Understanding Ethical Thinking in Design Education: A Linkographic Study

The use of dark patterns has become ubiquitous within digital platforms. It has been argued that to address this issue, there is a need to integrate ethics education within design pedagogy and practice. This paper reports a lab protocol study conducted to observe if and how sensitizing design students about the issue can affect their design thinking. For this study, n=15 students attended a 2-hour workshop focused on persuasive HCI design, dark patterns and ethics. Pre/post design sessions following the think aloud protocol were conducted to observe the effects of the workshop. Post-workshop interviews were conducted to gather student perspectives. The data collected from the design sessions was analyzed using the linkography technique. The findings reveal the qualitative nature of ethics related design considerations that emerge when participants are engaged in an ethically nuanced design task. It also shows how ethics sensitization can shape convergent and divergent thinking processes.