Ethics in HCI - Molar

More documents

Recommendations

Info

No: The only way around the accusation that shooter games encourage violence is to be sure that they portray violent actions and their consequences realistically. Carolyn Snyder Dilemma 1: You’ve found some problems in usability testing. While none are critical, you feel that several are important and you’d like to see them fixed before release. Because the development schedule is extremely tight, only high-priority changes are being made. Yes: You have a responsibility to make the product as usable as possible under a situation of serious resource constraints. Without bluffing, you’ll accomplish nothing. No: Bluffing will damage your credibility with the team, lessening the chance that they’ll listen to you next time. Besides, you don’t feel quite right about it. Dilemma 2: Participants in a usability test have given written consent to have the session videotaped for internal company purposes. They are not explicitly told that some unknown number of people will be watching the live video from the observation and control rooms. Are the live observers covered by the consent form? Yes: Consenting to being videotaped includes implicit permission to be observed live. No: The participant may trust that any uncomfortable moments captured on the tape will not be shown to others, but with live action there’s no way to prevent this. Also, people in a non-public setting have a right to know exactly who is watching them. Dilemma 3: You’re a usability consultant brought in to test a web site. The web site is being designed and developed by a third company. The testing reveals some usability problems. You have some ideas for solutions that you’ve seen work in other sites. You ask your client whether she wants you to include your recommendations in your final report. She says they’ve hired the design firm to solve the problems, so you should stick to documenting the findings. Do you include your recommendations? Yes: The client doesn’t necessarily speak for the design firm, and you are in a position to help them do their job better. You are serving a higher purpose – the client’s ultimate success - by passing along whatever wisdom you can offer. No: You don’t want to step on any toes, either at the client or the design firm. If they’ve said no to something, you shouldn’t do it, even if you can do it without charging them extra. Whitney Quesenbery Dilemma 1: You have set up early usability tests of a paper prototype with nurses at a medical facility. The test was difficult to schedule because nurses’ time is guarded carefully and marketing carefully guards the relationship with customers. The nursing managers insist on “taking the test” themselves first, and then on being present in the room during the tests with the other participants to “be sure they do it right.” You believe that the managers’ presence will be intimidating to the nurses, altering the results of the test. Do you continue with the usability tests? Yes: If you turn down this opportunity to work with users, it might be impossible to set up a test in the future. Although you would have to carefully evaluate the test results for bias caused by the managers, you will still get valuable comments on the concepts in the prototype. No: Putting the nurses into a situation where they are being asked to react and comment freely in front of their obviously critical managers would be so stressful as to be unethical. You should find a way to avoid running these tests. Dilemma 2: You are the leader of a group developing user interface design standards to promote consistency and usability among your company's products. You have been working with this group for several months and have what you consider a solid set of standards published and accepted, despite some initial resistance to the concept of either standardization or usability. Several products are close to release with new versions incorporating your standards. You are working with a new product group and discover a problem in the standards. You can think of a work-around that will enable them to stay in compliance, but realize that it would be better to modify the standard to take this new information into account. The change would require substantial modification to the earlier products. It is unlikely that you will be able to make this change in the future. Do you change the standards? Yes: Like design, developing standards is an iterative process. The newest product to use the standards CHI2001 Panel Proposal Page 4 Ethics in HCI
exposed new information and flaws should be corrected to make all of the user interfaces stronger. No: Because you have a valid work-around, practical expediencies should rule. Sometimes good ideas or critical information come too late. Chauncey Wilson Dilemma 1: You are a manager of a HCI group at a major software company. Your latest product is almost through the beta process and is getting good reviews. At the very last customer visit, a potential scalability problem is observed. Later, in discussions with a trusted technical source, you come to believe that this scalability issue (which is not related to the UI work that your team has done) could have catastrophic consequences for large (but not small or medium) customers. The next day is sign-off for the product and everyone's large bonus depends on a unanimous sign-off that day. The director of the project goes around the room asking each manager if the product is ready and they all reply “YES”. Then it is your turn. You stand to lose a $10,000 bonus. Do you bring up the potential defect and ask for a delay in the product until you confirm your suspicions? Yes: You don't deserve a bonus for shipping an unusable product. This sort of incentive is inherently unethical for exactly this reason – it’s a conflict of interest. No: The product defect is not of your making and you will not be blamed for it when large customers start complaining loudly. The company will fix the problem in the future. The company philosophy is that time-to-market is more important than last minute flaws that will hurt revenues. The company has survived similar problems in the past. Rolf Molich Dilemma 1: In a press interview about the usability of bank websites a usability expert strongly criticizes the user interface of the website of a certain bank. Among other things he states that the website contains features that are otherwise “only found in porn websites”. The expert later confesses off-the-record that his critical remarks were based solely on his personal opinions, not on usability tests. Is this behavior ethical? Yes. The fact that the remarks are based on opinion instead of usability testing isn’t relevant. In this field, we are often asked to make judgments without having collected any empirical data. No. The comparison is intended to embarrass the bank while making the usability expert seem witty and hip. It is a lack of professionalism and evidence of the person’s immaturity. Serious attacks on the usability of other people’s work should be based on users’ findings. The usability expert reduces HCI to an opinion war where the person with the hippest and most loudly voiced opinions wins. Dilemma 2: Your startup company is usability testing online versions of several competing e-commerce bookstores to gather usability data for your own website. To make the tests as realistic as possible, you want to ask test participants to place real orders on the website using their own credit card. Provided that you reimburse test participants in full for all their expenses, is it ok to ask them to reveal information about their credit card? Yes. We really need the diversity of the data that will result from using diversified credit cards and diversified personal addresses. We also need to test complete, realistic sales. There’s nothing secret about a credit card number. You can publish your credit card number on the front page of the New York Times, if you wish. Inform the test participant well before the test that s/he will be using his/her own credit card and excuse them immediately if they hesitate. No. The facilitator must ask the test participant to use the facilitator’s credit card or stop the test when the website asks for credit card information. The real issue isn't budgeting and reimbursement – it’s privacy and potential legal exposure. Think about it... the users will be coming to an unknown company, and then a nice lady asks them to disclose their credit card number while she takes copious notes. Sounds like a scam to me! PANELIST DETAILS Brenda Laurel is a member of the Graduate Faculty, Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design. Brenda is a usability expert specializing in interactive entertainment for the last 25 years. She is best known as co-founder and chief designer of Purple Moon, a company formed to develop interactive products for girls. Purple Moon arose from Laurel's work at Interval Research Corporation, where she coordinated research activities exploring gender, culture and technology. Laurel is the editor of “The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design,” and author of “Computers as Theatre” and numerous other seminal CHI2001 Panel Proposal Page 5 Ethics in HCI
Page 1 and 2: ABSTRACT Users are human. As HCI pr
Page 3: • A usability test center enterta
Page 7 and 8: CHI2001 Panel Documentation Sources
Page 9 and 10: SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON MEDICAL E

Ethics in HCI - Molar

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?