QUESTIONS OF VALUE - ETHICS IN THE DESIGN CURRICULUM

DS 82: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE15), Great Expectations: Design Teaching, Research & Enterprise, Loughborough, UK, 03-04.09.2015

Year: 2015
Editor: Guy Bingham, Darren Southee, John McCardle, Ahmed Kovacevic, Erik Bohemia, Brian Parkinson
Author: Hiort Af Ornäs, Viktor; Keitsch, Martina
Series: E&PDE
Institution: 1Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, 2Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Section: Ethics
Page(s): 208-213
ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9

Abstract

Decisions made by designers multiply in their consequences, as products are mass-produced. With changing designer roles addressing systems, services and symbols the questions of value a designer faces also grow. The Ethics of Design is gaining new importance, and is again frequently discussed in literature. This article discusses educational challenges and opportunities equipping design students with knowledge and skills in exercising informed judgement about questions of value. To elucidate how ethics is dealt with in (higher) design education, the authors reviewed perspectives on ethics and its role in education, interviewed 6 program directors, and based on reflections from these employed insights in a workshop with design students.

Keywords: Decision-making, values, ethics in design curricula

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