On October 18, 2024, Sharon Lindberg will present her PhD thesis at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV), Stockholm University. The title of the thesis is “Design Ethics at Work”.

PhD student: Sharon Lindberg, DSV
Opponent: Turkka Keinonen, Aalto University, Finland
Main supervisor: Ola Knutsson, DSV
Supervisors: Chiara Rossitto and Petter Karlström, DSV

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The defence takes place at DSV in Kista, starting at 13:00 pm.

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Abstract

The complexity of introducing ethics into technology design practices and the need to support practitioners’ ethical awareness and action are widely recognized in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. However, although there has been extensive research and numerous academic proposals on these issues, these research results are often underused in practice. Addressing this gap, this thesis examines how design practitioners in the digital technology industry understand, do, and envision ethics at work. This is investigated through qualitative approaches, including semi-structured interviews and co-design workshops.

The findings show the practitioners’ general unfamiliarity with ethics, who are often more concerned with business metrics, like “bounce rates” and billable hours, rather than ethical considerations. Moreover, the empirical work shows that ethical responsibility is blurry and can be thought of as someone else’s problem, or even “boring”. This disconnect, further complicated by the lack of ethical considerations in everyday design practice, leads to inconsistent attention to ethical issues in design.

In response, this thesis advocates for a recognition of ethics as both a critical and urgent matter that requires proactive attention. Moreover, it presents a range of concepts and methodological tools—for instance, safe spaces and a design brief—co-designed with practitioners to cultivate design ethics at work. Finally, drawing on the concept of communities of practice, this thesis proposes that by approaching ethics as a collective effort, ethical knowledge and practice can be effectively cultivated through joint inquiry. This community framing supports collective sense-making as well as meaningful change-making toward ethical practice in the digital technology design industry.

The research contributes actionable knowledge for researchers who want to study and develop ethics in design practices, as well as for design practitioners who strive to sensitize themselves and their work communities to design ethics.