust. S: Yes. The standard is somewhat ambiguous about their mutual relationships, but I interpret them as being non-commensurable. P: What does that mean in practice? S: Think about products, for example two heart rate monitors, X and Y, which you usability test in comparable circumstances. X scoring higher wouldn’t mean that it’s superior—actually I mean that it’s impossible to say that it scores higher. It might excel in efficiency and satisfaction, but if the tasks cannot be completed without errors, or with an acceptable number of non-critical errors, as set out in the criterion of effectiveness, it wouldn’t be the winner. User experience, on the contrary, is formulated so that if the user experience of monitor X is measured to be higher than Y … P: … in a manner agreed to be sufficiently relevant by all the well-informed experts and stakeholders. S: Yes. We need to add that. But if that is the case, then there is no further doubt about its superiority. And because ISO gives us a single mission, to design for good experience, the nature of user experience becomes a major principle. P: I see. But I believe Bentham didn’t define the concept of utility to compare products. I believe there should be some sort of similarity of interests between utility and user experience before we really can link the ideas. S: I already mentioned his interest in the just fundamentals of legislation. He didn’t write about the design of products, but about the design of principles and procedures. He outlined the principles of utility for righteous governance, the redefinition and fair interpretation of law, and the wellbeing of the community (Ryan 2004). His philosophy had a practical end that deals with the design and use of artifacts. In his case, the artifacts were laws, acts, bylaws, and other immaterial artifacts defining the righteous rules and



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conditions of our behavior, especially from the point of view of jurisprudence.6 The practical reason for a standard on user experience is also to influence designers’ decisions concerning artifacts that are immaterial and material, and to create designs that “enhance effectiveness, and efficiency, improve human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability, and counteract possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance” (ISO 2010: vi). That is what human-centered design does by creating good user experiences. It seems very utilitarian. Thus it wouldn’t be misguided to interpret Bentham’s advice as guidelines for the design for user experience. He would definitely be in favor of healthcare being utilitarian, traffic solutions being utilitarian, and so on. Utility and user experience take similar positions as normative concepts that those of us who develop the society, the wellbeing of citizens, and the common good should pay attention to. Both of them are based on what people subjectively perceive. And both of them are built on the belief that there is a single aggregated criterion of good. P: Why exactly should utility, and happiness with it, or user experience be the concepts to be optimized? I mean, happiness is nice and experiences are nice too, at least if we focus on good experiences. But why should this be an ethical foundation for our behavior? S: Good question. P: Thanks. S: ISO doesn’t give any rationale for choosing user experience as the goal. The psychological approaches we discussed claim that emotions are more fundamental than behavior and achievements. Bentham also struggles with the question. Maybe he assumed everyone would agree with him without any doubts. He didn’t justify the use of utility and happiness directly, but he tried to show that the alternative conceptions are impossible, because he thought they would be based only on caprice. He considered asceticism, and sympathy and antipathy as the alternatives. Asceticism in his thinking is the polar opposite to happiness. P: I wouldn’t see it that way. I think asceticism is moderation taken further than usual. S: Well, he disagrees and says that even though asceticism might be admirable, rejecting happiness as the aim of societal development and embracing the opposite instead wouldn’t work as a universal principle. Any attempt to use asceticism successfully as such turns out to be utilitarianism misunderstood. Sympathy and antipathy are, in his logic, subjective casedependent structures of the decision-maker and thus don’t satisfy the criteria for serving as the guiding principles that he was looking for.

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P: We’re more concerned about the rights of cute animals than ugly ones. S: You see the point. P: Do I remember correctly that Rawls’ reflective equilibrium combines the two? S: True, but Bentham wants to have a stronger foundation for the justice of legislation. Or actually, he didn’t demand that legislators should blindly follow the principle of utility but instead keep utility in mind when deliberating on cases. But the foundational principle needs to be clear. P: Did Mill justify the use of happiness? S: He didn’t succeed much better. He (1871/2004: 307) simply said “the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it” and that “no reason can be why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his happiness.” This reasoning is circular and not logically adequate, but merely links happiness to empirical evidence that one might be capable of collecting to support the claim. P: If we look at user experience, the idea of sympathy and empathy that Bentham explicitly rejected has a central role. S: Bentham would say that sympathy leads to caprice and the collapse of reason. P: He wouldn’t have liked empathic design. S: He has a good point. It’s so much easier to be empathetic towards people who are nice than those who are nasty, and animals that are cute rather than ugly ones, but the latter also need justice. And ISO agrees. The standard doesn’t mention, require, or trust empathy or sympathy. Design needs to be based on rational grounds. These are the users’ perceptions and responses— not the designers’ sympathy. P: There’s no room for empathy in a standard. S: That seems to be the case.

Pleasure and pain P: The question now is how to measure the amount of pleasure and pain. How does Bentham suggest we measure happiness?



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S: When a legislator in Bentham’s text—or a designer, as we take a stand that they share a responsibility for creating the good for a community— maximizes happiness she considers two instruments. They are pleasure and pain. We tend to understand “pain” as physical pain, but Bentham used the word to refer to what we might perhaps call harm or experienced harm. Bentham (1824/2004: 65) says they are “the sovereign masters” and it is “for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.” In a way they are like motives and fundamental needs in one packet, inseparable from one another. These two masters are the things that individuals perceive and Bentham (ibid.: 90) calls them “interesting perceptions.” Today we would probably refer to them as “relevant perceptions.” P: User experience refers to perceptions too. S: They have chosen the same word. P: But the question remains: how should we measure those? S: Bentham doesn’t suggest that pleasures and pains should be exactly measured and literally calculated, but it’s important that legislators keep them clearly in mind and deliberate on them when dealing with essential dictates (Ryan 2004). P: That’s not much to go on. S: Maybe, but Bentham has defined them in a way that they can be measured, at least in principle, and the measurements can be used as variables to calculate a summary function. P: In spite of many attempts, measuring user experience, especially quantitatively, has been a challenge. S: Yes, and that’s why it’s fascinating to think that Bentham’s utilitarianism could give some insight into our problems with quantifying user experience. His ideas are, unsurprisingly after two centuries, not exactly novel anymore, but they are still considered to be applicable in microeconomics and I think they have the potential to provide a structure to our attempts to quantify user experience. At least they help us in creating an evaluation space of happiness. P: I see. S: Bentham (1824/2004: 86–9) says that the amount of pleasure or pain depends on seven factors, which are intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity, and extent. He doesn’t give detailed descriptions of these “circumstances” as he calls them. However, I can make a couple of comments. First, as the intensity of the perception may vary over time, some sort of integration over the period of its duration needs to be calculated.

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P: Sounds complicated. The duration of an experience might be a lifetime or close to that. And in order for information about the experience to be useful for designers, they need it before the experience takes place. S: It’s not simple. But some kinds of estimations can be done.7 Second, Bentham realizes that the perception of pleasure and pain resulting from the solutions of today need to be interpreted as the probabilities of tomorrow, and likely experiences need to be given a higher weight than unlikely experiences. Neither the ISO standard on user experience nor the broader discussion on user experience pays serious attention to quantifying the probabilities of forthcoming experiences even though it’s widely agreed that we cannot design experience but only create more or less favourable circumstances for good ones to occur. Third, propinquity … P: What is that? S: “Proximity” is a synonym. P: Okay. S: So the propinquity of pleasure or pain becomes an understandable variable when we think that Bentham’s pleasures and pains are not only physical and related immediately to an individual, but also include social pleasures and harm, for example. For instance, the impacts of punishments on our nearest and dearest are more substantial than those affecting people we don’t know personally. Fourth, fecundity and purity refer to the secondary consequences of pleasures and pains. Fecundity, or fertility, refers to pleasures capable of giving birth to new pleasures, and purity to pleasures causing pain as their consequence, and vice versa. In a formula for happiness, these are coefficients that may multiply several times, whatever the immediate pleasure or pain has been. It might be nice to give someone a phone call and the user experience with the phone might be pleasurable in itself, but if the call leads to a friendship, love, marriage, and family, the happiness has multiplied by a coefficient of a million or more. Fifth, “extent” refers to the number of persons whose pleasure or pain the solution affects. P: That doesn’t solve the problem of measuring happiness or experiences yet. Collecting all that data would be impossible. S: Yes, but they help, and even though these variables don’t solve the problem of actually measuring user experience, I think they’re equally relevant as thinking tools when it comes to designing interaction, as they are when we deal with the justice of law. Actually they very much look like they could’ve been directly and explicitly outlined for use in design for user experience. P: I think that these circumstances sound very analytical. The subjective



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pleasure of the person remains in the background. Pleasure becomes a calculated property of an experience. S: Or deliberated. There’s also another more practical approach. P: What’s that? S: The utilitarians of the twentieth century accepted “revealed preference”— which means the choice of goods, or any options—as a proxy for utility (Stigler 1950a, 1950b; Mulgan 2007: 71–5) for the practical reason that a choice is easier to observe and measure than happiness. The assumption has been that rational consumers choose the options that maximize their utility and that preference and happiness would correlate. Also ISO accepts the revealed preference as an indication of happiness, as preferences and physical responses are included among the several indicators of user experience. P: This is not necessarily the case. We don’t really know what makes us happy at the point of purchase—or any decision. S: True. Bentham realized and others have convincingly confirmed that people are not good at estimating their happiness, especially when they need to compare immediate gratification and long-term accumulated happiness (Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarin 1997, Frank 1999, Layard 2005). Immediate gains are given more weight than what an impartial academic observer or philosopher might think they deserve in a universe where distant future happiness is no different from the immediate. Bentham pays attention to the longer-term happiness and proposes a decision-making process in which the consequences of immediate pleasures are reflected in the later perceptions of pleasure and pain. He suggests that legislators should critically deliberate on the impacts and secondary impacts of different choices on happiness. The ISO standard trusts that the iterative dialogue between users and designers will overcome the problems with ill-informed preferences. P: In addition to circumstances, does he propose anything else to further support the deliberation process? S: I think his circumstances go much beyond most user experience approaches by paying attention to probabilities, consequences, and secondary effects, and to the scope of the impact. But he (1824/2004: 89–96) also presents a list of pleasures and pains. Or actually he lists elementary pleasures and pains which “cannot any one of them be resolved into more” (ibid.: 90). Many of the pleasures and pains in real life are combinations of these and Bentham calls those complex. His list of pleasures includes the following 14 pleasures:

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First, the pleasures of sense, which include, apart from the five senses and the pleasures they deliver immediately without reflection, the pleasures of intoxication, sex, the feeling of being healthy, and the novelty of an experience. Second, the pleasures of wealth include acquisition and possession of articles of enjoyment or security. Third, the pleasure of skill is related to mastering the use of instruments. P: That sounds like user experience. S: I think many of his pleasures deal with user experience. Fourth, the pleasure of amity refers to us being on good and friendly terms with people. Fifth, the pleasure of a good name is like amity, as both deal with social relationships and affiliations, but it’s more about reputation and honor while amity addresses friendship. Sixth, the pleasures of power refer to a person’s capability of influencing others and getting services from them. Seventh, the pleasures of piety deal with religious pleasures and one’s relationship with the Supreme Being. Eighth, the pleasures of benevolence, or goodwill, refer to our pleasures of sympathizing and doing good things for other living creatures, including other species. Ninth, the pleasures of malevolence, or bad will, refer to the satisfaction we get from antipathy and causing pain to others … P: That’s a surprising one. S: Well, if you observe how some people act towards each other, it’s a reasonable addition. Or perhaps he’d just read the Marquis de Sade’s novels before writing his list. P: I guess so. Explaining all the bad things people do to each other without accounting for sadistic pleasure might be untrue. S: The problem of malevolence is that in Bentham’s utilitarianism, increasing the amount of pleasures independent of their kind is morally good. I can accept malevolence as a pleasure, but it’s not easy to accept as a desirable goal of a social arrangement. But let’s not get stuck on this issue. The tenth pleasure is the pleasures of memory, which deals with things



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we’ve experienced and recall exactly like we experienced them and enjoy the memory. Eleventh, the pleasures of imagination deal with experiences we construct based on what we have experienced, but also what we wish we would experience. Twelfth, the pleasures of expectation are similar to the previous one, but Bentham recognizes the pleasure of contemplating something particular as a distinct dimension. Thirteenth, the pleasures of association are different from the first dozen, which are perceived to be gratifying as such, while the pleasures of association refer to the instrumental role of pleasures standing as proxies, or representations of another kind for the final source of pleasure. Some might be happy to actually meet Santa Claus, but for others he might represent the probability of getting presents. Finally, fourteenth, the pleasures of relief refer to the pleasure of pain coming to an end. Bentham also lists 14 pains. P: Which are those? S: They mostly mirror the pleasures, with some exceptions when there is no direct correspondence between pain and pleasure.8 P: Okay. Maybe we don’t need to list those. I think that the list of pleasures is a good one for user experience designers. It includes items that are well known and that we constantly keep in our minds, but also some that we tend to avoid. The pleasure of malevolence, especially, is something that we ignore, but which I assume if handled with care and used to provide a contrast to more empathetic pleasures could also belong to the designers’ repertoire (Benford et al. 2013). S: I agree. And now as we remember his list we can compare it to the taxonomies of experiences, emotions, or pleasures that have been suggested for categorizing user experiences. P: That would help us to decide if Bentham’s utility and our talk about user experience address the same thing. S: That’s what I was thinking too. P: But the ISO standard doesn’t mention pleasures. S: We agreed to include pleasures to complement the ISO take on user experience.

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P: I hope we don’t step on someone’s toes. S: We’ve done that already in our previous discussions. P: True. S: But do you remember any taxonomies of pleasures in user experience discussions? P: There must be several, but I recall Patrick Jordan’s (2002)9 and Donald Norman’s (2004). S: They have attracted a lot of attention. We could also look at psychological needs that Sheldon and Hassenzahl (Sheldon et al. 2001; Hassenzahl et al. 2013) with their colleagues have considered fundamental for a positive user experience. Let’s start with Jordan. P: Fine. He states that there are four sources of product pleasure. Physiopleasure deals with products’ looks, how the products feel, sound, and smell. It’s about immediate sensual responses. Psycho-pleasure is about mastering a product, achieving goals and overcoming challenges with it. Socio-pleasure deals with products as linked to social interaction, as practical tools to communicate and share, but also as shared interests and symbols of belonging. Ideo-pleasure is about a product responding to the value structures of the user. Shall I continue with Norman? S: Please. P: Norman categorizes three types of responses to designed products and experiences. Visceral experience deals with sensual, immediate, and unconscious perception of a product, its materials and styling. Behavioral experience includes the usability of the product, ergonomics, and interaction design. It is conscious and analytical. Reflective experience links the product to individuals’ values and personal meanings, which aren’t necessarily within the scope of designers’ control. Reflective experiences can be constructed and narrated. S: Would you like to compare these with Bentham’s? P: You’re asking me? S: Yes. P: Well, it seems very obvious that Bentham’s pleasures of sense, Jordan’s physio-pleasure, and Norman’s visceral experience are comparable. They all clearly refer to immediate non-reflective elementary feelings sparked by sensual stimuli. Bentham, however, had some more unusual additions. I wouldn’t, for instance, consider sex a simple pleasure, but a pleasure where



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the pleasures of the senses, the social aspects of the pleasures, and imagination all have their roles. But apart from that, and perhaps some other details, the categories seem to correspond well. I think the same seems to be true of pleasures of skill, psycho-pleasure, and behavioral experience. They all refer to achievements with products, and even Bentham linked achievement to the skilfull operation of an instrument. That’s surprising, as he didn’t write about interaction design. S: I agree. He must’ve foreseen that one day, in the distant future, people would design for user experiences. The pleasures of skill, psycho-pleasure, and behavioral experience are overlapping categories, as you said. P: When it comes to Jordan’s social and ideo-pleasures and Norman’s reflective experience, there is no one-to-one correspondence to Bentham’s pleasures. S: I think Bentham listed much of what these categories include, but with much finer granularity. P: You refer to his pleasure categories of amity, good name, power, piety, and goodwill. S: Yes. P: Bentham’s last five categories are such that they position the pleasures at different points of time, apart from temporarily immediate pleasure. Neither Jordan nor Norman considered these as distinct experiences or pleasures. The number of pleasures can be reduced and the model streamlined by saying that the pleasures can be expected, experienced, or recollected in the manner framed by the user experience models. But then I think that claiming that anticipated and recalled pleasures are essentially different from the momentary experience, as Bentham does, makes a lot of sense. They aren’t the same experiences felt earlier or later. The memory of a nice experience isn’t the same experience revisited, but something different. The memory is different from the immediate experience, and recalling memories is a different activity from doing and being. A memory of a good meal doesn’t stop you from being hungry; in fact, the opposite may be true. You might recall how the food looked and tasted, but that’s different from eating. The same applies to many things: exercise, sex, anything that is strongly physical and embodied. S: What, then, about Sheldon’s psychological needs?10 Do you remember them? P: Isn’t it your turn?

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S: Okay, I’ll try. Autonomy refers to a person’s feeling of being in control and the initiator of one’s own actions. Bentham doesn’t have anything exactly like this, but I believe it’s close to Bentham’s pleasures of power, although he probably was thinking mainly about the enjoyment of imposing one’s will on others. But how could we be in control of others if we cannot be in control of ourselves? Next, the need for a feeling of competence means that we should be capable in our operations and manage to complete challenging tasks. Bentham’s pleasure of skill is not far removed from competence, although Bentham explicitly mentions objects and instruments. Those, I think, can be abstracted to refer to mastery of the means of completing tasks in general. We were perhaps a bit too literal in our interpretation of this a while ago. Then we have relatedness, which is the need for intimate meaningful contacts with people who care about you and who you care about. Bentham’s pleasure of amity refers to the same. Having the need for popularity and influence satisfied means that we are liked and respected, and can have an influence on others. Bentham’s pleasures of a good name and power seem very similar to popularity and influence. Pleasure and stimulation refers to positive arousal and physical pleasures. Somehow I find this kind of surprising because the stimulation could be an attribute of any of the other needs. However, it corresponds to Bentham’s pleasures of sense, which also includes surprise as one of its elements and likewise seems to cover what Sheldon’s team means by physical thriving, as that refers to a need for exercise and wellbeing. Money and luxury refer to our need for possessions and seem to equate to Bentham’s pleasures of wealth. The need for security and Bentham’s pleasure of wealth also overlap, although Bentham’s 14 pleasures don’t seem to address personal safety directly. However, circumstances and especially the probability of the pleasures existing in the future address the idea of safety without having to mention that separately. P: There are plenty of similarities between Bentham’s pleasures and the things experiences are made of. I think we can assume they deal with one single idea. S: We have some support for that conclusion. Bentham describes his pleasures very briefly and can be criticized for vagueness. And our analysis— well, this was not an analysis—our hunch is based on a superficial view on the similarity. However, I agree that from the point of view of recent academic discussion on user experience, Bentham’s pleasures don’t seem to ignore much of anything essential. On the contrary, Bentham is more particular in terms of the essential aspects of the temporal and reflective dimensions of pleasure, perception, and experience than much of the recent user experience discussion. I think that we can conclude …



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P: … tentatively, of course … S: …—of course—we can conclude that when he speaks about pleasures, he speaks about entities that are the same or closely linked and which correspond to what designers seek to create when they’re designing for user experience. P: We seem to be interested in similar things. But we could still do a quick thought experiment. S: What do you suggest? P: I remember that you’re a wooden boat enthusiast. Perhaps you could use boating to illustrate Bentham’s pleasures S: Sure. I love to talk about boating. P: I’m listening. S: Fine. Taking care of an old wooden boat is a pleasure to the senses, almost all of them. Such boats are beautiful objects that people love to admire and their owners are really particular about ensuring that the details are in harmony with the spirit of the boat. The boats are masterpieces of craftsmanship. But their appeal isn’t only visual. There’s also the pleasurable smell of the dust when you sand the boat, the scent of varnish and oil you use to impregnate the wood. When you go out to sea, the environment envelops your senses. There’s the wind, the spray, the movement of the boat, and the sound of waves hitting the hull, which sometimes amplifies the sounds like a musical instrument. All of these provide sensual pleasure. Or perhaps we should say that the perception of pleasure is strong, impressive, and multidimensional. A boat provides the pleasure of wealth, too. The owner of an expensive boat may be proud of it, as a symbol of wealth, but a small old boat provides a different kind of feeling of pleasure from possession, which is more related to your identity and self-esteem. If you want to belong to the community of boat owners, owning one is essential for your happiness. The pleasures of skill are an obvious dimension of boating, as are the pleasures of senses. Both maintenance and sailing are skills where the potential for self-improvement is virtually unlimited. You can always develop yourself and enjoy the pleasure of being able to do something and accomplish a renovation project or a challenging manoeuvre at sea—and also realize your shortcomings and challenge yourself to do better the next time. The pleasures of skill involved in boating, unlike many skills that you need at work, are rather non-instrumental. The capability of maintaining a boat isn’t instrumental for another purpose. Well, someone might say that it’s necessary for you to keep the boat in good shape, but you can also hire

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someone to do that for you. And the fact that your boat is in good shape isn’t necessarily any more important than the activities you engage in to keep it in shape. In a way, the boat is just an excuse for the maintenance activity. You don’t hire anyone to do it for you, because you want to be able to do it yourself because you enjoy it. The pleasures of amity and good name come with the social dimension of boating. One makes friends among other boating enthusiasts, especially during the maintenance season in the springtime. You spend long weekends in the boathouse and the dockyard, and you have to take plenty of breaks while you’re waiting for the varnish to dry before applying the next layer, or rest your aching arms after sanding the hull while bent into weird postures. It’s easy to make friends with like-minded people who share the same interests. In addition to friendship, there’s the dimension of a good name. You can earn a good name by doing favors for other boat owners, demonstrating excellence in maintenance, and exhibiting sailing skills that improve the reputation of your club. You might enjoy being an admired member of the club. But instead of admiration, I think that what people probably look forward to and enjoy more is being a trusted member of the community. Being trusted and having a good name are related, and I think they’re also related to the pleasures of power. Every now and then you need help with this and that. You cannot raise a mast on your own, but when you’re a trusted member of the community, you can enjoy the pleasure of power when you ask others to help you. This is, of course, a reciprocal power, but I don’t think that makes it any less enjoyable. The others have the same power over you. The pleasure of piety is probably a category that was more necessary to mention in the eighteenth century than in our present secular world, and it might not be a meaningful aspect of boating for non-believers. However, people often link religious experience with nature experiences and the might of natural elements. When you’re sailing on a small boat in rough seas, you experience great contrasts of power that make you humble and maybe grateful—it’s an environment and activity where it’s easy to feel the presence of supreme powers. We didn’t discuss this earlier, but perhaps the pleasure of piety can be interpreted more broadly as the pleasure that one derives from being in harmony with things and values that one believes in, apart from those that are religious. At least I enjoy boating partly because I believe in maintaining our historical heritage. Wooden boats are no longer built—well some are, but you cannot build new old boats, if you see what I mean. Stuck in a museum, an old wooden boat is lifeless. The only way to keep the design heritage alive is to maintain these boats in sailing condition and take them to the waves. Sailing is also a sustainable, non-polluting mode of transportation, which adds the ideological pleasure dimension. The pleasures of benevolence are related to the social nature of boating. As I mentioned, you can ask for help and get it. But equally as essential as



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the pleasures you get from these aspects is the pleasure of being able to share your knowledge and give boat maintenance advice to others. People are mainly in charge of their own boats and do the work themselves, but maintenance expertise is a common good, and the ones who have it take pleasure in sharing it. Admitting to enjoying malevolence is a sensitive issue. An obvious case, perhaps mixed with other pleasures like that of skill, is the pleasure you might take from making others jealous, and that might be part of your motivation to upgrade your boat and outperform others at sea. The pleasures of memory and imagination go hand in hand. Memorizing the trips you’ve taken, sharing the memories with others, spicing them up with imaginative and exaggerated touches makes the winter season when the boats are docked tolerable and inspires you to look forward to the next sailing season, planning trips and small or big alterations, purchases, and renovations that you should or could do. There’s always work to be done on a wooden boat, but you should never do it too soon because then you lose the pleasure of imagining and looking forward to doing something new. P: Convincing. S: I spoke mostly about boating and less about the boat. P: That’s fine. We’re interested in use, not the product. Use is what gives pleasures and experiences. And the social dimension is an aspect of use. S: True. P: So what do you think about Bentham’s pleasures and boating? At least I don’t know if he missed something essential about what makes your boat and hobby so dear to you, but you managed to very nicely link the things he included to boating, including the social and reflective dimension of maintenance and sailing. S: His merit, not mine. P: Is there anything else you think is important in making the hobby rewarding for you? S: No. P: He knew it all. S: Yes.

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Against utility P: Bentham has been criticized. S: Yes, a lot. P: If his utilitarianism is similar to or overlaps in many respects with our present discussion on user experience, then the criticism of utilitarianism should also provide angles for critically addressing user experience. S: That’s the case if we criticize user experience from the point of view of its ethical merits. That isn’t necessarily the way we typically address user experience. P: Sure. S: You’re interested in the criticism of utilitarianism? P: Well … S: Okay. I see. We’re approaching the heart of the matter. I already mentioned Mill’s criticism. The main difference between Bentham and Mill is that for Bentham all pleasures are equally valuable. If the amount of pleasure is perceived to be equal, then the moral value is equal. The way in which you achieve the pleasure doesn’t make any difference. Playing a game and helping a neighbor in need would be equally valuable activities if they create the same amount of pleasure. P: For you, your neighbors, and the players. S: Yes. The same applies to entertainment and sophisticated culture. Mill doesn’t share Bentham’s view. He (1871/2004: 279) says, “Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.” So there is a hierarchy of pleasures that depends on the judgment of those who know the alternative pleasures well. Mill’s own view of the highest pleasures includes safety, freedom, and justice. P: We don’t think they are pleasures. S: But Mill does. And, if I had to choose, I would also rather have those things than good shopping opportunities and free online entertainment. They lay the foundation for all the rest, since without safety, freedom, and justice no one can count on anything good in life to be more than a passing moment of happiness.



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P: Bentham might reply that his requirement for fecundity actually leads in practice to a similar hierarchy, because safety and justice multiply the pleasure without us having to categorize pleasures a priori, and justice in jurisprudence was his motivation to outline the principles of utility. S: Yes. More recently, economist Richard Layard (2005: 62–70)11 came to the support of Bentham, suggesting that there are a few factors that have the greatest influence on happiness. These are family relationships, with marriage improving happiness more than any other single factor; a stable financial situation; employment with a good work–life balance, involving friends and the capability to trust people; health; personal freedom and fair and democratic governance; and personal values such as religion. These are the qualities of life that people consider make them happy. They seem to fall into the category of fecund pleasures. Affiliation, self-respect, safety, and freedom are things that are at the top of the list if we ask people, without philosophers having to place them there for the rest of us. However, a recurring criticism of Bentham is the argument that wellbeing is non-commensurable. There are things closely related to basic human needs, worth, and dignity, such as a system of basic freedoms or bodily health and integrity and others, which cannot be replaced by something else. People agreeing, statistically, about their impact on the quality of life and happiness doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have a special status in the system of distributive justice. P: The ISO definition of user experience doesn’t suggest any hierarchies among experiences. S: Yes. It’s a Bentham-style document that gives the designers freedom to create experiences in any manner they prefer, and users the freedom to enjoy any aspect of use and any manner of using. It underlines the users’ subjective interpretations, allowing them to derive pleasure where and how they please. Doing things that are worthwhile and valuable isn’t given any priority over entertainment, for instance. That has also had an influence on how user experience has become understood, and the design for user experience has been criticized for “Disneyism” and focusing on things that merely create fun instead of sustainable worth (Cockton 2006). P: But there’s nothing in the standard that says entertainment is what the design should focus on, either. S: True. User experience advocates can claim that an enduring experience needs to be meaningful, and by being enduring it ends up being better than fleeting pleasure. But then, like Bentham, user experience doesn’t distance itself from questionable or worthless pleasures. For instance, think about the design of interactive games and social media. These enjoyable, often useful,

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and mostly harmless pastimes are not free of problems, not least because of their addictiveness. Protection from harm and, seen from another perspective, freedom from addiction should be given priority over other kinds of pleasures. P: Or proper deliberation, at least. S: Yes. Another problem that isn’t very different from the hierarchy of pleasures is the question of whether hedonic pleasure is always good. For Bentham it is. Mill again disagrees with Bentham and says that the value of lower pleasures is limited and that suffering, or more moderately dissatisfaction, would be the preferred choice under some circumstances. His (1871/2004: 281) famous quote is “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” P: If you happen to be a human being and philosopher such as Mill. S: I don’t know if Mill ever thought he could’ve been born a pig or a fool. Mill doesn’t pay too much attention to the pleasures of fools. For higher creatures, as Mill sees it, the standard of happiness is different and the same pleasures don’t create satisfaction for them as they do for the lower creatures. Another famous, much later criticism and metaphor illustrating the relationship between good life, pleasures, and happiness is Robert Nozick’s experience machine. P: Experience machine? S: Yes. It’s a system where “superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain” (Nozick 1974: 42–3). Commercial companies would provide you with a smorgasbord of experiences to choose from to entertain you over the next few years, if novel writing was not your choice. There would be no harmful side effects and when you float you think you’re living a real life. You would feel like you’re maintaining your social contacts, too. Would you plug yourself in? P: It seems that Bentham might have recommended that. S: His strict principle of happiness seems to suggest that plugging yourself in would be the rational choice. P: He couldn’t have foreseen the developments in neuroscience or virtual reality or chemical experience machines. S: Yes. The world was a real place for him. But I’m sure he wouldn’t have recommended plugging in. I assume he would’ve said that if you plug yourself



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in, you cannot make others happy and thus your only contribution to the aggregated happiness of the community would be maximizing your own. P: What does Nozick think we should do? S: His stand is that plugging in is suicide. The worth of our life is not in happiness, satisfaction, and experience; these things only matter if we also really do things and are someone. P: Virtual reality and immersive environments were only science fiction in the early 1970s. S: But chemically stimulated alternative realities were popular. P: Right. But now interactive technologies are creating artificial experiences that aren’t too far removed from the experience machine—and people do plug in. S: Do you think that’s suicide? P: I don’t know. I mean that I don’t know enough about people who live in artificial online realities. But I am sure there are many things that people like which it would be better—for everyone—to enjoy in an experience machine than in reality. I’m thinking about monster truck madness and other pleasurable experiences that are even more destructive. But what does ISO say about philosophers and fools and the experience machine? S: The standard manages to avoid elitism and doesn’t consider a philosopher a better customer than a fool: both are served equally. I believe the designers of the experience machine would probably have to lean on ISO to pass their quality audits. P: But the definition (ISO 2010: clause 2:15) includes the word “accomplishment” among the longish list of “perceptions and responses” that saves the standard from taking a normative stand for plugging in. It seems to suggest that user experience isn’t only about experiencing, but also involves being and doing. It (ibid.) also says that “usability criteria can be used to assess aspects of user experience.” The achievements link user experience to doing things and being someone. S: You’re right. The word is there. This is the case even though its achievement orientation has been the main criticism against usability from the user experience camp. However, the standard doesn’t really discuss or even mention—it’s not the mission of standards to discuss such issues—the role of accomplishment among the hedonic criteria. ISO is not explicit in articulating the relationship between achievement-oriented usability and user experience.

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P: Right. S: That’s something to discuss. P: What about other problems with Bentham’s utilitarianism? Are there any other grounds for criticism? S: There are. Bentham’s theory aims at promoting legislation that maximizes the happiness of the community and he uses the human body as a metaphor for a community. Individuals are its members. He (1824/2004: 66) writes that “The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what is it?—the sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.” This opened Bentham’s ethics to plenty of criticism. For maximal happiness and minimal pain, it’s reasonable and ethical for you to sacrifice a member of your body to save other members and for the body to survive. Breast cancer requires removal of breast tissue. Many other conditions are similar. Taking the metaphor less literally, it’s very obvious that we often sacrifice our happiness to achieve something that makes us happier later on. Good health requires exercise and a moderate level of asceticism in your lifestyle choices, which aren’t always experienced as pleasures. To sustain a happy marriage, one needs to refuse certain pleasures. A member is sacrificed for the good of the community and the immediate pleasure for a more sustained happiness. P: But can one individual be sacrificed for the pleasure of others, if the sum of that is higher than the individual’s pain? S: That’s a critical question. Bentham’s or Mill’s intention wasn’t to suggest that a few unfortunates would be sacrificed for the many, but the very opposite. Their idea was that a few fortunate individuals’ happiness shouldn’t compromise that of the far more numerous who are worse off (Mulgan 2007: 11). However, since Bentham defined the goal of governance as the maximization of happiness in the community, the question of sacrifice cannot be ignored. Think of a sheriff who has a murder suspect in his custody (ibid.). The sheriff knows the man is innocent, but there’s a mob outside his office threatening the town with a riot that would cause havoc and plenty of casualties if the suspect is not punished. Should the sheriff let them lynch the innocent man to avoid great havoc? P: No way. S: That is the way we think. P: … and it’s a problem from the point of view of Bentham’s stand. I see.



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S: The problem with his and also Mill’s thinking is that they don’t recognize individuals’ separateness. Each person has her rights, needs, worth, and dignity, and those are things that cannot be sacrificed for others’ benefit based on a simple calculus. P: But we do sacrifice people for others’ benefit. S: Sacrifices might be unavoidable in some situations. That said, sensitivity, deliberation, fair and well-informed decisions, and individual autonomy are always necessary. Firefighters risk their lives for the benefit of society, but we don’t think their work represents a sacrifice in the same sense as an innocent suspect handed over to a mob. Later philosophers have considered Immanuel Kant’s stand of always regarding individuals as ends and never only as means as a more sustainable principle. Sacrificing someone for the benefit of others would be using that person as a means. P: I assume Bentham would defend his opinion somehow. S: Bentham’s stand would probably be that the killing of an innocent person would corrupt the morals of the society and citizens’ trust in the law, which would lead to more pain over time than what can possibly be compensated for by the mob’s short-term pleasure of revenge. Mill would probably say that the pleasure of justice is so much higher than the pleasure of unfair revenge that they cannot even be compared. P: Designers seldom face dilemmas as dramatic as the sheriff. S: We are super-privileged indeed in that we don’t have to dirty our hands. However, more often than not design deals with excluding people from the set of satisfied users. People and situations are different and as there are practical limits to how much variation and customization can be implemented, the designs unavoidably serve some users better than others and some not at all. P: Scissors for the right-handed. S: Exactly. And as we discussed, we keep on ignoring the neighbor. P: ISO’s take on user experience doesn’t say anything about sacrificing the experiences of some for the benefit of others. It doesn’t define priorities. S: That seems to be the case. The standard is ambiguous when it comes to specifying the “user” and it’s not clear whether a user is considered as an aggregation, as in the case of Bentham and Mill, or more strictly as an individual in the style of Kant and Sen. The standard’s definitions have no logic in choosing between singular and plural when it speaks about the user or users. It (ISO 2010: clause 2:14) defines a user as an individual, “the person who

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interacts with the product.” Another statement referring to an individualistic conception of a user is a note saying that “In safety-critical and mission-critical systems, it might be more important to ensure the effectiveness or efficiency of the system than to satisfy user preferences” (ibid.: clause 4:6). P: I don’t follow. S: Think about a bus driver. According to the standard, his or her personal preferences are secondary to error-free driving. That wouldn’t be a necessary comment if the user were to be seen as a body of commuters, the people serving them, and the others on the road. P: Right. The commuters’ overall preference is a safe, accident-free ride. S: But the standard speaks about a body of multiple users and says user experience “includes all the users’ emotions,” leaving open the option for communal experience of good. It refers to accessibility but the requirement to consider everybody is not extended to cover user experience, only usability. P: The standard seems to leave a similar loophole as Bentham, probably unintentionally, allowing us to sacrifice the experience of the left-handed for the right-handed. But it’s still good that the few don’t dominate. S: Actually the suffering minority can grow large and ultimately the ones who are sacrificed might become the majority, apart from one single “utility monster” (Nozick 1974: 41) whose experience is so magnificent that all the rest need to tolerate their suffering for the maximized good. P: Really? S: Well, think of the disturbing use of products. I think designers serve a utility monster quite often. For instance, the noise one monster creates in the pursuit of his happiness with a jet ski is disturbing to many of those around him, not to speak about his behavior, which jeopardizes the safety of many. P: I see. S: One more thing needs to be said about the criticism. Utilitarianism can be criticized for being an unrealistically demanding idea for an individual. P: Why? S: Because it aims at maximizing the aggregated happiness. P: I know that already. S: Be patient. Because the marginal utility of resources tends to decrease as the amounts increase, the wealthier person giving a cent to someone poorer always increases total happiness. That is why, according to the principle of



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utility, the wealthy should keep giving until they are no richer than the poor. Can we impose that as a requirement? P: That’s taking it too far. The richer should be generous, but within reasonable limits, and there’s no need to give the poor more than they need in order to be alright, even though they still remain poorer than the rich. S: That’s what our intuition says. Many other approaches to distributional justice ignore the requirement of maximizing and build their frameworks on some sort of sufficientarianism. They say it’s enough that everyone is alright, that the needs which make it possible to live a normal life are satisfied (Doyal and Goagh 1991; Reader 2007), that a person is capable of doing and being enough to satisfy the requirements for a decent life and human dignity (Sen 2009; Nussbaum 2011). Thus Mill has been criticized together with Bentham for their demanding principle of calling for the maximization of aggregated happiness. P: When everyone is alright, the moral obligation to increase happiness ceases to exist. I don’t remember the definition of user experience saying much about this. ISO says only that we should design to achieve “good experiences”—but what does that really mean? Does “good” mean “good enough” or “as good as possible”? S: The standard doesn’t specify it. P: Again, too bad. S: Maybe we can think along the lines of Herbert Simon (1996: 120) and simply say that in any human planning, whether legislation or design, it’s logically impossible to engage in maximization, which he refers to as optimization. The reason is that the generation of all the alternatives, which is a prerequisite for optimization, is impossible. The only choice we have is to be satisfied with or settle on solutions that are sufficiently good. P: True, but if we’re more practical and accept that the alternatives we’ve been able to identify are a working proxy for all the possible reasonable alternatives within the practical limits set by the circumstances, then maximizing happiness is a choice. S: ISO doesn’t require us to aim for that, but doesn’t take an explicit sufficientarianistic stand either. It really doesn’t pay too much attention to justice.

User exertion P: Should we provide our contribution?

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S: To make user experience more just? P: Yes. Last time, we were bold enough to modify the definition of usability to make it capability sensitive. Do you think we could also summarize some of our ideas about user experience and justice by elaborating another version of the definition? I think we learned something from the criticism of utilitarianism. S: We already presented one new version of user experience when we discussed the standpoints. P: We said that user experience is an inverse concept of usability. We can sketch another one. S: Sure we can. There’s always room for one more. P: How should we start? S: Well, there are a couple of issues that we’ve now noticed. First, the experience machine criticism bothers me a lot. The ISO standard speaks about responses and accomplishments, which kind of recognize the role played by a lived life, but its stand is not strong enough. And the same emphasis disturbs me about many other definitions of user experience. Imagine someone who has been floating in Nozick’s tank for the last five years or so. Then we unplug him. What would he say? P: “Who are you guys? Why am I in this tub? What happened to me? Whose body is this disgusting bag of fat? I want my life back!” S: Most likely. And if we ask whether he liked what he experienced? P: He would say “Yes.” S: And that’s already a behavioral response: a word expressing the preference for being plugged in. But this response isn’t enough to make the experience one where the person is someone and does something. P: Perhaps the rationale behind the standard is to allow easy measurement of user experiences. S: Probably. But ethically the actually lived bodily experience and the realworld impact on others and others’ perception of that should be more explicitly described. I’m not suggesting that my experience should be defined by a poll, but I think that real-world experience requires some sort of reciprocal dimension with the environment—especially other people. P: We already criticized usability and user experience for excessive individualism when we created the standpoint of a neighbor. But what are you



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suggesting? Should we add perhaps the words “embodied” and “reciprocal” to the definition? S: They would solve the experience machine problem. They would also help in solving the problem with adaptive preference by including what actually happens to your physical body as well as the problem of Socrates and the fool. Reciprocity adds a dimension that deals with the value of pleasures in the social context. It would also help in fighting the atomism and individualism of user experience. P: What should we do with the sheriff’s problem? S: There are actually two related problems that deal with the nature of the user, or probably more, but two that I think we can address now. The separateness of individuals and the problems that come with aggregations are one. The second is the inclusivity of user experience. I have a hunch that we would be on the safer side if we don’t think of the community as an aggregated individual, depart from utilitarianism, and share Kant’s, Sen’s and others’ stand and define user experience consistently as an individual’s experience, which, however, is put into a socially reciprocal context in ethical scrutiny. P: It wouldn’t be a utilitarian definition any more. S: Not really faithful to Bentham, for sure. Then we should say something about who are the individuals that we consider. We should figure out a way to make it inclusive. P: We could say that user experience should deal with the experience of individuals with the widest range of interests. S: We could. That’s a clever formulation. If usability addresses abilities to achieve something, user experience focuses on the conditions of appreciation, and the individual’s interests lay the foundation for that. That would mirror the accessibility structure that we employed for usability very nicely: not the widest range of abilities but interests. We would need to cater for as many kinds of wishes and wants as possible. P: So, the unpolished new version of a just user experience would be: perceptions and embodied reciprocal responses of individuals with the widest range of interests that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system, or service. S: And now that we’ve started to revise it, I’d like to delete the last part of the definition, which I think is simply clumsy. Also “reciprocal response” is tautological. And one more thing: perceptions could be supplemented by saying perceptions of what. For that we have a good answer from Bentham.

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P: Pleasure and harm. S: Yes.

Perception and embodied interchange of pleasure and lack of harm that are associated with the use of an artifact by individuals with the widest range of interests.

P: So the second iteration might be something like this: Perception and embodied interchange of pleasure and lack of harm that are associated with the use of an artifact by individuals with the widest range of interests. “Associated” is better than “resulting from.” It covers the different kinds of perceptions that Bentham listed, including expectations, memories, and imagination. S: That clearly includes the subjective stand by mentioning perceptions, and embodied interchange explicates that what one actually does, and which others respond to, is an element of experience. Experience becomes reciprocal and in addition to being a mental state is also a quality of behavior. P: Making love in Nozick’s experience machine is less of an experience than in real life.

We create agents of pleasure instead of passive recipients.

S: Making love, creating pleasure, or helping others in any manner: now we’re creating agents of pleasure instead of passive recipients. This makes design for user experience a more ethically relevant objective than design for hedonic pleasures. P: Do you think we should still call this user experience? S: On the one hand, it’s still an all-encompassing, subjectively perceived construct that’s similar to the standard definition in many respects. On the other hand, our formulation puts more emphasis on actual being and doing. P: You’re using capability vocabulary. S: I guess I am. We get closer to Sen’s ideas. Bentham and Mill wouldn’t call it



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utility any more—or you never know. It’s also compatible with our earlier take on user experience that addressed the time, sweat, and money spent on use. With both of our modifications we take a step away from design for user experience towards design for user exertion, the celebration of rewarding effort. P: We were ready to replace usability with applicability. Should we do the same with user experience and give our new formulations a new name? S: The user experience community might be more willing to listen to us if we leave user experience in peace. So what about “user exertion”? P: It sounds quite negative. S: We want to see the activity and active life in a positive light. P: Well, yes … I guess “exertion” is used in some other comparable context? S: Perceived exertion is a measurement used in medical care and rehabilitation as a proxy for exercise intensity (Borg 1982; Chen, Fan, and Moe 2002). It tells how hard the body works. In a way we’re looking for something similar, aren’t we? For us, the user experience is a measurement of engagement, involvement, and perceived intensity of use. I’d say that playing rugby yields more of an experience than watching others play. P: Hmmm … S: The body needs exertion and so does the mind. In our earlier definition, effort was even more clearly explicated. P: We didn’t really specify that. S: You’re right. P: How about this: user experience is the effort of use divided by incentives and the individuals’ perception of the worth of the ratio. Then we need to add the inclusivity clause saying that we refer to individuals with the widest range of interests.

User experience is the effort of use divided by incentives and the individuals’ perception of the worth of the ratio.

S: Good. P: We have some kind of rationale for justifying both, but are they two different things or two wordings of the same?

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S: They represent different angles. The first aims at understanding and the second at quantifying. We could perhaps synchronize them better, but if we do that I think we lose whatever edge they have. P: As they say, user experience is difficult to define. S: Indeed. But we did it. P: Twice. S: And we agree on both definitions.

A word with two meanings P: May I still return to the idea of user experience being a utilitarian concept? S: We didn’t leave it behind. P: Sure. But we’ve already kind of compromised our stand on that by making our version less utilitarian. Still, our claim and starting point that user experience and the principle of utility are very similar is an intriguing one. S: Yes. P: If Bentham’s utility and the ISO definition are as similar and overlapping as we agreed, why haven’t we, I mean the whole gang of user experience people, noticed what now seems obvious to us? Or to put it another way, why don’t we call user experience utility? Have we or everyone else missed something essential? S: We. P: Let’s pretend it was they. S: You’re kind of pushing it. P: Sorry. S: No problem. Bentham’s theory was written more than two centuries ago. It’s been forgotten. P: But you said it hasn’t been forgotten by other disciplines. S: That’s true. The ideas of satisfaction and experience within microeconomics and the idea of happiness in welfare economics have revived Bentham. Maybe the reason for not noticing the similarities has been that computer scientists and behavioral scientists, who form the core of human– computer interaction and have a strong influence on human-centered design,



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haven’t been keen on studying and importing ideas from ethics, economics, and justice. And that applies to us designers equally. They’ve ignored other cornerstones of microeconomics with obvious relevance for their work, including Icek Ajzen (1988) and David Kahnemann (Kahneman et al. 1997), so it’s only consistent that Bentham has suffered the same fate. P: And consistency is appreciated in human–computer interaction. S: Sarcasm aside, maybe a reason for not building on Bentham is the fact that he has been heavily criticized from both the left and right. The single aggregated indicator of wellbeing, in particular, has led many philosophers and economists to distance themselves from utilitarianism. P: That cannot be the reason, because if it were, the user experience standard wouldn’t have been written in a manner so similar to the example set by Bentham. S: Maybe. P: What’s the reason then? S: Maybe it’s just the word. P: Word? S: In user-centered design, “utility” has had a meaning that is very different from that of Bentham’s and Mill’s. We can return to two influential definitions of the main interaction concepts, including “utility,” which take us to the early 1990s before ISO took over as the dominant definition of usability. P: Okay. S: Brian Shackel (1991) outlined a conceptual hierarchy where acceptance is the highest-level criterion. It’s influenced by perceived utility, usability, likeability, and costs. Utility refers to the match between user needs and product functionality, while usability means users’ ability to utilize the functionality in practice. Likeability refers to affective evaluations, and costs include financial costs and social and organizational consequences. Also, Jacob Nielsen (1993) wrote that utility means the match between task requirements and product functionality. It’s the ability of the system to help the user carry out a set of tasks. Usability and utility together form the usefulness of a system: “Utility is the question of whether the functionality of the system in principle can do what is needed, and usability is the question of how well users can use that functionality.” Thus, “utility” has referred to the hardest technical facts. It has been understood as the appropriateness of the feature set separated from users’ capability to get anything done with it, not to mention their subjective pleasures,

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excitement, engagement, immersion, or happiness with the software. When user experience appeared to challenge usability, it did it exactly from the opposite position to that of utility. It took the subjectivity of usability and added more pleasures, perceptions, and happiness. Utility came to be considered as technical, secondary, and trivial when we were dealing with human experience with products. Or perhaps it remained essential in design practice, but from the point of view of conceptualizing interaction it became considered a completed piece of work. It became the practical trivial core having only an instrumental role in the experience. P: As we established distance from Shackel’s and Nielsen’s utility, we didn’t notice that we were getting closer to Bentham’s and Mill’s concept of utility.

As we established distance from Shackel’s and Nielsen’s utility, we didn’t notice that we were getting closer to Bentham’s and Mill’s concept of utility.

S: Yes. P: Sometimes words have two meanings … Should we try to summarize what we have? S: Would you like to try? P: I can try. We have compared Bentham’s conception of utility and definitions of user experience. We have noticed similarities in several essential respects. These include the normative stands of utility and user experience that set requirements for those of us who design societal arrangements, be they laws or other artifacts; the idea of a single aggregated criterion of a good life, or wellbeing, that both share; the subjective perceived nature of that criterion; and the relevance of Bentham’s elaboration of the utility concept for a workable evaluative framework of user experience. We also discussed the criticism of utility and tried to see how that applies to user experience. S: It’s tempting to summarize that user experience is in many essential respects a utilitarian approach to design, which is faithful to Bentham’s ideas. P: A utilitarian would now ask whether our result is useful. S: I don’t know how much happier it makes us, but I think that giving Bentham credit for his work is something that someone in the user experience



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community should’ve done and that in itself was a good reason to have our discussion. That’s probably a more Kantian comment though. P: Our apologies, Jeremy. S: I also think that using Bentham’s principles, originally written for legislators, in design for user experience seems valid. Most importantly, considering the critique of Bentham’s utilitarianism as criticism of user experience from an ethical angle wouldn’t be a waste of time. It already helped us to consider alternative and maybe even enhanced formulations of user experience. It helped us to see the value of actually doing and being, which often remains in the shadows when we focus on emotions.

Considering the critique of utilitarianism as criticism of user experience helped us to see the value of actually doing and being, which remains in the shadows when we focus on emotions.

P: Why don’t we say that the only reason that user experience is not called utility is the confusion caused by Shackel’s and Nielsen’s non-utilitarian use of “utility.” S: A more moderate conclusion would be to suggest further scrutiny of utilitarianism as a philosophical foundation for user experience. Thus far, user experience has been primarily empirically and practically motivated without ethical or philosophical foundations. The notable exceptions are John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy and especially aesthetic experience, which McCarthy and Wright (McCarthy and Wright 2004) and followers have applied. Compared to those, Bentham’s utilitarianism is a straightforward and somewhat shallow approach, but it forces us more directly to take ethical stands. But I’ve been talking too much, once again. Do you think you can crystallize the discussion as well as you did with the previous ones? P: This has been a more difficult one. We learned that user experience has its roots in 1700s utilitarian philosophy, even though no one has drawn this connection, and then we learned about its problems. User experience and utility are similar concepts, but that doesn’t mean much yet. If A is B, but A and B don’t have any relevant meanings for us, the new information is useless. S: True. P: Maybe the core issue is that user experience, which is in essential respects

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similar to happiness, pleasure, and lack of pain, is an all-encompassing criterion of good design. By understanding a little bit more about utility, we realized that all-encompassing criteria, although they motivate much and justify much and can be developed to be more sensitive to justice, are nevertheless still powerless, unfeasible, and in some cases even misleading when it comes to deciding about priorities between conflicting ethical values. It’s difficult to show that the pain of the left-handed minority should be given greater consideration than the pleasure of the right-handed majority from the point of view of justice. The cases of our friend living a virtual life in Nozick’s tank, the sheriff, and the rich man also nicely illustrate the problems. S: I agree. But being happy is a good goal. P: It is. So I would say … S: Yes? P: Experience is all you need unless you need ethical priorities.

Experience is all you need unless you need ethical priorities.

Notes 1

ISO 9241-210 is not exceptional among the definitions or characterizations of user experience in this respect. See, e.g., McCarthy and Wright (2004), Hassenzahl (2005), and Desmet and Hekkert (2007) for corresponding interpretations.

2

Marc Hassenzahl’s (2005, 2008) and his colleagues’ (Hassenzahl and Tracktinsky 2006) stand is that positive emotions and hedonic attributes have a direct influence on an individual’s psychological wellbeing, while the pragmatic attributes are instrumental and thus secondary from the individual’s wellbeing point of view. Hedonic qualities enable people to achieve states of being, “be-goals,” that are relevant for them and that are more persistent over situational variation than goals related to practical achievements that tend to change from situation to situation.

3

The list of psychological needs is based on Sheldon and colleagues’ listing with some exclusions (Sheldon and Elliot 1999; Sheldon et al. 2001; Hassenzahl 2008; Hassenzahl et al. 2013).

4

Bentham’s (1824/2004) version of utilitarianism was published for the first time in the essay An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation in 1789. J. S. Mill (1871/2004) criticized and moderated his principles in several texts and Mill’s Utilitarianism, in particular, became an even more



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famous text about utilitarianism than Bentham’s earlier work. Here the reference is to the version of Utilitarianism originally published in 1824. 5

John Rawls’ (1971) idea of justice as fairness, Len Doyal’s and Ian Gough’s (1991) concept of fundamental needs, and Amartya Sen’s (1985, 1993, 2000, 2010a) and Martha Nussbaum’s (2000, 2011) capability approach.

6

Bentham extended his design interests and concepts from legislation to utilitarian solutions for penalty implementations. In design discussions, his prison design, the “panopticon,” has attracted more attention than his philosophy. His panopticon is a prison concept in which the guards can see into all the cells from the central point of a circular structure, which is a very cost-efficient manner of keeping an eye on the prisoners. That has also been applied as a metaphor for user interfaces that give a good visibility to data (Jespersen et al. 2007; Kramer, Reponen, and Obrist 2008; Daly 2010).

7

It can be done, for instance, by applying the formalizations of psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues (Kahneman, Wakker, and Sarin 1997; also Sun, Fang, and Hsieh 2014).

8

Pains of desire, pains of disappointment, pains of regret, pains of senses, pains of awkwardness, pains of enmity, pains of an ill name, pains of piety, pains of benevolence, pains of malevolence, pains of memory, pains of imagination, pains of expectation, and pains of association.

9

Jordan’s model of four pleasures is based on anthropologist Lionel Tiger’s (1992/2008) earlier work and was an early and influential contribution to establishing distance from task-oriented usability and building a framework for the design of user experience.

10 Sheldon and colleagues’ list included ten needs, and Hassenzahl has chosen to keep the six he considered the most relevant (Sheldon et al. 2001, Hassenzahl et al. 2013). 11 Layard refers to empirical evidence by Di Tella, MacCulloch, and Oswald (2003) and Helliwell 2003.

5 The Fifth Dialogue on Articulating Justice in Design

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n this dialogue Practitioner and Scholar develop heuristics for justice in design, leaning on the capability approach. They hesitate to simplify the capability approach to a set of simple principles, but decide to take the chance because the gains of being able to share ethical assumptions outweigh the dangers of misinterpreting the capability approach. They regard transparency in design assumptions as vital for justice. Then they choose a student project, Transfer Ticket, a client transfer concept for psychiatric health care, as an example to test the heuristics. They discuss the common objective of design and the capability approach to turn resources into achievements. They speak about the nature of ethical problems, design problems, and ill-defined problems, and about comparative justice. They address design that provides people with roles that make them “flourishing hybrids,” elaborate on the problem of design being paternalistic, and the positive freedoms designers allow their clients and vice versa. They take the stand that, from the point of view of justice, design for wellbeing can sometimes be a less desirable goal than design that compromises subjective wellbeing. They identify a need for a comprehensive approach for modesty, even asceticism, and compromises in wellbeing. Then they address the problem of prioritizing resources between design projects and the objectives of design, but find no ethical rules that would make it easier for designers to make decisions on this issue. Adding justice into the problem space of design does not make it less complicated. They conclude by agreeing that they cleared ample room for the evaluation of just designs. Practitioner summarizes by saying that designers meet their ethical responsibility when they honestly articulate the ethical aims of their work. The dialogue begins …

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P: Hello! S: Hi, Practitioner. You’re back with new questions. P: I think I have something in mind. S: Tell me. P: Last time … no, the time before that, we talked about the capability approach and usability. S: Yes. P: But we didn’t link the capability approach directly to designers’ ways of working. S: Well, not directly. We spoke about usability. P: I think that the capability approach could help designers work towards and articulate the justice of their work without us having to employ usability as a mediating concept. I think it’s a detour on our way to getting to what we actually want to understand. Do you agree?

Conductors of justice S: We were able to say something relevant about the quality of use. We had to change the content and the name of usability to make it suit our purposes, but the original idea still looms in the background. Using a framework of justice “directly” to help designers in making just choices might be difficult. Well, Bentham presented something applicable, as we discussed last time, but there are issues. I mean, do you think designers could use the capability approach without a mediating framework? We need something that’s easier to digest than the capability approach and also more operational and familiar. I don’t mean that it’s especially cryptic, but it isn’t a cookbook either. Sen is a man of many words and there are plenty of others who have their opinions about the capability approach. P: I think it’s a promising framework. I didn’t think about what would be the best way to learn to apply it. S: Designers’ capability to apply Sen’s philosophy for the development of a just society might be limited owing to individual and cultural conversion factors. At the very least, the capability approach needs to be made attainable for us and compatible with our processes. It needs to be understandable without being paternalistic. The conceptualizations of ethics and justice need



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to be comprehensible, relevant for design, and applicable in practice. Simply put, I think the approach should be made easier to digest and use. And based on our earlier discussions, there’s one thing we’ve learned, if nothing else: wherever and however we try to look for and formulate simple claims about responsible design and design for justice and wellbeing, we end up noticing that everything is dependent on something. P: Maybe that’s been the case because of our reluctance to speak about anything focused and particular. S: It may also be due to the types of questions we’re dealing with. What is the unit of just distribution, what is the principle of distribution, how to define what is enough, which are the just exceptions of equality? And so on. There’s always another way to think about these. If it seems that there isn’t, we soon notice that we’ve been building on hidden assumptions. So it’s not easy to make ethical deliberation easy—in fact, making it look easy when it’s not would be dishonest. P: I’ve realized that, but considering an issue from another perspective and questioning the assumptions is a way to learn. S: True. It’s a route to learning. Those who ponder the simple principles and heuristics become aware of what they’re good for and what they’re not. They know the assumptions, at least to a certain level, but we face problems if we want to provide designers with easy-to-apply heuristics to be used without deliberation. The capability approach underlines certain issues, but saying that it’s a collection of few claims wouldn’t do justice to Sen and others. P: But maybe we could discuss whether we can formulate some rules of thumb. If we succeed, we could say that the rules are not crystallizations or summaries, but heuristics that link ethically relevant issues of design to more conceptual discussions about justice under the capability umbrella. We wouldn’t skip over deeper ethical elaboration; what I mean is, we wouldn’t claim that designers should be the only ones who are responsible. The rules of thumb would allow others to also participate in ethical scrutiny in the design field. S: We can give this a try. We need links, bridges, conductors, or conceptual middleware linking the insights of the capability approach with design exploration.1 But before we start, we should decide how we could determine whether the conductors we propose are good or appropriate. P: Telling designers what kinds of solutions they should be designing would probably be too much to ask. S: Do you think it would be enough if we learn to ask constructive questions?

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P: Designers are capable of asking plenty of questions without any checklists, but a checklist can serve as a reminder. The capability connection provides conceptual assets for deeper analysis and linking the discussion on design ethics to broader principles of justice and wellbeing. S: Do you think designers would think about these deeper issues?

We have to make our choices transparent and help stakeholders to take ethical stands and be critical.

P: Many wouldn’t. Most of us are rather pragmatic. However, if we use ethical claims to ensure that our design choices are just, linking those claims to broader frameworks would make it possible for others to talk about our work. Think about some of the issues we have an influence on, like privacy and freedom of choice, especially by designing service systems and infrastructures. We have a responsibility to make our choices transparent and actively help stakeholders to take ethical stands and be critical. If we use structured and clear language, we create a platform for this discussion. This is comparable to us using visualizations to make our solutions open to criticism. We need to do the same with our ethical justifications. The language would serve as a link, which designers would interpret by elaborating a design solution, while others who are more familiar with social justice would interpret it through their more conceptual insights or practical experience as well. This would create a system of design ethics where design is linked to domain expertise and expertise in ethics and distributional justice. S: Is it really as simple as that? P: We’re used to going up to an engineer to ask if our design can be built. We’re used to asking a marketing person if our design would sell. S: We’re not as humble as that. P: True, but basically we know who to talk to about these questions and what types of topics to address and how to express ourselves. But we don’t know what to address when we’re struggling with the justice of design. The link that we can identify will of course be sketchy and require plenty of interpretation. We cannot give anybody the impression that there are short cuts for just designs or that we believe there are. The capability framework supports the generation of evaluative angles and questions for design but doesn’t determine the solutions for designers. And I believe that the questions we come up with should be generic enough to be meaningful also for those who aren’t specialists in the capability approach.



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S: You seem to be quite convinced. How do you think we should proceed? P: Let’s work with a design case. Thus far we haven’t focused on a specific design project. Although we discussed many of the principles of the capability approach last time, maybe we need to revisit them a bit—examining them in the context of a specific case would give us a new angle. S: Makes sense. P: We could choose one of your student projects. S: Why not. A design that might work well is a project that was completed some time ago called Transfer Ticket.2 Transfer Ticket was designed during a course where I gave a group of students an open-ended assignment to identify and develop opportunities for design to improve public psychiatric care. The students followed a loosely framed human-centered design process, including dialogues at a psychiatric ward, an outpatient clinic, and voluntary support organizations, and with psychiatrists, nurses, and ex-patients. They also drew from their own values, experiences, and insights. Several teams worked in parallel, but I suggest that we focus only on one. This team noticed that in the complicated system of psychiatric care, the transfer of patients between caregiving units was among the most critical phases of the care. Transfers made the patients feel insecure owing to their fear of being abandoned and the severing of relationships with care personnel. The students decided to develop a solution that would reassure the patients that their care was continuing, underline the long-term nature of the rehabilitation process, and fight against the stigma of mental disorders by interpreting care in a positive light. The solution was to apply a train or flight ticket metaphor for the referrals. At a practical level, Transfer Ticket is a paper slip that specifies the time and location of the next appointment. In terms of its meanings, the innovation was that it turned the care into a journey and the patient into a passenger. The concept was communicated with well-crafted ticket designs that worked as credible service evidence. P: This case really deals with fundamental needs. It belongs to any list of responsible design topics. I believe a clear example helps us to elaborate the questions. So let’s use Transfer Ticket as our vehicle.

Division of labor to ensure justice S: Good. How shall we start? P: The main function of Transfer Ticket seems to me to be its bridging function. It ensures that the care resources that are in principle available to patients are actually attainable—if I got it correctly.

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S: Yes. P: The concept of capability bridges individuals’ internal resources, external provisioning of resources, and the opportunities and constraints of the environment that enable people to choose what they prefer and to function in such a way that they achieve it. If resources are divided equally or at least everyone gets a decent share, the society and the trajectory of development are just. The bridging of human value and technical means is also a key mission of design. It should be fair to criticize the justice of our work based on how well and honestly we respond to that challenge. S: The key phrase in the definition of industrial design by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID n.d.) expresses this by saying that design is about “innovative humanisation of technology.” That is a clear mission. But there are branches of design that are less technology- and research-driven than industrial and interaction design. P: They can be seen as aiming to make cultural resources—seen traditionally as art, and for instance humanistic ideas and values—a part of everybody’s every day. S: This would be close to the old idea of understanding design as applied art that only interprets cultural capital for everyday purposes. I don’t really like that. We want to create new value ourselves. P: I think that here the discussion deals with whether our practice should only build bridges or also lay foundations for their abutments. By the latter metaphor I mean that designers would participate in the creation of the means that satisfy needs in addition to bridging the means with user need satisfaction. In any case, bridging is included in our mission. It’s important for us and I believe that including the bridging function as an ethical agenda for design is acceptable to us. S: Capability is merely the unit of justice. Resources must be distributed in a way that is just.

Does design bridge resources to preferred attainments?

P: True, but to be able to distribute capabilities in a just way, we need to master the bridging function. Designers must have the interest and ability to build bridges between commodities and people—that is a prerequisite for ensuring just distribution. I think that it’s of fundamental importance for



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designers to ask the question, “Does design bridge resources to preferred attainments?” In fact, designers already frequently ask that question. The capability approach links it to ethical discourse. But shall we get back to Transfer Ticket? S: Sure. P: Would asking that question help in elaborating the ethics of Transfer Ticket or is it too obvious? S: A fundamental criterion of justice for Transfer Ticket is its ability to make the provisioning of psychiatric care resources attainable for people who need them. The most valuable resource is the time and commitment of competent and motivated care personnel: the psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, therapists, and volunteers. Other resources include medication, premises, and other non-human resources. Because the clients suffer from mental disorders, their capability of making well-informed rational decisions is decreased. A significant problem in psychiatric care is clients who drop out of the therapy plan. They don’t show up for their appointments and quit taking their medication. Thus, the healthcare system, and design as a part of it, should perhaps take a stronger role in bridging the resources and individuals’ wellbeing. The Ticket itself isn’t in any substantial sense a resource, but quite literally a bridging instrument. It doesn’t influence the care as such, but for the clients it represents the availability of care in a certain location and at a certain point in time in the future. It’s a means to support people with decreased motivation and capability to imagine the continuation of the care and to hold on to their meaningful life projects and to persist with treatment that will help them towards a better condition and worthwhile life. P: The capabilities that the Ticket enhances, if we choose from Martha Nussbaum’s (2011: 33–4) list of central capabilities, are “practical reason,” “affiliation,” and maybe some others too. Practical reason refers to an individual “being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflections about the planning of one’s life,” and affiliation refers to “having social bases of self-respect and nonhumiliation.”3 Nussbaum considers practical reason and affiliation to have special importance among the capabilities, as they enable individuals to plan their life and organize the ways they develop other capabilities and the social support for these. Without mental health, one doesn’t have practical reason, social dialogue, meaningful life projects, or self-respect—and thus nothing much else, either. S: But mental health is not a central capability on Nussbaum’s list? P: Nussbaum doesn’t mention it as such. Or maybe it’s there. She (2011: 33) mentions “bodily health” as a central capability, but doesn’t expound on

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what that includes. It would be natural to include mental health, but “practical reason” and “affiliation” already cover much of what belongs to mental health and are the foundation for everything else that is valuable in life. S: Thanks. P: An essential ethical concern with Transfer Ticket seems to be to what extent it should force the clients to complete their treatment. S: The bridging metaphor and the capability approach underline freedom of choice and suggest that the bridge is there for the individuals to cross, but it’s up to them whether to stay or go. P: That’s compatible with the non-paternalistic emphasis of the capability approach. S: With Transfer Ticket we cannot trust patients to make rational decisions. The extremes in what can be done range from sending a police van to fetch patients to forced therapy to allowing people the freedom to head down a self-destructive path without intervening. Transfer Ticket aims at bridging the care resource to individuals’ wellbeing by adopting a persuasive strategy combining a positive metaphor with the practical benefits of delivering information. I think Transfer Ticket is successful in addressing this issue. P: Travelling requires more than a ticket. You need to understand the schedules, get to the station, know what you need to pack, overcome your fears of going into unknown places. The Ticket serves as a reminder, gives information, and confirms the availability of care, but there are still obstacles—or conversion factors as they are called in the capability approach. S: Yes. I think the metaphor can be extended to address many of those. P: We can also see the Ticket as a resource that the patients need to be able to use, though you said it wouldn’t be a resource of care. S: What kind of resource? P: It’s an element of service and information design and it needs to be usable. If you cannot see the print, cannot read, you tend to forget and lose things and so on, you might not be capable of understanding and using the Ticket. So the Ticket needs to build on the patients’ capability “to use senses, to imagine, think, and reason” (Nussbaum 2011: 33). S: Good point. Transfer Ticket is a resource, a bridging instrument, and perhaps we can even see it as a part of a service experience. In all of these roles we can and should ask the question about bridging resources to wellbeing.



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P: The question might be somewhat self-evident. S: We agreed it helps us to identify and raise concerns. P: True. S: But I want to come back to the issue of distribution. The questions we asked about Transfer Ticket are good, but how do we know if it does its job well enough for a particular patient? It’s not enough for design to work on a relevant dimension of justice if it’s not applied to improve just distribution and to give individuals capabilities that exceed the threshold of what is good enough. But how much is enough? How good does the design need to be? These questions are relevant for us, because we have pressures to design affordable solutions, but if we go below the threshold we end up violating our users’ wellbeing in an unjust manner. Designers who are involved in implementing real-world solutions shouldn’t make mistakes. Not big mistakes anyway. With vulnerable users, as is the case with Transfer Ticket, even small mistakes might turn into big problems. P: The capability approach gives no clear answer. We should basically address capabilities for the sufficient wellbeing of all. However, wellbeing is neither a clearly subjective nor objective concept but somehow oscillates in between. Subjective aspirations for wellbeing are a challenging standard for the quality of design (Pogge 2003). “Passing an ample threshold” is Nussbaum’s (2011: 36–41) answer. She also says that equality isn’t required for material possessions as long as the minimal requirement for human dignity has been fulfilled. S: This requires more elaboration. P: Yes. S: If we look outside of the capability discussion, I find Len Doyal and Ian Gough’s (1991: 161–4) threshold principle illuminating. They say that basic human needs should be satisfied optimally. These only include health and autonomy. Then there are numerous satisfiers, or intermediate needs as they call them, that are necessary for the basic needs to be satisfied. They include things such as “adequate protective housing” or “a non-hazardous physical environment.” These are the things that we can design, or try to at least. The interesting insight is that the intermediate needs don’t need to be optimally satisfied for the optimal satisfaction of the basic needs. The satisfaction of intermediate needs beyond the level where they satisfy maximally the basic needs is no longer normative. P: Can you clarify? S: For the basic need of health to be satisfied, one needs proper hygiene,

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housing with decent protection against the weather, and some other features. A reasonably moderate solution already optimally satisfies the basic need. That would mean in the case of Transfer Ticket that the service design doesn’t need to be optimized beyond what suffices to ensure that the patients recover and remain healthy. P: That’s a lot already. S: True. Actually, for Transfer Ticket it’s probably enough that they stick to the therapy plan provided. The service is instrumental for health and there’s no moral obligation to improve the design beyond the level required to keep the patients on board. P: Doyal and Gough do not speak about capabilities.4 S: They don’t. That was a sidetrack. They speak about need satisfaction. But I don’t see needs and capabilities as being really that incompatible. A fundamental human need is a condition in which an individual doesn’t have sufficient levels of essential capabilities. An essential capability is something that an individual needs for sufficient wellbeing and agency. Someone might say that users in need should get help, but from the design point of view providing the means to satisfy the need should be enough in most cases—maybe not all. For designers, users’ needs give a reason and an opportunity to design, and capabilities are what we should provide or support the users to develop. P: You might be using the terms loosely. S: Most likely. But perhaps the dilemma of defining what is good enough is also fundamental to design. Remember Rittel and Webber’s (1973) analysis of the wicked and ill-defined nature of design problems. One of their characteristics is that there’s no rule that indicates when the design is good enough and the work ready to be finished. I believe that even if we were able to define the threshold levels for essential capabilities, it is highly unlikely that we would be able to use these definitions directly to address designers’ specific challenges with particular products. For example, in the case of Transfer Ticket, what could a generic framework of justice say? The standard needs to be defined by paying attention to the local situation and local resources. Adding more elements into the design equation such as more structured scrutiny of design ethics wouldn’t simplify the ill-defined nature of design problems. On the contrary, it would probably make it more complex and decrease the likelihood of us finding simple rules to determine when we have reached our goals. P: Sen (2009) says that the most important thing with a framework for distributional justice and wellbeing is to be able to make comparisons between



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available alternatives. Idealistic theories of optimal justice have little meaning in practical decision-making, because aiming for ideal solutions isn’t a viable option. We don’t necessarily need to know where the final goal is in order to be able to take the next few steps in a direction that seems better. That said, this strategy is not risk-free either, as we might be lost in a fog and end up climbing the slope of a shallow hill rather than a high mountain. However, usually the practical project constraints ensure that we won’t design solutions that are too good, and the threshold for good enough is that the new solution is better than its alternatives. S: You’re probably right. P: Let’s continue with the next topic. Maybe we can outline another heuristic. S: Okay.

Flourishing hybrids P: I’d like to look at the bridging theme from another perspective. In addition to linking means to ends, the capability approach links the human to the artificial. This is perhaps not the most essential aspect of capability fundamentals, but from the point of view of design it might be relevant. S: Okay. P: Human capabilities consist of individuals’ inherited, naturally acquired, and purposefully learned competences together with the opportunities provided by the environment (Nussbaum 2000, 2011, Robeyns 2005, Gasper 2007). I think that is compatible with the way designers think. S: Or at least the way our thinking has been described. P: Dependence on artifacts and patterns of use is an integral element of design. An artifact and hypothetical user activity are inseparable goals of design. We define the shape of objects, but the objects shape human behavior, abilities, and ways of being and appreciating the world. And there are many designers these days who couldn’t care less about objects but instead see sociotechnical systems as the object of their design. So we might say that we design the world in terms of combined capabilities. Design and capabilities direct attention to the processes of human agents taking advantage of material and cultural resources, and the integration of the human and the artificial, artifacts and activities. We think that a bike rider, a reader, and someone who has a house to live in are more capable of living a worthwhile life and flourish than an individual without a bike, library access, and shelter.

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The ideas of user need satisfaction and desire gratification shift our attention from the products to the satisfied hybrids, and the goal of design becomes a hybrid: a satisfied bike rider instead of a bicycle. S: Perhaps you’re projecting your own views onto the whole design community. I’m sure some designers think their job is only to design products, and some have also pointed out the problems involved in designing users.

Does design create agents who flourish?

P: I didn’t suggest we design users, but their behaviors. There is a difference. I’m fascinated by the idea that we design combinations having aspects of both the human and the artificial. S: Or maybe you could say you’d like us to design roles in which the human and non-human merge and which people can choose to adopt if they so wish and when they so wish. P: Thanks. S: My pleasure. P: But the ethical question raised by the capability angle is do these hybrids actually flourish? When we create an endless sequence of new kinds of artificially augmented agents, one ethical concern is whether design creates agents who flourish rather than ones who merely slip into another role and do things in a way that is different, but no better. S: Does it? P: Let’s elaborate on Transfer Ticket. S: Sure. So Transfer Ticket shouldn’t be assessed only as an object. We need to pay attention to how well it builds on and expands users’ capabilities. We need to ask in which respects a ticket holder becomes a different and more capable individual. Its design draws from the practices of travel and reframes psychiatric care as a journey. A patient becomes a passenger. We can ask if a passenger can see the destination better and consider it more relevant and motivating than a mere patient, a non-passenger. Is a passenger more likely to stay onboard? Does the role of a passenger communicate the allocation of responsibilities in a way that gives a feeling of safety? Is a passenger’s role active enough to enable the individual to take the initiative and responsibility to continue with the care plan and work to recover her practical reason? Is the



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role of a passenger socially acceptable and does it help in creating support networks? Would the idea of being on a journey to mental health be something that would also change the way the roles of care personnel are perceived? There are many kinds of journeys and many kinds of passengers. Should the ticket design be more specific in identifying what kind of passengers the patients become or would it be better to leave that open and let them specify that for themselves? At the end of the day all these questions should deal with the psychiatric patients’ capabilities for practical reason, affiliation, and sense, imagination and thought, as we discussed, but here we’re addressing the capability differences between ordinary patients on the one hand and “passengers” on the other hand that is the role provided and enabled by the design. These are questions that we deal with all the time when we design, but seldom ask explicitly in this manner. And the way design changes and labels people is of utmost ethical relevance. We mustn’t create stigmas. P: We shouldn’t make them passengers against their will, or should we? Would it also be paternalistic to make people healthy? Should one have the right to choose to be depressed? S: I don’t know. P: The capability approach aims at being a non-paternalistic and liberal approach to distributional justice and wellbeing where individuals’ agency to choose is a fundamental value. Thus the idea of us trying to avoid “designing people” and rather focusing on proposing roles should be compatible with the capability approach. S: The problem we have with Transfer Ticket is that if the patients have their full capability for practical reason, we probably should respect their decisions to reject the care. But they don’t have this capability, so we need to consider taking paternalistic action. I say consider. P: Maybe this is one of those cases where we can consider functioning instead of capability. Mental balance is so self-evidently good that we don’t need to consider the opposite as an option in the same vein as in the earliermentioned case of being free of domestic violence. S: There are probably cases on the threshold where a unique personality starts to turn into a medical condition. P: The relationship between subjective choice and objective decision-making isn’t clear. The capability approach takes a clear and design-relevant stand on the subjective–objective dilemma by respecting individuals’ process agency.5 Otherwise, the approach oscillates between subjective and objective priorities (Gasper 2007). Actually, Nussbaum (2010: 77) mentions that she shares

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Rawls’ (1971: 20) method of “reflective equilibrium” to balance between rules of justice and intuition. Rules represent an objective foundation for decisions, and intuition is the subjective feeling of justice in a particular situation. The ambivalence and dynamics between individuals’, a community’s, opinion leaders’, and experts’ opinions, their readings of a situation or reference to generic rules need to be accepted, interpreted, and applied to just design. S: This ambivalence is a fundamental part of design. A framework that doesn’t tolerate the ambiguity between subjectivity and objectivity won’t be compatible with the reality of design. This being the case, we might have enough reason to sketch the next question. P: Yes. S: It should address individuals’ freedom of choice and just reason. P: Speaking about freedom of choice and avoiding the paternalistic imposing of ideas makes me think about us and users as different kinds of moral agents. S: What do you mean? P: Users need to have liberty to choose and do things that we don’t necessarily appreciate. S: Yes. Do you agree with that? P: I do, but what about us? Aren’t we imposing a paternalistic agenda of social responsibility and ethical design onto our colleagues? Shouldn’t designers enjoy the same liberty as users to work on the life projects they find relevant and meaningful? Even if we consider those projects futile, the designers are nonetheless responsible on their own terms. Or maybe they enjoy the liberty of not being responsible as long as they aren’t openly and directly harming anyone. Or to present the dilemma in another way, I feel that we implicitly, and simply without further elaboration, consider users as people who make subjective decisions, and designers as people who should work as objective and responsible decision-makers. In Rawls’ terms, we put ourselves into the original position or somewhere halfway there. We are the ones to whom users’ needs are normative, even though the users don’t need to care. This puts us in an position where we have lot of ethical responsibility. Some of us may aspire to be in that position. There are many, I think, who would deserve to have that position, but only a few who actually can serve in that role. If we build our discussion on these assumptions—assumptions that designers have ethical superiority—we’re being unrealistic. Think about the opposite setting. Would it be fair to assume that users and customers avoid being paternalistic towards us? Would it be fair to expect that they allow



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us to do and be what we want, and that they have a responsibility to ensure that we enjoy all the central capabilities? Wouldn’t that be as reasonable a requirement as requiring designers to be moral actors? S: How they influence our behavior and capabilities is a complex issue, but let’s take a simple example. A wealthy client is commissioning a designer to design her a holiday villa. She will be the future owner and user of the design. The designer or architect starts to work for her. We can assume that the client might not care about the designer’s capabilities, agency, and achievements. She might be paternalistic, pushing her own agenda that the designer has to accept—for instance, design in a rustic style—even if they couldn’t imagine anything worse. She’s the one paying for the project, so she’s entitled to do that. Furthermore, she might be difficult, refusing to provide other, non-monetary resources to the designer, such as information or time, and so on. Then we can imagine another client who respects the designer’s needs and wishes and nurtures her capabilities to be the kind of designer she wants to be. The client provides the designer with ample access to resources such as information, time, collegial support, and so on. The client doesn’t set conditions on the designer’s work apart from what is necessary and well justified. Once the villa has been built she takes care of it in a manner that respects the designer’s efforts. It’s clear that the designer’s needs, happiness, or capabilities, whichever we choose as our currency of justice, depend on the client’s behavior as a moral agent. The moral client should make an effort to ensure that the designer can do what a good designer should, but not demand that she do those things. These sound like very demanding requirements for the client, but if we think about a dream client whose behavior is instrumental for great design, that’s what is needed: freedom, support, and trust. P: The second client helps the designer and design to flourish. S: So the responsibilities could be seen to be reciprocal. Perhaps they really are. P: In the case of Transfer Ticket, it doesn’t work like that. S: The user and the client are not a single person, unlike in our simple case. The user includes sponsors, beneficiaries, operators, experiencers, neighbors, and appliers, as we specified, and the way the moral agency is split between them is a complicated question. The designers have been dependent on the sponsors, who are in a position to decide what the designers should do. However, the designers did interact with the beneficiaries, appliers, and experiences as well, and their respect for the designers’ preferred ways of working was instrumental for the designers’ capability. I believe that turning the idea of responsible and moral design on its head

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by considering responsible clients is a good way for us to understand the difference between what it takes to ensure minimal capabilities or to satisfy basic needs versus the work required to ensure that individuals can flourish. The client who makes design flourish is a moral agent and a good role model for us to think about in terms of our moral agency in helping users flourish. P: You’re saying that our focus on designers’ ethics doesn’t mean that we consider ourselves morally superior. S: Absolutely not. P: Thanks for the clarification and sorry for the digression. S: No problem. P: Shall we return to the users’ freedoms? Can we simply ask whether the subjective and objective angles have been adequately considered in design? How about Transfer Ticket? S: It aims to help people recover their capability to act as active and autonomous members of society. Being capable of doing things that make human life flourish is the objective of the capability approach and also the objective of mental healthcare. It’s also compatible with the long-term development of the mental healthcare system to reduce institutionalization and to build care on support and coping. This is understood to benefit both society and individuals. We save resources, as institutions don’t need to be maintained and patients don’t have to be institutionalized. Transfer Ticket supports this scenario. However, the patients’ subjective interpretations might be different. When you don’t have confidence that you’re in control of your life, especially after you’ve spent time in an institution, the prospect of taking an independent role and coping with everyday life can be a horrifying scenario. Consequently, we can and should ask would the Ticket and the design intentions driving it push the objective angle of independence too strongly? Would it encourage psychiatrists to issue Tickets prematurely? Should the ticketing system understand those who don’t want to travel and incorporate variation to better accommodate the needs of the patients? Is the Ticket an extension and a material interpretation of the objective conception of health? Is there anything in the design of the Ticket that allows the passengers to specify what being healthy means for them or choose to forgo treatment and endure their condition, if they have their own personal reason to do so?



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Compromising wellbeing P: Maybe there should be tickets for local rides for the insecure and intercity vouchers, as it were, for the more adventurous? S: That would be a good idea. Psychiatric care is becoming increasingly collaborative, allowing the patients to have a say. Maybe they should also be able to issue tickets for themselves. More generally we can also ask how the responsibilities are allocated between the passenger and the “travel agency” both during the ticketing process and after the ticket has been issued so that the subjective and objective criteria for a good life meet? P: For more capable passengers, the system could provide a portal where they can order their own tickets. This would give them more freedom in a supported manner. But now we’re only speculating. We’re not there yet. S: That’s what design is all about. Actually, other students in my class proposed something like that.6 They designed sites allowing clients to monitor and adjust their care plans. But back to your comments: we’re interested in the justice of what could be. P: The capability approach is similar. Capabilities built at a certain point in time may become desirable much later in life. This is especially true when we speak about intergenerational justice, which is a requirement for sustainable development. Education is also a prime example. Gaining capabilities now will allow a person to achieve something decades later. What kinds of things these capabilities will enable is extremely difficult to foresee. The value of a capability depends on many things, including whether others have it or not, coincidental factors, and the fact that having a certain capability will lead to different choices in life compared to not having that capability. When the value of a capability is evaluated today, say knowing a language, the evaluation cannot merely be based on the factual situation, but should also consider plausible future scenarios. Discussion of these properties has been somewhat lacking from the capability perspective (Teschl and Comim 2005, Binder and Witt 2012), but it’s clear that the process of capability development and utilization is emergent rather than determined. S: Chris Jones (1970/1992: 4) defined design as initiating change in an artifact. We can perhaps say that if the change remains at the level of commodities, with no changes in capabilities, design isn’t influential or ethically relevant. Correspondingly, those frameworks that don’t stretch to the emergent and elusive future impacts of products and their use would be inadequate for the ethics of design. Design is based on the anticipation of the future, and design itself is an intentional tool to change the future. Much

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of human-centered design is about building scaffoldings to negotiate the perceptions of reasonably valued future functionings in a way that’s grounded on the prevailing reality with its conversion factors. In so doing, we’re not blinded by today’s adapted preferences when we’re envisioning what will be valuable in the future. P: One of our questions should clearly point towards the emerging capabilities. S: I guess that’s where we have arrived. P: Shall we ask whether design can create sustaining and robust capabilities? S: Yes. But that’s probably not enough. We should add the things that might be enabled by design. P: Can design create sustaining and robust capabilities and create foundations for new ones to emerge? S: That would be better.

Can design create sustaining and robust capabilities and foundations for new ones to emerge?

P: Can Transfer Ticket? S: Transfer Ticket is not a radical innovation and could most likely be easily integrated into present psychiatric care. However, the longer-term effects are difficult to estimate. Design may start to change the practice, attitudes, and values around it. We should be able to estimate how the idea of a journey as a ubiquitous metaphor for rehabilitation would change the practice. How would it influence patients’ expectations? Would this new type of travel become too popular and crowd the clinics with wannabe passengers? Would the nurses feel intimidated if they were to be considered “ticket inspectors”? How would they actually be seen? Being high on drugs is called a trip, and as medication has an important role in psychiatric care, this might create an unwanted connotation. Would the role of a passenger become a new kind of stigma combining the negative associations of mental disorders, drug abuse, and the state of being somewhere in between? And would it encourage patients to act accordingly? Would the idea of a journey turn into endless commuting? P: There are several ways in which things can go wrong. S: Obviously.



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P: Perhaps we could formulate it in another way and ask if the designers have taken every reasonable step to foresee the emerging consequences. S: A third way to ask the question can be drawn from our earlier discussion about practices and the ways the value of practice can and should be regarded as a criterion of the quality of use. Perhaps we could ask if design increases the value of the practice. P: That’s a good question but I don’t think it refers exactly to the same issues as my way of posing the question. And linking it to capabilities would require a few extra steps. Do we need to choose? S: No. We’re just discussing. P: Good. In our previous discussion, we mentioned the idea of people choosing to suffer. Can we get back to that? I think it’s kind of related to what we’ve been addressing. S: Sure. P: Capabilities deal with individuals’ wellbeing or sacrificing it for a good cause. Sen’s (1993, 2000, 2010a) fundamental assumption is that happiness is not the ultimate goal. Consequently, wellbeing alone shouldn’t be the unit to evaluate justice. From time to time, people voluntarily compromise their wellbeing for the benefit of others. Suffering for a relevant reason and having the option to do so is a gain. S: “Suffering” is a strong word. P: “Compromising” would be a milder term. S: Design tends to cater to selfishness. We don’t design in order to compromise wellbeing. I can, of course, use my broom to sweep my neighbor’s porch. However, the idea of voluntarily withdrawing from wellbeing as a fundamental aspect of design wouldn’t be widely supported. Design focuses on generating capabilities for personal wellbeing, and when altruistic choices would be desirable they tend to be framed as wellbeing achievements. P: I think this is a trickier issue. There are quite a few different angles in design that in one way or another address individuals’ goals and behaviors, which are not motivated by subjective wellbeing. We can think about several product categories that are designed to benefit people other than the user. Just think about medical equipment and teaching materials. These are used to help others to achieve something. However, the users—whether they are doctors, nurses, teachers, bus drivers, waiters, hair stylists, or any layperson—aren’t typically considered to sacrifice their wellbeing for other purposes. They work or sometimes volunteer for the benefit of others while getting something

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for themselves, too, such as material compensations, mental satisfaction, or hopefully both. So typically we don’t think of them as sacrificing anything in a way that would be different from working for their own wellbeing. But obviously we could. By designing products for these purposes we could perhaps be seen to be persuading people to engage in altruistic activity. Design would create some sorts of “cushioned” or “softened” sufferings or sacrifices. We would encourage people to sacrifice their wellbeing by providing wellbeing. S: Ultimately, this suffering might turn into pleasure. Would that kind of design destroy the possibility for something that the capability approach considers important? P: I don’t think the capability approach considers suffering as a value as such, but instead as an effect that people should be able to choose, accept, and tolerate if there is a reason for doing so. S: Makes sense. But that isn’t yet an answer to the question of design that compromises one’s wellbeing. P: No, it’s not. S: Actually, we can see the use of any tool as suffering. That’s the basic assumption in traditional ergonomics and the standpoint of our operator. Working and using tools involve effort and are thus considered as requiring the worker to compromise her wellbeing. The task of a designer is to make the suffering more tolerable by giving the tool an appropriate shape. If the shape motivates someone to work, the design has succeeded in persuading her to compromise her wellbeing for a cause that is as good as the objectives of her work. P: We already discussed usability and conviction-critical use. S: We did. P: Let’s not go back there. S: But there’s one more thing that we should remember when we speak about design that compromises one’s wellbeing. Conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1899/2003) creates inequality in society. Something that may be good for one person might in fact have bad consequences for everyone. If a job applicant wears an expensive suit for an interview, that would give him an advantage (Frank 1999). Because all the applicants are serious about getting a job, the next time there’s a job opening, all of them know they need to be dressed up and everyone has to buy a suit. No one derives any more benefits from the suit, but everyone had to spend more money than would’ve



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been necessary. Situations such as these, in which individual and common interests are in conflict and result in losses for everyone in all sectors of life, create a massive loss of happiness. The experience of wellbeing is relative and others’ choices and possessions set the reference and target level for our consumption. Some don’t achieve the target. Some do, but have to compromise much of what is necessary for genuine happiness. P: Which is? S: Family, reasonable income, meaningful work, community and friends, health, freedom, and personal values such as religion (Layard 2005: 62–73).7 P: Okay. S: Many cannot keep up with rising standards of consumption and start feeling isolated and worthless. They work for secondary goals and ignore their families, what is meaningful at work, and so on. Thus, the consumption rat race increases inequality and compromises happiness and wellbeing. To avoid this, we should develop designs that encourage people to make modest choices. A modest choice is a choice that compromises personal utility for a greater good. P: Sustainable design deals with modesty of consumption. S: True. But even sustainable design often lacks faith in consumers’ willingness to compromise their wellbeing, and speaks about responsible choices disguised as pleasures (Jordan 2002; Chapman 2005; Niinimäki 2011). The point we could perhaps raise is that there are plenty of ways in which design could nudge individuals to compromise their wellbeing for a greater good. We design for wellbeing, but we should also design for compromised wellbeing for the greater good. P: I think we do that.

We design for wellbeing while we should design for compromised wellbeing for the greater good.

S: We need to pursue this more seriously. The topics would probably include persuasion to engage consumers in altruistic behaviors, cushioned suffering, making consumers face the naked consequences of any socially or environmentally questionable choices they make, better communicating the value of moderate choices, making asceticism cool, and so on. I don’t say these questions wouldn’t have been addressed, but I think that a more

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coherent framework is missing that would challenge subjective wellbeing and pleasure. They dominate over altruistic design. Human-centered design theory is underdeveloped when it comes to understanding design that doesn’t aim at subjective pleasure. P: Capability and probably any ethical theory could help. Whether design increases the capability to compromise subjective wellbeing is a seldom asked but obvious question in the evaluation of design. Perhaps another way to word the question is to ask whether design compromises someone’s interests directly or indirectly. S: That comes close to the Bruntland Commission’s definition of sustainable development (United Nations Documents 1987). P: It’s not very different from the neighbor’s standpoint we talked about the other day, either. S: True. P: What about Transfer Ticket and compromised wellbeing? S: Psychiatric patients are in a situation where they need to work for their own wellbeing before they can achieve a life balance that allows them to start supporting others. P: Peer support can be important. S: Yes, you’re right. That might be another line of scrutiny. However, what I had in mind is that Transfer Ticket, like other solutions in psychiatric care, needs to be evaluated by paying attention to the roles the solutions have in the ecosystem of care involving several stakeholders. An essential condition for rehabilitation is a social support network. Thus when we evaluate Transfer Ticket we need to ask what kind of access to rehabilitation it gives to different stakeholders. How does it communicate the need to compromise one’s wellbeing for the more relevant cause of supporting people with mental disorders? Does it guide the helpers to adopt a meaningful role as fellow passengers and underline the urgency and relevance of this role? Is it a desperate cry for help, ignoring which makes the neighbors uncomfortable, or an invitation to go on a rewarding journey? Is it an instrument that has the potential to strengthen social responsibility in general? Does it welcome ex-patients to continue the ride and share their experiences for the benefit of those in acute crisis? P: We’re speaking about the capability of affiliation (Nussbaum 2011: 34–9). S: Yes. Perhaps we could also ask if Transfer Ticket succeeds in communicating to the patient that her condition is a common interest to all and not



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just her own private problem. There are others who care and others who benefit from her recovery. I mean that persons with low self-esteem might be encouraged if they realize that by helping themselves they help others. P: I don’t know if you’re overly confident that Transfer Ticket is the solution to all of this, but the questions are good, anyway. I agree with them.

Trading in human dignity S: Shall we move on to the next topic? P: Sure. S: Do you think the capability approach can give us advice on whether it’s appropriate to use resources in developing Transfer Ticket? The dilemma is, of course, that there are other good purposes as well and our resources are limited. P: The capability approach is fundamentally against reducing wellbeing into a single variable such as happiness or subjective wellbeing—or gross domestic product. The quality of life is more complicated and consists of a higher amount of valuable elements of different types than something that can be described by either economical generalizations or a single indicator of individual happiness. Nussbaum (2011) suggests that each individual should be provided with all of the capabilities on her list of central capabilities. Sen (2010a: 239–41) also says that capabilities are non-commensurable. An individual’s capability of achieving a certain valuable goal cannot be accepted as a reason for ignoring her right to be capable of achieving another goal, if both of these are valuable aspects of human life. S: Everything cannot always be achieved and choices need to be made. P: Sen says there is no calculus or terminal criteria for trade-offs, but the decisions involve real choices about what is valuable and necessary. S: Don’t you think that some capabilities are more important? P: While on the one hand capabilities are non-commensurable, on the other hand they are instrumental for other capabilities and thus linked. For instance, physical mobility is valuable per se and cannot be traded off for other capabilities, but at the same time it contributes to maintaining social relationships, getting physical exercise for health, and being able to work for income, and many other things. “Fertile functionings” is a term used in referring to capabilities that are instrumental in achieving several other capabilities, while

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“corrosive disadvantages” are factors that increase other disadvantages (Wolff and De-Shalit 2007). Consequently, capabilities should be considered as both mutually instrumental and independent dimensions of wellbeing and justice. So the answer is that basically no relevant element of human dignity has priority over others, but when we need to prioritize we should perhaps pay attention to fertile functionings and corrosive disadvantages. But formulating a heuristic or question about this is difficult, because whatever we say about two conflicting capabilities would violate the non-commensurability principle. S: That’s only part of the answer. P: Anything I can say is. S: Sorry, didn’t mean to criticize. P: Please do. S: Well … P: But I thought a product is often part of a more complicated network, rather than simply being one product that improves one capability. Assistive devices for the disabled help in enhancing mobility, but may be experienced as stigmatizing and have a negative impact on self-esteem and social relationships. The use of information technology can be beneficial in many respects, but excessive use can lead to alienation from the physical and social world. Products have side effects that influence capabilities in unintended ways. So when we give priorities to design projects from the point of view of justice and wellbeing, we should be able to say which are the most important capabilities and then we should understand which capabilities certain products have an influence on. Identifying these impacts and side effects in advance is already a problem—and once they are found, there is no procedure to calculate a trade-off that could be used to avoid making ethical decisions. Do you think this is the fundamental problem that we’ve been struggling with in all of our discussions? S: Which problem? P: I mean the problem of the lack of rules and the requirement of making decisions without firm justifications. S: In design, the questions and answers, premises and solutions, inputs and outcomes are intertwined. Paying more attention to designers’ responsibility and ethics doesn’t make design simpler.8 So, taking real decisions on issues with non-commensurable alternative solutions, as Sen requires us to do, is in a way what we’re used to. Our search for the foundations of responsible design has to account for that. Of course we can’t accept that anything goes,



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but we struggle against and push the boundaries to try to find solid ground on which we can build our just designs. That said, we have to be realistic in our expectations about how far we can get. P: Right. But maybe we can formulate a question at least? S: Perhaps. P: The principle of non-commensurability doesn’t accept trade-offs concerning essential capabilities. Developing new capabilities cannot be done at the expense of others. S: I believe that’s what Sen proposes. P: So we can ask whether design strengthens a capability without compromising others. S: I’m not sure about that. That formulation basically assumes that we need to consider capabilities as intertwined. P: This is really tricky. Can we learn anything about this by looking at Transfer Ticket? S: Mental disorders as corrosive disadvantages also lead to losses in capabilities to achieve many other valuable things in life. So mental health is vitally important. According to the principle of non-commensurability, the value of mental health cannot be calculated, traded-off, and compared with other dimensions of a good life. P: However, if such comparisons were permitted, mental health would be high on the list of essential capabilities. S: I guess. P: But it’s enough to say that mental health is something that everyone should have. S: Thus evaluating the importance of Transfer Ticket as a development project by comparing it to the effects of other solutions increasing wellbeing and happiness apart from mental health is not appropriate. Asking whether spending the same amount of money on something else instead would have a greater effect on human worth and dignity should be avoided, too. P: Of course the question cannot be avoided. S: No, someone has to decide. P: Maybe we should remember to ask if our design is trading in human dignity.

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Does our design trade in human dignity?

S: That, I believe we can ask. I guess it’s faithful to Sen’s principle. P: I think it is. S: But what do you think about our heuristics this far? P: Let me list what we have. We asked the following questions: MM

Does design bridge resources to preferred attainments?

MM

Does design create agents who flourish?

MM

MM

MM

Does our design improve the capability to compromise subjective wellbeing? Do we create sustaining capabilities and foundations for new ones to emerge? Does our design trade in human dignity?

S: Demanding list. P: They are based on the capability approach, and relevant for design. S: Are they different from the questions that we might ask anyway? P: I think they are. In any case, they have the benefit that they’re linked to a framework of justice, development, and wellbeing. That’s why they give more conceptual support, when it is needed, to study the justice impacts of design. I think the strength of our questions is that they leave enough room for interpretations. When assessing the implications of design from the point of view of justice and wellbeing, the evaluation space has to be kept broad. Capability as the point of entrance provides us with a good overview of the relevant criteria and shouldn’t cause claustrophobic feelings even to those of us who are sensitive about making evaluations. The widening of the information base of distributional justice is one of Sen’s main drivers, and our set of questions is compatible with that. S: Based on our exercise, I don’t think we can draw conclusions about the capability approach being an especially or more suitable framework of justice and wellbeing than any other comparable framework. We would most likely have been able to pose questions by referring to some other framework as well. P: We kind of did that already with utilitarianism.



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S: Exactly. Good design is never, at least by intention, hostile to human dignity. Thus any reasonably good framework of ethics and justice has to find some resonance with design. P: That’s true. S: Are we done for today? P: I have only one more question. S: Yes. P: Are you going to ask me to present a wrap-up? S: If you wish. P: I don’t know if I want to, but I expected you to ask, so I’ve thought about it already. Instead of focusing on the capability approach, it has to be something more general for the reason you mentioned. S: Right. And what conclusion did you come to? P: Perhaps we should remember the motivation for our discussion rather than the results. I consider the results as examples of possible outcomes. So I’d conclude by saying something about the necessity of the transparency of design deliberation. S: And that would be …? P: Articulate your ethical undertaking.

Articulate your ethical undertaking.

Notes 1

Ilse Oosterlaken (2013) has found that the capability approach is a feasible framework for supporting design both in a narrower sense, because it provides insight for evaluating wellbeing, and in a broader manner, because it links design thinking to topics such as agency and justice. She believes that neither extensive reading of Sen nor design tools crafted on the principles of capability can serve as practical means to introduce capabilities to the design community.

2

Designed by Tamara Amalia, Sanna Tuononen, Otto Schultz, and Mike Walker (Kola 2013; Liao 2013).

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3

Nussbaum’s “practical reason” is not essentially different from Aristotle’s conception of prudence. Prudence deals with practical deliberation on what is good for a human being and it is a basis for all other virtues in Aristotle’s ethics. He says that “[all the virtues] are impossible without prudence” (Aristotle 1893/2004: 132). “Affiliation” comes close to Rawls’ (1971: 440–6) idea of self-respect and meaningful life projects.

4

The capability approach and basic needs approach tend to be on collision courses (e.g., Reader 2006).

5

Andy Dong (2008) and colleagues’ (Dong et al. 2013) work to ensure citizens’ capabilities to participate is an example of the capability approach contributing to collaborative design.

6

The “Mi” concept designed by Florina Frost, Vesa Ylirisku, Kaushik Eshwar, and Nargis Guseynova, and the “Compass” concept designed by Jessie Hsu, Henri Kontkanen, Hanna Markgren, and Philip Zeitler (Keinonen, Vaajakallio, and Honkonen 2013: 74–5).

7

Layard does not speak about capabilities. He believes in Bentham’s classical utilitarianism.

8

The idea of fundamental need aims at simplifying ethical decisions. It defines a threshold between two categories of good things that we can do for our neighbors: ones that we might do, if we wish, and the ones that we have to do. Fundamental needs set moral obligations when they exist. The lack of a need correspondingly excuses us from doing things even if they would seem worthwhile. This makes the life of a moral actor tolerable, because it clarifies that there are neighbors’ desires that one does not need to respond to. Garrett Thomson (1987) has said that “the main feature of the concept of a need is that it makes a virtue of necessity by cutting down options and thereby simplifying choice.” Soran Reader (2007) has presented patients’ needs as the basis of ethics, which is a foundational deviation from the philosophical traditions of grounding ethics on virtuous qualities of an acting subject, on the consequences of actions, or on the principles guiding the behavior.

6 The Sixth Dialogue on Being in A Transitional Position

I

n this dialogue Practitioner and Scholar summarize their dialogues, reflect on them, and discuss the circumstances for ensuring justice in design. Then Practitioner asks a fundamental question about how to design in a virtuous manner. Scholar replies by drawing on John Rawls’ philosophy. He consolidates the previous discussions with a metaphor of a product as a contractual element, which is deliberated in a transitional position where the stakeholders meet. The last dialogue begins … S: Hi Practitioner. P: Hi Scholar. S: Have a seat. P: Thanks. S: Do you have any new topics in mind? P: No, but I think we could reflect on what we’ve discussed. S: Fine by me. That’s a good idea. P: Good. S: So what do you think about the justice of design now?

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Controversies and moderations P: When we started, I said I felt unmotivated, but now I feel confused more than anything else. S: Sorry. P: When we started I didn’t know how to design in a just and ethically sustainable manner. Now—this might be a bit provocative, sorry about that—I’m not sure if my thoughts are any clearer. I don’t even know how to think about design anymore. I think I learned something and made some progress in my thinking, but I’m not sure if this went in the direction I wanted. S: I understand. We haven’t been very consistent, but I think we’ve elaborated something relevant. You summarized many of our ideas very nicely. I actually wrote them down. They’re here somewhere … Right, here they are: Choose the method that enhances design when you use it. This summarized our discussion about how to choose an ethical approach for human-centered design. Design for the neighbor’s piece of mind. This was the conclusion … well, maybe not conclusion but an important addition to the way we understood the quality of use in a manner that is sensitive to distributional justice. Design products that can be applied by the widest range of users for appropriate, sufficient, and worthwhile achievements in their lives. This was our capability-sensitive elaboration of usability. Experience is all you need unless you need ethical priorities. This was what you said after our discussion about user experience. And we also decided to rename user experience as “user exertion” and redefine it as perception and embodied interchange of pleasure and lack of harm that are associated with the use of an artifact by individuals with the widest range of interests. Articulate your ethical undertaking. Finally, we ended up with a rather moderate interpretation of designers’ responsibility by only requiring transparency. P: These are good pieces of advice, but they don’t work as a list of heuristics for justice. S: Why not? P: They summarize what we discussed. Our point of departure has to be kept in mind, too. We need to consider the neighbor, but not forget about the operator, sponsor, and beneficiary either.



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S: True. They’re open to interpretation, and someone who doesn’t know what we covered in our discussions wouldn’t get the point. But for us, or anyone who might have listened to our discussions, I think they capture the essence of what we’ve talked about. An underlying theme in many of them and in our discussions has been to consider the secondary effects of use from the point of view of those whose life is affected by design without them having had a say on the definition and acquisition of products. We were especially critical about how subjective experience has become a leading utilitarian goal of design. We even proposed some new conceptualizations of the key definitions within human-centered design. P: We’ve done that but many of the issues we discussed still seem controversial to me. S: I admit I’m not good at giving simple and clear answers. Our topics have been difficult and we’ve relied on too many thinkers from different branches of ethics and justice. I like Bentham’s clarity and egalitarian strictness even though some say utilitarianism is a shallow philosophy. Mill developed utilitarianism in a very sustainable, human, and moderate way when it comes to the content, though he was radical from the point of view of the historical context. Even though there are logical holes in his writings, I feel that the criticism of him is often based on deliberately wrong interpretations of his intentions. I don’t see his utility as a simplistic aggregated criterion of wellbeing in spite of some of his definitions. I admire Rawls’ idealistic and theoretical approach, which is very humane in spite of its scholarly nature. It’s been interesting to learn how Sen and Nussbaum struggle to acknowledge and criticize Rawls at the same time. However, the capability approach has plenty of intuitive appeal for design. Both this approach and design focus on the same core challenge of bridging resources and personally relevant goals. MacIntyre approaches the issue from another perspective by returning to Aristotelian virtues in an eye-opening manner. His philosophy speaks about the values of practice in a way we wouldn’t have understood otherwise. I don’t think that it’s problematic to agree with these authors’ conflicting opinions. You should’ve found someone who’s more scholarly, consistent, focused, and sticks to one school of ethics. P: Maybe you’ve agreed with the philosophers, but I’m referring more to your disagreement with designers’ common-sense understanding of design. Our discussions have torn down my belief in user-centered design, or much of it anyway. S: We’ve been moderate in our arguments. Did we present opinions? We only said there are alternative ways to see things.

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P: You say we only discussed these issues and didn’t make any claims, but if I were to take our speculations as claims I’d see an unusual image of design. Regardless of what you’re saying now, the alternative interpretations are what I learned from our discussions. S: Fair enough. P: First, you made us look at our own excellence instead of caring about users as the foundation of just choices between design approaches. You prioritized design over use. S: I think that was a direct unavoidable consequence of the question we presented to ourselves. We were worried about the ethics of our behavior as designers. This by definition leads to virtue ethics dealing with the qualities of a righteous practitioner. A righteous practitioner cannot be merely a servant, but needs to be a master of her skills and have the will to develop the excellence of the faculty, as Aristotle says. If we had asked questions about the rules of just design and positioned ourselves as legislators or members of a standards or policy-writing body, we would’ve ended up with different results. Actually we did do something along those lines in our discussion about usability and the capability approach and the one about user experience and utility. So, you get what you ask for. P: Hmmm … S: Our discussions showed how the good of users and the good of our practice are intertwined. How can you do anything meaningful if you haven’t ensured that you have the capabilities necessary to do good things? P: Focusing on our own virtues may seem like inbred ethics. S: Think about other professions. Intuitively, we probably wouldn’t find it questionable to allow them to accumulate the internal good of their practice. It’s fine for the police to strive to enforce law and order more ethically. It’s fine for the farmer to work for the improvement of agriculture. There isn’t necessarily any conflict between what they do and what is good for the safety of freedom-loving citizens and the wellbeing of food-loving consumers. So I don’t think we should be too shy to admit that enhancing design is an essential dimension of righteous design. But of course it’s not the whole picture. We have responsibilities directly towards the users and we’ve also discussed those. P: Right, but that wasn’t the only thing I struggled with. S: Yes? P: Our common-sense conception of user-centered design says that it’s



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a process leading to designs that satisfy users’ needs. Or actually it’s not just common sense, as ISO 9241, Part 210 (2010: vi) states explicitly that it “enhances effectiveness and efficiency, improves human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility and sustainability; and counteracts possible adverse effects of use on human health, safety and performance.” S: True. P: You said that it, more than those objectives, serves entrepreneurs’ interests in that it focuses on business-centered result–benefit calculation. And even though it would perhaps serve the operators’ needs, that would be the wrong target anyway, because the operator should be able to take care of herself. Instead, we should be concerned about the neighbor. You placed the person that is more peripheral into the ethical nucleus only because she’s weaker and you made her peace of mind a central design target. In other words, the users don’t matter much and what we’ve done with them has been misunderstood anyway. S: Perhaps we ended up being somewhat extreme, but I suggested these ideas as alterative framings—not replacements. But then, on the other hand, the user in user-centered design has a seriously fragmented multiple personality. When speaking about users, we refer to the employer, employee, and client at the same time. The “user” is not an entity with a single clear preference, but a fragmented personality with openly and fundamentally conflicting interests. There’s the sponsor who wants to save resources, whose interests are met by optimizing efficiency. We have the beneficiary who is interested in the output. Between these two, there’s the operator of the product, whose hard work should be kept at a tolerable level of effort or better still minimized. For an experiencer, the voluntary spending of resources becomes an indication of good interaction and the results can be regarded as incentives, the need for which is a sign of problems. The neighbor doesn’t have an immediate interest in the use, but is concerned about the practice; if the use appears to be beneficial, the resources and results both serve as indicators of favorable development. And there may be an applier who develops new uses and appreciations; we can consider her satisfaction counterproductive. Their needs are in conflict with each other. The standpoints that are less recognized in user-centered design are those of the neighbor and applier. P: And we have a devotee who doesn’t care about personal satisfaction or wellbeing as long as she accomplishes something that she considers meaningful. S: Sure.

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P: I think nowadays we pay attention to the active consumer and users. We care about the applier. S: That’s true. We simply ignored that discussion when we focused on usability and user experience. But ethically, the neighbor and applier are key standpoints, because the neighbor reminds us of the impartiality of ethical evaluation, which we tend to ignore. User-centered design without the neighbor’s standpoint is biased and if we don’t address her needs there’s an obvious danger that we might do something immoral. The applier’s role is crucial as it stands against the paternalistic tradition of design providing people with models of the desirable. This is something that the discussion about distributional justice has much more to say about than the humancentered design discussion. And the devotee reminds us about Sen’s strong stand that achievements and the freedom to choose are sometimes more important than subjective wellbeing from the point of view of justice. P: We’re very used to deciding on behalf of others. S: Doing that could almost be a definition of design. It’s our job. This is equally true of many other professions. Still, we need to seriously take into account situations in which users ignore our designs. But all in all, I don’t disagree that user-centered design is excellent in terms of the aims stated in the ISO standard, but when we think about the justice and fairness of design, our habitual conception of the user and the criteria of use tend to be too limited. P: Let me continue. S: Sure. P: Our common-sense understanding of design methods and processes tells us that they give us direction, reliability, and structure. They are well thought out chunks of design wisdom that are the backbone of our competence. You say that “method” is just a label, the name being primary to the content—if there is content at all. The designer can be a method or the method can be an ideology. When we compare methods, an inefficient one might be better than an efficient one. Applying a method correctly might in fact mean applying it wrong. Method as you define it is smoke and mirrors. S: Those things I said apply only to certain types of methods. P: But those types are the ones most characteristic of design, you said. S: Well, that’s the case if we think that design should create novel interpretations. P: The only thing that isn’t design is copying.



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S: Fine, design is about creating new interpretations, but the novelties are often very incremental. You reminded us about this. The styles of working when creating something novel versus dealing with known problems are quite different.1 Most of the time we work in an evolutionary mode, “polishing corners” here and there. I admit we didn’t discuss the ethics of design with close to zero novelty even though that’s the most typical mode of design. That is perhaps something to address: the ethics of polishing corners. P: Funny. S: It may sound like a joke, but ethics often tend to deal with dramatic cases—the sheriff’s problem and Nozick’s experience machine are good examples—while everyday routine behavior is perhaps too easily ignored as trivial or problem-free or something where either outcome would be tolerated.2 P: Then you said that methods are a buffer against designers’ incompetence, but that we are too incompetent to work with methods anyway. S: My point was that methods are necessary, but I have a feeling that there’s a tendency or at least a temptation for us to use a method as a means of justifying our activity. Use of methods may fall into the category of technical rationality—that would make the practice decline, not flourish. I believe in methods, but I consider them vague and fragile. I suggested a loose definition of a method, claiming that a method is a specific way to work that has been given a name. To be clearer, I could say that a method is a category of practical knowledge. And it should be considered fragile so that you always remain sensitive to the context when you use the method. It’s not a bulldozer. But methods are necessary, because we need structures that can be used to accumulate practical knowledge. Method works as such and the loose definition allows that. There is a script, practice, and reflection. Uploading experience to the script is a process of learning and contributing to the internal good of design. P: Then we returned to usability. S: Yes. P: For everyone in the design business, usability is passé. S: We’re different. P: Exactly. We returned to the functionalist core of users being able to do things with products and made that the foundation of virtuous design. We took the capability approach and used it to redefine usability. Usability is always seen as a quality of goal-oriented activity, but we revised the concept by eliminating the fixed goals of use.

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S: We thought about calling it applicability. P: Yes, but it’s a reinterpretation of usability. S: True. I’ve always taught design as something that can make the material world around us easy to understand and easy to use. That’s the reason I’m interested in design. At some point, this started to seem like a mistake or at least like an overly limited view. We all started to look at the excitement and pleasures products can provide. That happened in the late 1990s. Then I became tired of the subjectivity and self-centeredness of design. Discovering the basic claim of the capability approach—that individuals’ capability of doing things should be the unit of justice—felt like a warm homecoming. However, we noticed that the capability approach is demanding for designers and questions our authority to decide on behalf of the users. But our job is to decide, as we agreed. P: Or help others to decide. S: Let me continue. We weren’t happy with designers’ role as mere facilitators. My stand might be somewhat old-fashioned in this respect. So perhaps a way to solve the dilemma is to keep on proposing designs, but quit proposing criteria and allow users to do that themselves based on their life projects. We also noticed that usability is important, but if it was important in the way that the capability approach considers capabilities important, it would be formulated in another manner. P: It would be more inclusive. S: Yes. P: You also wanted to make usability more just by removing subjective satisfaction. S: Satisfaction doesn’t provide stable ground for ensuring justice. Some are satisfied with very little, while some require more. For some, happiness may be less important than other considerations. We can replace satisfaction with personal relevance or worth. That would cover both agency and achievements, if you remember what we discussed. We probably already covered much of that by adding appropriateness and sufficiency to the definition. P: You suggested that users should be given the responsibility for defining the terms on which to appreciate use, but then you don’t let them appreciate it. I mean, isn’t that the upshot of removing satisfaction from the quality criteria of use? S: Actually it was you who developed that idea. Your idea was that appropriateness and sufficiency would be criteria that characterize use. They are



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individual, with each person setting her own terms, but they can be evaluated by observing the interaction. They are like the fit of shoes: individual but objective. P: Makes sense. S: It does. P: But I have more. We know that responsible design is about creating foundations for a good life. Responsible designers should design for wellbeing. You suggested that we should focus on design that compromises wellbeing. S: I meant that we should compromise utility and the personal happiness we get from consuming. We mustn’t forget about the less privileged—there’s a great shortage of wellbeing. P: We didn’t really focus on the poor. S: True, we’ve been speaking about design for the average Joe in a more or less equal society, where the basic needs related to subsistence are reasonably well satisfied. We face problems in interpreting what is good and needed, how much is enough, when to speak about needs and when about desires, and other such questions. They all need to be addressed in a reality where there is an abundance of products and at the same time very serious underlying problems of inequality and overconsumption. “Design that compromises utility” is another way of saying “consider the neighbor.” It refers to design strategies that also seek to cater to the good of the neighbor who didn’t buy the product. The idea of not explaining suffering as happiness is from Sen. When I decide to take the tram to my office on a rainy and windy November morning instead of driving, that is a small act of compromising my convenience for the sake of the environment. Designers’ approach has been to mitigate suffering or inconvenience. Mitigation is a way to design, but I think we should have a more comprehensive understanding and more comprehensive strategy for non-selfish consumption. Ignoring comfort and subjective satisfaction, and instead behaving as we think we should without mitigating inconvenience, should be part of the strategy. Take asceticism as it is. P: People wouldn’t buy. S: That’s a good goal as well. P: … unless they need to buy. S: The next design slogan might be: the most ascetic yet admirable. Or maybe asceticism is an ascetic expression. “Moderate” would be good, but unfortunately lacks an edge.

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That is the next design challenge: the most ascetic yet admirable.

P: Selling asceticism would require a better copywriter than us. S: Definitely. But we give asceticism its shape. P: And one more question. S: Yes. P: What should a virtuous designer do?

Design as a contract S: I expected that. P: Then you must have an answer. S: I can only answer based on what we’ve discussed. We have no higher wisdom. But we can try to consolidate our talks and focus them on one entity or two. P: Fine. S: Think about the design of a product as a contractual element. P: A contractual element? We didn’t discuss that. What do you mean? S: The law says that you must not drive after a night out drinking. Design says take a tram after a night out by providing you with the tram. A tram is a contract defining what we can do and be. Sometimes design also defines what we must do and be or must not or cannot do and be. A fence says stay out, you are not wanted here. But, first and foremost, design satisfies needs and creates capabilities. I think that by considering a tram as a contract rather than a vehicle, it becomes easier for us to determine whether the design is just or not. P: If we think about design as a contract, we pretend that we together agree on what we can do and be. In reality, someone dictates and the market economy moderates. S: The design processes and design decision-making are not democratic in the majority of cases and probably cannot be. But seeing designs as fair contracts instead of dictates is a step towards just design.



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201

P: Fine. Take Transfer Ticket. What kind of contract is that? S: It’s a contract in a very literal manner in that it confirms an appointment made between a client and service provider. On a more metaphorical level, which is relevant here, it’s a contract that strengthens and confirms our agreement on arranging public services for psychiatric care and rehabilitation. It arranges such services in a manner in which care-giving units are specialized and clients are referred from one unit to another; it requires the service providers to be capable of committing to service schedules and arrangements well in advance; it mainstreams psychiatric therapy, which suffers from stigmatization, by representing it as a neutral everyday activity; and it accepts and requires the client’s long-term commitment to the therapy. There might be other aspects, but those are the ones we must agree on. P: I see, but this was quite an obvious and easy example. What about virtual reality design tools? S: They are an agreement, among other things, about changes in the practice, as we discussed. With these tools, we agree on the freedoms of designers, their earning logic and patterns, opportunities for newcomers to enter the practice, the ambiance and aesthetics of the design culture, the sources of insight and inspiration, the patterns of collaboration, the social dynamics and expertise positions available within the practice, the possible avenues to develop design expertise, the allocations of responsibility between stakeholders, and probably other factors as well.

Design is a contractual element. All the designs within a practice are the contract.

P: So you say a design is a contractual element. S: I suggest that as a way to frame the issue. P: What exactly is it an element of? Why don’t you simply say it’s the contract? S: All the designs within a practice are the contract. Taken together, they all define what we can do and be. P: A ticket-vending machine cannot represent an unjust contract even if it isn’t accessible to persons with disabilities. Is that what you’re saying? S: If the ticketing system is accessible, that should be enough. Very likely it

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would be a clever idea to design an accessible vending machine, but other options for accessible ticketing are possible. The range of options needs to be considered. And, as I said, other arrangements apart from product designs have an impact. If the blind can travel free of charge, that has an impact on the design requirements of the ticketing machine. P: I’m not sure if I can yet see what exactly you’re after, but at least I can now ask my previous question in a new way: how do we make just contracts by means of design? S: You can think about the design process as a moderation of the contract. There are stakeholders who have conflicting interests. The designer’s assignment is to create a contract that satisfies the users’ needs and aspirations better than the present one. Instead of needs satisfaction, we could speak about capability creation or provisioning of resources. But that’s not so essential here. The way the designer creates the contract is by introducing a new configuration of an artifact. P: New products again. Didn’t we want to compromise wellbeing? S: I believe that in many cases the contract would be essentially improved if the designer had an opportunity to remove products from the marketplace, but she can seldom do that. Typically the only way is to design something new that might replace the old inferior design. Many of our current designs make the contract worse and thus I think that half of designers should be destroyers of non-sustainable products and terminators of flamboyant consumption practices, but that’s another topic. In the process of deliberation, the designer draws on the resources she has as an indoctrinated member of the design practice. P: Which we’ve called methods. S: Yes. The designer’s responsibilities can be divided between users, in the broad sense we discussed, and design practice. For the users, the designer must create a fair contract that respects their dignity and freedom of choice. It needs to be impartial and equal unless there’s a good reason why it shouldn’t be, and it needs to improve individual and social wellbeing in a sustainable manner, and compromise it when needed. The contract might increase the users’ happiness and improve the users’ experiences, but as we noticed, hedonic pleasure is a problematic criterion for identifying ethical priorities. These attributes of a fair contract we’ve already recognized. There is ambiguity, but we can assume that by deliberating it’s possible to make a new contract by means of design that is fairer than a prevailing one.



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P: How does the designer ensure that the contract is fair? Merely saying to designers that they should “deliberate” isn’t very helpful. S: True. First, she ensures its impartiality by including all the users’ standpoints and giving them appropriate weight. P: We ended up listing quite a few types of users: applier, beneficiary, devotee, experiencer, neighbor, operator, and sponsor. S: Right. She makes sure they can express their needs. She uses their needs to have an opportunity and ethical mandate to engage in design; she uses them to focus her efforts on human worth and also uses them in a way that the needs, her methods and deliberation together demonstrate excellence and “trained faculty of choice” (Aristotle 1893/2004). Second, she safeguards freedom of choice during the process of elaboration by allowing the users to express their needs as they wish, but also so that her proposal for the contractual element doesn’t dictate their behavior to a greater extent than necessary. That much, however, she has to propose. Her resolution will be crafted in the spirit of our concept of applicability, allowing the users to appropriate it on their terms. Sometimes the terms of the contract might have to be very specific and particular, as she cannot assume that the users are actually capable of using a do-it-yourself kit. Many products are too complicated for that. She also designs for user exertion, as we discussed, to ensure that the users become reciprocal agents of wellbeing instead of mere hedonists. Taking responsibility for the elements of the contract where users don’t have, or cannot be expected to have, enough expertise and to provide them with exertion instead of mere comfort ensures that the designer cannot back away from her proactive and creative role. P: Those elements include technical details. S: Yes, and aesthetics as well, for instance. P: Right. Then she also has responsibilities towards design because she needs to be a virtuous member of the design practice and work to strengthen its internal goods. S: She strengthens the internal goods of design by designing well and sharing her achievements. She utilizes the resources of design—I mean design methods. Without those, she would be no better equipped than a layperson. They include instruments, competences, and agendas. Using them disrespectfully and dishonestly would corrupt the practice and reduce its internal good. That’s why she uses them in a way that the practice benefits from her use of its methods. She returns them in better shape than she got them.

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P: Simple as that. S: I can think of one more characteristic of a fair contract. The contract is drawn up on the basis of transparent premises. The designer acts in front of an audience that consists of users and design practitioners, and perhaps some other parties. They watch her to ensure that her design is fair. P: But what if she prefers to work without sharing? S: The designer community’s right to observe her work stems from the fact that she borrows their methods for her purposes. The users have this right because she borrows their needs. When the designer borrows something from someone, she should apply that thing in a way that respects the owners’ values and allows them to see, if they so wish, how their goods have been used. P: A designer borrowing users’ needs? We didn’t discuss that. S: We haven’t discussed the idea of user needs. Maybe we will some day. In brief, my thinking is the following. First, if someone’s fundamental need is unsatisfied, it must be satisfied.3 Second, what is fundamentally needed might not be easy to define and there are plenty of things that are good for people but aren’t fundamentally needed. Still, we aim to satisfy those needs. For us, the designers, these needs become resources that we must have to be able to design. We go to the user and harvest the needs she has been cultivating. This is fair only if we use her needs respectfully. We have to behave in a way that enables others to confirm that the use of such needs is respectful. We’ve discussed the problem of design being patronizing, where we take the position that we know better than the users. We spoke about adoption and application instead of use, conviction-critical use, and such things. If we consider the users’ needs to be the users’ property and the methods the designers’ property, we arrive at a situation where only democratic dialogue between users and designers will lead to fair contracts. But in practice, the professional designer is often the person who does the design, and for that purpose the user has given us a mandate to refine her needs into something. P: Has she? S: Actually she hasn’t, but a virtuous designer should behave as if she had borrowed something precious that doesn’t belong to her. That’s why the user has a right to see what happens to her needs. P: And how does the designer make the premises transparent? S: She collects the elements of design that she needs. These are users with



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their needs, who we assume have a sufficient understanding of the particularities of the practice of use, and those resources from the practice of design that she deems to be appropriate. And then she designs. The design process doesn’t take place in the practice of use or the practice of design alone, but in a particular position that oscillates between what is, what is wanted, what could be, what can be, and what will be. This could be called a collaborative design process, but I don’t want to tell the designer how she should design. I’m only listing the conditions of a fair contract. P: I know. S: The impartial attention given to different insights and the transparency of the justification are essential. I believe that the rest follow from these. We have sponsors, operators, beneficiaries, experiencers, neighbors, appliers, the wealthy, the poor, and perhaps other parties as well. John Rawls’ (1971: 12) way of ensuring the justice and fairness of the institutional order was to design it using what he called “the original position.” In the original position, people representing relevant standpoints gather together. They understand the dynamics of the practice, but they take their decisions behind a veil of ignorance so they cannot know their own standpoints in the practice before the veil has been lifted. Thinking about the design process as a version of the original position would be one way to go.4 It’s actually surprising that this idea has not been dealt with in design discussion. P: If the participants don’t know their standpoints, why have so many of them? They are all like one (Barry 1995). S: Exactly. They are representations of standpoints and the designer can assume all the roles, like Rawls assumed the roles when he outlined the principles for fair institutional order. Rawls says that everyone would agree with him because the setting in the original position is so fair. P: I don’t think everyone would. Some might accept more risks. S: True. Furthermore, designers’ deliberations would be individual and different designers would make different contracts. I don’t consider that a problem. But the requirement of transparency and ethical articulation would make it necessary for the designer to reveal her rationale. P: Right. S: There are also other ways to think about how to draft a fair and impartial contract. We can assume that people who make the contract know their position and behave accordingly, looking after their own interests, but also understand others’ valid points of view and have the intention and goodwill to arrive at a fair agreement (Scanlon 1998). So, in addition to the designer

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assuming all the standpoints, she can also invite real people to participate in the process and share their real interests and needs. This, obviously, is the rationale of participatory and collaborative design. However, within the practical limits set by reality, it’s never possible to invite everyone, and absolutely fair representativeness is difficult to achieve. One main reason for this is that the sponsors, operators, and others of the new forthcoming product don’t exist yet. This being the case, the physical human participants can sketch material for formulating the contract and we—or someone—have to ensure that the standpoint of the future users is respected. P: The user-centered and participatory approaches would after all merge into a single approach. S: Involving users makes sense, but that shouldn’t be regarded as being the same as a just design process. Without involving the users, the designer faces a greater challenge in articulating her ethics. P: So basically transparency can be achieved by participation or articulation. S: But whichever you choose, the choice doesn’t permit you to ignore the other one completely. P: By the way, do we have a name for this position or set of circumstances we’re speaking about? Do you think it would make sense for us to borrow Rawls’ expression? S: You mean “original position”? P: Yes. S: I think that products aren’t designed in the original position, but in one where the world and the practice have already been designed and where a contract exists. We need to acknowledge that.

Design is a transitional position for a practice where it renegotiates the contract while respecting its legacy.

P: Since we don’t start the design process from scratch, should we speak about transitional position instead? S: Design is perhaps the original position for the new artifact, but our framing is that design is a transitional position for a practice, where design activity renegotiates the contract while respecting its legacy. Design happens in transition.



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P: Can you explain this so that I can be sure I understand why we need such a concept? S: Rawls says that the way to ensure a fair contract is to make it under circumstances that are as fair as possible. You suggested we should call these conditions the transitional position, which I think is a good name, and I’ve tried to list the circumstances that have to prevail there. The transitional position can be seen in more concrete terms as the requirements for how to arrange a design project, but also much more metaphorically as a mindset with a righteous orientation towards design that upholds justice, human worth, and dignity. If we want design to become increasingly just, we need to work to create those circumstances. For you, I think the more tangible interpretation makes sense as you actually practice and create contracts of justice by means of design. I, as a scholar and educator, try to create circumstances where justice can flourish by nurturing designers’ values. P: It’s good to know where you belong.

Notes 1

See, e.g., Rasmussen and Jensen (1974), Larsson and LaFasto (1989), and Keinonen (2009c).

2

See Reader (2007) for a discussion about ethical practice and the mundane everyday.

3

See Thomson (1987), Doyal and Gough (1991), and Reader (2007) for discussions on fundamental needs.

4

Dugueney and Thimbleby (1999) have written that designers work behind the veil of ignorance because they do not know the situation and preferences of the users and customers.

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Index accessibility 104, 114 accomplishment 145 accuracy 107–8, 110–11 actor network theory 63 adaptive preference 112–13 addiction 143–4 affective design 6 affiliation 167, 182 agency 106, 112 agency achievement 97–8 agency freedom 97 Ajzen, Icek 155 altruism 179, 181–2 analysis 18 antipathy 129 applicability 101, 105, 111, 115, 198 appliers 116, 195–6 appropriateness 110, 198–9 architecture 71–8 Aristotle 21, 25, 188 n.3, 194 artifacts 7, 14, 90, 128–9, 171 asceticism 129, 199–200 association 135 autonomy 138 basic capabilities 118 n.14 be-goals 158 n.2 behavioral experience 137 beneficiaries 47, 49, 51, 99, 195 beneficiary-neutrality 114 Bentham, Jeremy 124–6, 128–33, 154–7, 193 criticism of 142–9, 154–5 panoptican 158 n.6 pleasures and 130–9, 142, 146 boating 139–41 bridging 166–8, 171 Bruntland Commission 182 capabilities 87, 89–92, 94–5, 100, 171, 177–8

central 106 choice and 183 distribution of 104 fertile functionings 183–4 products and 184 Transfer Ticket design project and 176, 178, 185 capability approach 12, 87–96, 106, 162–4, 186, 198 bridging and 166–8, 171 categorical imperative and 103 choice and 93–6, 106, 164 collaborative design and 188 n.5 conversion factors and 101–3 ethics and 163–4 happiness/wellbeing and 14, 183 human needs and 170 products and 90–1 quality of life and 90 satisfaction and 105, 112 subjective-objective dilemma 173–4 suffering and 180 Transfer Ticket design project and 165–70, 172–3, 176, 183 usability and 87–8, 90–2, 94–6, 103–5 values of 180 categorical imperative 27, 103 choice 93–9, 106, 133, 174, 196 capabilities and 183 modest choices 181 clients 76–8, 175–6 co-design 6, 30–1 co-experience 54 Cockton, Gilbert 39 n.14, 68 collaborative design 82 n.1, 205, 206 combined capabilities 118 n.14 community, the 146, 151 “Compass” concept 188 n.6 competence 138

220 Index

competences 19–22, 28, 35 completeness 107–8, 110–11 compromising 179 consequentialism 13, 42 consumption 180–1, 199 contextual requirements 12 contextual studies 12 contracts 200–7 conversion factors 12, 89, 101–3 conviction-critical use 98–9, 105, 112, 115 corrosive disadvantages 184, 185 costs 155 cultural historical activity theory 63 cultural probes 26–7, 29, 36 cultural usability 117 n.1 culture 60 deontology 27, 39 n.12 design 23, 76, 80, 82 n.1, 198 see also human-centered design; goals as applied art 166 collaborative design 82 n.1, 205, 206 as a contract 200–7 ecological approach to 63 future impact of 177–8 industrial design 18–19, 166 Jones, Chris and 177 justification for 2 see also ethics methods see design methods novelty and 196–7 original position and 205–6 prioritizing 194 published designs 34 sustainable design 181 transitional position and 206–7 values of 63 worth-centered 68 design competence 33 see also competence design ethnography 44 design for user experience 5 design methods 1, 4–7, 18–19, 24–6, 33, 196–7, 198–9 in action 20 agendas and 26–7, 28 artifacts and 7

choosing 28–32 co-design 6, 30–1, 32 coded methods 16–17 as competences 19–22, 28 contributions to 33–6 dice throwing 30–1, 32, 36 enhancement and 37 ethics see ethics evaluation and 7–9 following senior designers 30–1 impacts of 36 innovative 20 instrumental conception and 7–8 interpretations and 28 labeling 25 learning and 24 method scripts 5–6, 16, 17, 31–5 participatory design and 25 probes method see probes method problem solving and 17 randomness and 36 reflections and 31–2 scripts and 16–17, 31–5 senior designers and 30–1 standardizing 20–1 design problems 38 n.9, 170 design project (Transfer Ticket) 165–70, 172–3, 175–7, 178, 182–3, 185, 201–2 designers 19, 24, 33, 198, 202 see also practices collaboration and 25 competence and 19, 35 contracts and 202–3 contributions and 33–5 fair contracts and 202–6 liberty of 174 professional development of 21, 76 senior designers 30–1 sketches and 20 skills and 19, 20, 35, 78 technology and 73–8 transparency and 204–6 unions and 74 virtues of 21–2, 25, 33–7 Desmet, Pieter 126 devotees 99, 116, 195–6

Index

221

Dewey, John 157 dice, throwing 30–1, 32, 36 difference principle 10, 11, 12 digital divide 92 dignity-sensitive usability 115 distributional justice 38 n.6, 63, 74, 149, 186 distributive justice 8 see also ethics Dong, Andy 188 n.5 Doyal Len 169–70 Dreyfuss, Henry Design for People 37 n.1

worth-centered design and 66–7 external goods 22, 23

education 66–7, 177 see also learning effectiveness 46–7, 107–8, 128 efficiency 46, 47–8, 107–8, 128 learning and 66 embodied interaction 113 emotional design 6 empathic design 6, 21, 130 empathic probes 21, 23, 29, 36 empathy 130 end-user innovation 6, 82 n.1, 116 entertainment 143 entitlement 74 environmental responsibility 37 n.2 ethics 4, 6, 9, 23, 36–7, 192, 194, 197 see also happiness; justice capability approach and 163–5 deontology 27, 39 n.12 ethical undertaking 187 measuring 8–9 mobile probes and 15 models of 29 need and 188 n.8 quality of human life 8–9 Rawls, John and 10 resources and 9–12 schools of 28–9 see also philosophy evaluation 18, 96–7 exclusion criteria 104 exertion 153 experience 124–5, 151–2, 158 see also user experience enduring 143 experience machine 144–5, 150–1, 152 experiencers 53, 55–6, 66–7, 99, 195

Gasper, Des 117 n.14 goals 8, 34, 95, 107–10, 171 be-goals 158 n.2 ethics and 12 usability and 45, 53, 86 Gough, Ian 169–70

fair contracts 202–6 fecundity 132, 143 fertile functionings 183–4 fertility 132 freedom 142, 174, 176 see also liberty frameworks of use 43–4 functionings 89, 96 fundamental need 188 n.8

happiness 9–10, 11, 183 capability approach and 14 choice and 133 community, the and 146 compromise and 181–2 factors 143 maximizing 149 measuring 130–4 pleasure/pain 130–41 sacrifice and 146–8 utilitarianism and 13–14, 124–6, 133–5, 146 Hassenzahl, Marc 126 health 62, 183 see also mental healthcare system hedonic usability 117 n.1 hedonism 144, 158 n.2 Hekkert, Paul 126 Hertzum, Morten 117 n.1 human-centered design 3, 22–4, 25, 86 see also user-centered design adaptive preference and 112–13 ethics and 23 happiness and 9 internal goods and 22–3 human needs 169–70 human worth and dignity 106–8, 169, 183–7 see also wellbeing

222 Index

hybrids 171–2 ideo-pleasure 136, 137 impartiality 30 individual differences 11–12 individuals 106, 146–7, 148 capability approach and 11, 93, 96–7 choice and 96–7, 174 conversion factors and 101–2 distributive justice and 38 n.6 functionings and 89 user experience and 53–4 industrial design 18–19, 166 inequalities 10–11, 180–1, 195 influence 138 information and communication technology 45 intellectual property rights 14 interactive technologies 51, 58–9 quality of use and 58–9 intergenerational justice 177 internal capabilities 118 n.14 internal goods 22–3, 25, 34, 109 International Council of Societies of Industrial Designers 18–19, 166 intuition 174 investment 72 ISO 9241-11 standard 45–6, 86–7, 94–5, 97, 98, 101 conversion factors and 102 effectiveness 107 satisfaction and 112, 113 sustainability and 107 usability and 86–7, 105 users and 102, 145 ISO 9241-210 standard 52–4, 86–7, 97, 195 user experience and 52–4, 122–3, 125 wellbeing and 107 Jones, Chris 177 Jordan, Patrick 136–7 justice 35, 142 see also ethics distributional justice 63, 74 Kahnemann, David 155 Kant, Immanuel 27, 103, 147

Layard, Richard 142, 188 n.7 lead-user innovation 82 n.1 learning 66–7 see also education efficient 66 liberty 72, 93, 174 see also freedom likeability 155 McCarthy, John 127, 157 MacIntyre, Alasdair 22–3, 60–1, 109, 193 mainstreaming 11 malevolence 134, 135 maximization 149 mental healthcare 167–8, 177 see also Transfer Ticket design project method scripts 5–6, 16, 17, 31–5 methods see design methods “Mi” concept 188 n.6 Mill, John Stuart 124–6, 130, 142, 144, 146–7, 149, 156, 193 mission-critical use 98–9, 148 mobile probes 15–16, 36 modest choices 181 monetary value 65 motivations 72 need see fundamental need satisfaction 170 neighbor-centered design 57–64, 81 neighbors 59–64, 66–7, 79–82, 195–6 design for the neighbor’s peace of mind 82, 192 practices and 65, 79–80 technology and 72, 75 worth of use and 65–9 Nielsen, Jacob 155, 156 non-commensurability 184 Norman, Donald 136–7 Nozick, Robert 144–5, 150, 152 Nussbaum, Martha 90, 106, 118 n.14, 167, 193 reflective equilibrium and 173–4 wellbeing and 167, 183 Oosterlaken, Ilse 88, 187 n.1 operators 48–9, 53, 55–6, 99, 195 optimization 149 organizational usability 117 n.1

Index original position 205–6 pain 130–2 pains, Bentham’s list of 133 panopticon 159 n. 6 Papanek, Victor: Design for the Real World 37 n.2 participatory design 25, 44, 82 n.1 paternalism 173–5 Paulson, Gregor: Vackrare vardags vara 37 n.1 perceived usability 117 n.1 perceptions 131–3, 151–2 persuasive computing 6 phases 18 philosophy 29, 193 physical mobility 183 physical thriving 138 physio-pleasure 136 pleasure 130–2 pleasures 130–41, 152 Bentham’s list of 133–5, 138 boating 139–41 sacrifice and 146–8 popularity 138 positive experience 125 post-usability era 96 practical evaluations 93 practical reason 167 practices 60–1, 78–81 see also architecture environments and 74 technology and 73–8 values of 178 worth of use and 65, 71–3, 79–80 preferences 112 price 73–4 probes method 14–16, 28 cultural probes 26–7, 29, 36 empathic probes 21, 22–3, 29, 36 ethics of 35 mobile probes 15–16, 36 problems, solving 17 product development 23 technology and 95–6 product experience 126 product pleasure 136 products 90–1, 184 adoption of 95–6

223

future impacts of 177–8 users and 100–1 programming 18 prudence 188 n.3 psycho-pleasure 137 public transportation 11 purity 132 quality of life see also wellbeing capability approach and 90 choice and 93–6 quality of use 42–5, 51, 53–8, 81–2 criteria 71, 111–12 framework 68–9 indicators of 107 interactive technologies and 58–9 neighbors and 64–9 satisfaction and 113 usability and 49, 51–2, 62–4, 68, 81, 86–7, 90 user experience and 42–5, 51, 53–8, 62, 63–4, 68, 81 randomness 36 see also dice Rawls, John 10, 14, 61, 109, 193, 205 fair contracts and 202 reflective equilibrium 38 n.5, 130, 174 Rawls’ difference principle 10, 11, 12 Reader, Soran 39 n.15 real-world experience 150 relevant perceptions 131 reflection 31–2 reflection-in-action 38 n.10 reflective equilibrium 38 n.5, 130, 174 reflective experience 136 relatedness 138 resource consumption 67 resources 10–12, 46, 47, 55–7, 105, 107–8, 111 bridging 166 Transfer Ticket and 167, 168 usability and 69–70 worth of use and 65–7 results 65–6 revealed preference 133 Rittel, Horts 38 n.9, 170 rule utilitarianism 14 rules 174

224 Index

sacrifice 146–8 safety 18, 138, 142, 148 satisfaction 46–7, 48, 97–8, 112–14, 128, 198 see also wellbeing subjective satisfaction 105, 112–13, 198 Schön, Donald 38 n.10 segmentation approach 11 self-respect 109 Sen, Amartya 89–91, 93, 170, 186, 193 capability approach and 90–1, 162, 183 choice and 106, 196 distributional justice and 186 evaluation and 97 happiness/wellbeing and 179, 183 serendipity 75 service design 6, 44 Shackel, Brian 155, 156 Sheldon, K. M. 137 Simon, Herbert 149 situational usability 117 n.1 sketching 20 social responsibility 37 n.2, 63 social support 182 societal development 63 societal resources 10–11 socio-pleasure 136 Socrates 144, 151 sponsors 48–9, 51, 55, 66, 195 standards see ISO 9241-11 standard; ISO 9241-210 standard subjective affective response 9 subjective-objective dilemma 173–4 subjective satisfaction 105, 112–13, 198 subjectivity 20, 26, 113 suffering 9, 96–8, 106, 179–81, 199 see also sacrifice sufficiency 110, 149, 198–9 sustainable design 181 sustainable development 182 sympathy 129, 130 synthesis 18 technology 72–6, 96, 102, 107 architecture and 71–8 industrial design 166 information and communication technology 45

interactive technologies 51, 58–9 liberty and 72 practices and 73–7 product development practice and 95–6 satisfaction and 98 social shaping of 63 users and 91 virtual reality systems 71–2, 76–7, 144–5, 201 wellbeing and 98 threshold principle 169–71 Tiger, Lionel 158 n.9 tolerance for emergence 112, 115 tools 180 Transfer Ticket design project 165–70, 172–3, 175–7, 178, 182–3, 185, 201–2 transformation design 6, 44 transitional position 206–7 unions 74 universal usability 117 n.1 usability 44–9, 51–5, 57–8, 62, 92, 95–6, 105, 128, 197–8 accessibility and 104, 114 adaptive preference and 112–13 agency achievement and 97–8 agency freedom and 97 applicability and 105, 114, 115 beneficiary-neutrality 114 capability and 90–1 capability approach and 86–7, 90–2, 93–6, 103–5 capability-sensitive version 105, 114, 115, 192 conviction-critical use 98–9, 105, 112, 115 dignity-sensitive usability 115 evaluating 71 formulation for 114 goals and 110 human worth and dignity and 107 ISO 9241 standard and 86–7, 94–5, 101, 105, 114 performance criteria 98 quality of use and 49, 51–2, 62–4, 68, 81, 86–7, 90, 105 resources and 69–70

Index satisfaction and 97–8, 105, 112 Shackel, Brian and 155 subjectivity and 113 system approach to 100–1 technology and 73, 95–6 tolerance and 111–12, 115 wellbeing and 97–9 usability tests 5, 102 use 51 see also quality of use amount of 65–6 context of 102 conviction-critical 98–9, 105 hypothetical 95 ISO 9241-11 standard and 102 mission-critical 98–9, 148 results of 56 secondary effects of 193 worth of 65–9 user-centered design 3–4, 25, 37 n.4, 194–6 see also human-centered design innovative 4 methods for 4–6 see also design methods quality of human life and 8–9 user exertion 149–54, 192 user experience 6, 44, 51–8, 97, 151–3, 192 co-experience 54 criticism and 142 defining 210–1 different approaches to 126–7 embodied 150 ethics and 12–13 evaluating 71 happiness and 9, 132–5 see also happiness hierarchies of 143–4 individual 147–8, 151 ISO 9241-210 standard and 52–4, 122–3, 125 motivations and 72 pleasures and 132–5, 138 positive emotions and 123–4 probes method and 14–16 quality of use and 42–5, 51, 53–8, 62, 63–4, 68, 81 quantifying 55–6, 131–2 real-world experience and 150

225

reciprocal 150 single aggregated criterion of good and 127–8 subjective affective response and 9 utilitarianism and 124–8, 131, 154–7 users 48, 53, 147–8, 195, 198 appliers 116, 195–6 behavior of 175 devotees 99, 116, 195–6 experiencers 53, 55–6, 66–7, 99, 195 fair contracts and 202–3 freedoms and 174, 176 ISO 9241-11 standard and 102 motivation of 179–80 needs and 169–70, 200–2 operators 48–9, 53, 55–6, 99, 195 products and 100–1 utilitarianism 12, 13–14, 124–31, 154–7, 193 criticism of 13–14, 142–9 utility 155–8 principle of 148–9 utility monster 148 Value Sensitive Design research group 37 n.2 vehicles 18 virtual reality systems 71–2, 76–7, 144–5, 201 virtues 21–2, 24, 33–7, 60, 194 visceral experience 136 wealth 138 Webber, Melvin 38 n.9, 170 wellbeing 96–9, 106, 169, 180–1 see also happiness; user experience compromising 96–7, 179–82, 199 evaluating 89–90 human worth and dignity and 106–8, 169 ISO 9241-210 standard and 107 quality of life and 90, 93–6 technology and 97 threshold principle and 169–71 well-being achievement 97 wellbeing freedom 97

226 Index

work 180–1 worth 111, 114 worth-centered design 6, 44, 68

worth of use 65–9, 79–80 criteria 70 Wright, Peter 127, 157