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Anti-Heroes: An Ethics-focused Method for Responsible Designer Intentions

Shikha Mehta, Shruthi Sai Chivukula, Colin M. Gray, Ritika Gairola

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in ethics-focused design methods that center designer intentions by introducing Anti-Hero, a paired card deck of Anti-Hero (manipulative) and Hero (value-centered) roles plus Action Cards to frame play across ideation, evaluation, and ethical dialogue. Grounded in literature on 'dark roles' and 'asshole designer' traits, the method presents 12 Anti-Hero and 12 Hero cards with double-sided design to foster role-based reflection and discussion. An evaluation with 12 graduate design students across four play sessions investigates reflective engagement and deck usability, revealing themes of ethical sense-making, gray-space dialogue, and actionable design feedback (e.g., visibility of tags, need for a usage manual). Implications suggest adoption in design education and professional practice to surface value trade-offs and enhance transparency, with future work to assess the impact of Hero-directed prompts and broad stakeholder involvement in real-world projects.

Abstract

HCI and design researchers have designed, adopted, and customized a range of ethics-focused methods to inscribe values and support ethical decision making in a design process. In this work-in-progress, we add to this body of resources, constructing a method that surfaces the designer's intentions in an action-focused way, encouraging consideration of both manipulative and value-centered roles. Anti-Heroes is a card deck that allows a designer to playfully take on pairs of manipulative (Anti-Hero) and value-centered (Hero) roles during design ideation/conceptualization, evaluation, and ethical dialogue. The card deck includes twelve cards with Anti-Hero and Hero faces, along with three action cards that include reflective questions for different play modes. Alongside the creation of the Anti-Hero card deck, we describe the evaluation and iteration of the card deck through playtesting sessions with four groups of three design students. We propose implications of Anti-Heros for technology and design education and practice.

Anti-Heroes: An Ethics-focused Method for Responsible Designer Intentions

TL;DR

The paper addresses the gap in ethics-focused design methods that center designer intentions by introducing Anti-Hero, a paired card deck of Anti-Hero (manipulative) and Hero (value-centered) roles plus Action Cards to frame play across ideation, evaluation, and ethical dialogue. Grounded in literature on 'dark roles' and 'asshole designer' traits, the method presents 12 Anti-Hero and 12 Hero cards with double-sided design to foster role-based reflection and discussion. An evaluation with 12 graduate design students across four play sessions investigates reflective engagement and deck usability, revealing themes of ethical sense-making, gray-space dialogue, and actionable design feedback (e.g., visibility of tags, need for a usage manual). Implications suggest adoption in design education and professional practice to surface value trade-offs and enhance transparency, with future work to assess the impact of Hero-directed prompts and broad stakeholder involvement in real-world projects.

Abstract

HCI and design researchers have designed, adopted, and customized a range of ethics-focused methods to inscribe values and support ethical decision making in a design process. In this work-in-progress, we add to this body of resources, constructing a method that surfaces the designer's intentions in an action-focused way, encouraging consideration of both manipulative and value-centered roles. Anti-Heroes is a card deck that allows a designer to playfully take on pairs of manipulative (Anti-Hero) and value-centered (Hero) roles during design ideation/conceptualization, evaluation, and ethical dialogue. The card deck includes twelve cards with Anti-Hero and Hero faces, along with three action cards that include reflective questions for different play modes. Alongside the creation of the Anti-Hero card deck, we describe the evaluation and iteration of the card deck through playtesting sessions with four groups of three design students. We propose implications of Anti-Heros for technology and design education and practice.
Paper Structure (13 sections, 1 figure, 1 table)

This paper contains 13 sections, 1 figure, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Creating the Anti-Hero Method
  3. Conceptualization and Design of the Card Deck
  4. Anti-Heroes Cards
  5. Action Cards
  6. Evaluation Study
  7. Protocol
  8. Participants
  9. Data Collection and Analysis
  10. Evaluation Results
  11. Reflective Engagements
  12. Design Evaluation and Iteration
  13. Implications and Future Implementation

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: Visual Structuring of Anti-Hero Card and Action Card