PhD Defense – Susanne Lindberg

The PhD defense of Susanne Lindberg will be held on April 10th, 13:00-15.30 in Wigforss.
Title of the thesis: Ethics of User Involvement in Sensitive Design Situations
Opponent: Maja van der Velden, associate Professor at University of Oslo

Susanne Lindberg

Foto: Joachim Brink

Summary: While this era of digital technology brings great possibilities for improving the lives of many people with digital healthcare services, the design of these services in turn present challenges that are ethical in nature. Participatory Design (PD) values user involvement in design from a democratic, empowerment and ethical perspective. However, the design of digital healthcare services constitutes sensitive design situations, that is, situations that have the potential to negatively impact the participants. As a consequence, participation in these design situations involves risks, causing ethical dilemmas. The ethical dilemmas that designers face in sensitive design situations are situated, dynamic, diverse, unpredictable, and occur in-action. Yet, it is a complex field with little in situ support for designers who intend to involve users in sensitive design situations, and high complexity and risk increase the need to understand ethics in these situations. Consequently, this thesis intends to answer the question: How can users be involved in sensitive design situations?

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