Designing ethical artifacts has resulted in creative design

In this paper, our approach is the application of ethical design science, comprising the cyclic relationship among theory, tool (experimental equipment), and observed data where they intersect ethical design science and creativity support. Concretely, the theory is the ethical design theory, the tool is Dfrome, and the method of obtaining observed data is the user studies we conduct. Through this, we confirm the hypothesis that ethics support creativity, etc. Therefore, our work is positioned in relation to three disciplines upon which ethical design science is based: ethics, design science, and creativity support studies.

In recent years, the importance of introducing ethics into engineering, science, and technology has become quite extreme, especially with the rise of AI. Although many AI ethical discourses have taken place (IEEE 2016, 2017; AI Network Society 2017a, b, c; Future of Life Institute 2017), few engineers have applied these discourses to their own research and development. One probable cause of this lack of use is that ethical fields tend to rely on discussion rather than direct application. Verbeek (2011) provided a philosophical foundation for understanding technology as an ethical medium, assuming that technological ethical consideration should be a matter public attention. He further advocated for stakeholder engagement in public spaces to address the impact of technology on society. However, he did not emphasize the infusion of ethical practices by engineers into their everyday work. Ethical design theory provides a language that can be useful in public discourse. And the theory can also be directly applied to an engineer’s backlog. Dfrome, in fact, expands the public space of ethical conversation to the online space of computer-aided engineering.

General ethics taught in ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) programs tend to imply that ethical considerations are barriers to innovation. For example, Mikami mentioned that science and technology researchers seldom engaged in ELSI-related activities, and that such activities were viewed by some researchers as unnecessary barriers to their own work. Furthermore, the exclusive reliance of such activities on ethics and law experts, “undermining the ‘S’ among E, L, and S of ELSI” Mikami (2019). Therefore, a mechanism that promotes the overt and voluntary ethical participation of engineers is necessary.

Then, design science further provides the way to explain what design is, namely the hierarchical representation of artifacts, as suggested by Simon (1996) and Yoshikawa (1979, 1981). However, these perspectives reach only the interaction level of the hierarchy and do not deal with ethics per se Nakakoji (2007). Then, by connecting ethics to design science, ethical design theory is considered capable of filling the gap between ethics and engineering (Sekiguchi and Hori 2018a, b, 2019). Concretely, we introduce a hierarchical representation of artifacts using ethical design theory, bringing it into a state of consistency with the engineering fields. Therefore, the ethical perspectives in ethical design theory are organically connected to engineering perspectives, suggesting that ethics could be incorporated by extending current engineering activities.

Approaches, such as value-sensitive design, also combine ethics and engineering design (Freedman et al. 2006; Miller et al. 2007; Spiekermann 2016; van der Poel 2015). However, they are not based on the hierarchical representation of artifacts. Therefore, it remains unfamiliar to engineers.

Another approach of design science is applied via design workshops at major design schools. For example, the d.school at Stanford University and the i.school at the University of Tokyo have adopted the thinking style of the IDEO Corp., an international design and consulting firm established in California, USA, in 1991 Kelly (2001). The style is based upon workshops and prototypes of human-centered design, but they have not yet provided a theoretical model to explain how ethics and engineering can be integrated.

Whitbeck (1998) utilized the similarities between ethical and design problems to explain ethics. She argued the pluralistic character of design solutions, wherein ethics was implied to be “ethics for professionals.” In relation to ethical design theory, this sort of ethics relates to the orthogonal representation of personal concerns.

The creativity support effect has been generally reported in creativity support studies. However, problem-finding approaches have rarely been found (Wang and Nickerson 2017). A typical example of this general approach was described by Finke et al., who claimed that proper constraints could enhance creativity in design (Finke et al. 1992). However, they did not consider the ethical considerations under which each designer worked as applicable to the highest objectives of design. They argued that a general approach was meaningful and should differ from previous approaches with regards to particular tasks and problems. Our approach takes the middle position. Ours is more concrete than that of Finke et al., because we are determined to directly deal with ethical issues in design activities. However, our approach is still general in the sense that it can be applied to full range of artifacts, such as airplanes, spacecrafts, automobiles, commodities, buildings, social enterprises, etc. Because the ethical considerations relate to the highest purposes of design, their introduction makes our position more meaningful than the purely general position of Finke et al. Ethical design theory predicts that introducing ethics will enhance the creativity of design activities, because designers will be forced to reconsider the problem domains of each design. Finke et al. introduced several criteria for evaluating creative products, such as originality, practicality, sensibility, productivity, flexibility, etc. In this study, we focus on practicality and originality. If the scenario paths of design ideas could consistently be described from the lower to the highest levels in a hierarchical representation of artifacts, the design would become practical, because the means of realizing the artifact make better sense. When a designer can realize a wider conceptual space for design solutions, the originality of design ideas becomes more genuine. Thus, practicality, in this sense, corresponds to vertical operations within the hierarchy, and originality corresponds to its horizontal operations. From our user studies, we show that improved design ideas become more original, approaching the H-creativity condition of original thought (Boden 1991), because all subjects deal with original ideas during their studies or business operations.

Additionally, creativity-support studies have revealed the implementation features of creativity support tools and the actions of users applying the tools. Our creativity support tool, Dfrome, is an experimental tool that obtains observation data based on ethical design theory. The intention is to promote the practice of ethical design theory with engineers (Sekiguchi and Hori 2018a, b, 2019). The observed data must be suitable for checking and updating ethical design theory via trials that reflect real-world phenomena. This coherency is an important prerequisite of the cyclic relation of theory—experimental equipment—observed data in ethical design science. Therefore, another contribution of this paper is an updated ethical design theory based on real-world feedback. Via the given cyclic relationships, our outputs are more practical and quite valid.

Examples corresponding to the described cyclic relationship include the studies of Fischer et al. (1993). They utilized a successful human-critiquing paradigm to support the design of human-computer interaction capabilities. They classified three critiquing mechanisms: generic, specific, and interpretive. They additionally built creativity support tools and conducted user observations. From their work, we find that the generic critique mechanism corresponds to the generation of design solution. The specific mechanism corresponds to problem framing, and the interpretive mechanism corresponds to views. Moreover, they dealt with values such as good, safety, and efficiency, which, as a group, tends to be discussed from within ethical perspectives, although they seem to consider these values as characteristics of a system, i.e., at the system level. In their work, they dealt with a safe-kitchen system without considering social-scale values and whether a safe society would be a result of their system or even if it was desirable. Therefore the ethical issues were implicit in their work. They argued that “computer-based critiquing systems are most effective when they are embedded in domain-oriented design environments.” Ethical design theory could be rendered more comprehensive if it were to combine the three critiquing mechanisms into one framework. A description of personal reasons corresponds to the interpretive mechanism. An upward consideration within the hierarchical representation of artifacts corresponds to the specific mechanism, and a downward consideration corresponds to the generic mechanism. Additionally, our improvement to the theory adds a new critiquing mechanism that corresponds to the description of effects on the designer (i.e., realized artifacts as depicted in Fig. 3). The reflective consideration can be described as imaginary when the design is being performed. It can also be practiced in the real world during social experimentation (Schinzinger and Martin 2000) or as an information-cycle loop (Yoshikawa 2012). In short, using ethical design theory, a designer can experience the various critical mechanisms in a more organic manner. Furthermore, ethical design theory demands that a designer be the most critical, because ethical values relate to the highest purposes of design. Thus, the creativity support effect is expected to be the strongest when a design is reconsidered for such purposes. Via user studies, this paper verifies the following point: criticism is still useful for supporting creative activities in relation to ethical perspectives.

An example that dealt with the given cyclic relationship was the Function–Behaviour–State (FBS) diagram of Umeda et al. (1997) and user studies that used the FBS modeler (Umeda et al. 1990). However, these work did not deal with ethical perspectives. Their definition of terms for FBS are as shown in Table 1.

Regarding the distinction between functions and Behaviours: functions are subjective, whereas behaviours can be objectively described when agents’ views are selected (Umeda et al. 1997). Although these two concepts are similar to a certain extent, the grammar used to describe them is clearly different. The explanation of this point by themselves is as follows:

The vocabulary used for representing functions is often similar to that for behaviours. For example, support something for manufacturing it is a representation of a function, while A is supporting B is a representation of a behaviour of A. Umeda et al. (1990)

The problem suggested by Umeda et al. was that this definition of function is difficult to use. They described that their user studies showed that many designers felt it difficult to symbolize functions, especially those of unfixed entities. They then considered that describing behaviours was easier. In fact, they showed that describing behaviours was helpful to aiding the description of functions (Umeda et al. 1997). This situation can be clearly understood when we consider the correspondence between FBS diagrams and ethical design theory. First, the hierarchical representation of artifacts defined by the ethical design theory describes changes of behaviors that are caused by the artificial operations that change a part of the entity’s state. Then, the ethical design theory establishes the hierarchical representation of artifacts to describe objective phenomena. For example, when building an FBS structure, Umeda et al. would say that A is supporting B as a representation of a behaviour. Our description, on the other hand, says that A is changed to support B, A is changed to not support B, A is changed to support C, etc. Thus, the space for changes of the functions of an FBS diagram is not our hierarchical representation. It stands between the space for personal reasons and the hierarchical representation of artifacts, as shown in Fig. 4. From this, ethical design theory demands that we describe views as personal reasons that are more subjective than the recognition of behaviors. The view of FBS diagram can be changed to incorporate arrows directed from personal reasons to the descriptions in the hierarchical representation of artifacts. Then, we can omit the FBS diagram’s functions, because the subjective nature of the functional representation can now be expressed within the space of personal reasons, and the other items can be expressed as artifacts. Furthermore, we can add a space for describing the effects on the designer, so that we can provide a more comprehensive ethical design from theory. From our user studies, we show that the ethical design theory can solve the problem they suggested and that subjective matters of design can more easily be described with the ethical design theory than the FBS diagram.

Dfrome connects standard discussions of ethics to technological developments and can be used to distribute the accumulated knowledge of specialists of different fields. In the past, science interpreters integrated humanities (e.g., ethics) with science and technology by promoting communications among participants. An early example was Murakami’s intermediator (Murakami 2017). However, educating specialists and communicating with them is of limited practicality, and none of the existing approaches covered all disciplines. Dfrome resolves this limitation while providing a support tool for intermediators (i.e., interpreters) and engineers. Furthermore, interpreters tend to focus on discussions (Ema et al. 2017), just as with most ethical approaches, whereas our ethical design theory and Dfrome focuses on the design activity itself. This study thus provides a systematic explanation of our mechanism by which ethical considerations be used to directly support creativity for the participants.

Because the hypotheses for the user studies are derived from ethical design theory (Sekiguchi and Hori 2018a, b, 2019), we first provide an overview of the theory. Ethical design theory extends engineering design perspective to new areas while providing descriptive methods for handling both technical and ethical issues. Perspectives are design from the ethical level, and the descriptive methods are design with discourse.

Our user studies evaluated the design support effect of ethics. This tool, called Dfrome, was set as the experimental environment. Therefore, the Dfrome is reviewed in this section.

Now that we have reviewed the theoretical background of ethics and have provided an overview of Dfrome, we can proceed to user studies. We first organize our hypotheses to be verified with the user studies.

First of all, we define the criteria of creative products as originality and practicality. Ethics can be considered to support such creativity work and this effect is what this paper is to verify. Therefore, the main hypothesis is as follows: Here, practicality and originality were also the criteria introduced by Finke et al. (1992), and these reconsiderations corresponded to specific and generic critiquing mechanism (Fischer et al. 1993), as mentioned in Sect. 2.

The mechanism of the creativity support effect of ethics can be explained by the ethical design theory. A visually modeled explanation of the mechanism by the theory is as shown in Fig. 18. This image presents how skepticism at a higher level widens the conceptual space at the lower levels. As is shown in Fig. 18, we can first assume that one problem has several solutions. Then, higher objectives, such as solving the problem, are not doubted in the design, because they become the preconditions from which the designer realizes lower-level design. Then, the designer reconsiders the higher objectives of his or her work from the ethics level in the vertical direction. Finally, he or she consequently becomes aware of a wider conceptual space of design solutions, as depicted as (B) in the horizontal direction.

In relation to the plurality of design solutions shown in Fig. 18, we can refer to the discussion by Whitbeck (1998) as mentioned in Sect. 2. Additionally, in relation to the point of how propositions at the higher levels become preconditions, we can understand them as Wittgenstein’s hinges (Wittgenstein 1969) as discussed in (Sekiguchi et al. 2010; Sekiguchi and Hori 2018a, 2019) and in Sect. 3 of this paper.

Then, we can derive the two elements of the creativity support effect of ethics vertically and horizontally, as is shown in Table 3. The vertical element shows that a designer comes to doubt his or her work at the higher levels, including the ethics level. The horizontal element shows that the designer becomes aware of a wider conceptual space of design solutions.

We can next compare the two elements in Table 3 with the two criteria for creative products, originality and practicality. The vertical element corresponds to the practicality for realizing social values. When items in a tree-like description are seamlessly connected from the lower levels to the ethics level using arrows, the scenario becomes practical for realizing ethical objectives. The horizontal element corresponds to originality. When more items are distributes at the lower levels, it means that the designer has improved his or her originality, because design solutions are considered more comprehensively (e.g., a designer can become aware of alternative solutions from other disciplines, can merge these ideas with his or her own technologies, etc.). Thus, we can set a sub-hypothesis as follows: Then, Hypothesis 1.1 has two sub-hypotheses, too. Firstly, we can hypothesize that the effect to enhance the originality becomes greatest when design ideas are doubted from their ethics. Of course, it is true that the creativity support effect can be realized without introducing ethics. However, as suggested in Fig. 18, the higher the design solutions branch, the more comprehensive the design solutions become at the lower levels. Therefore, because ethics is at the highest level, it is reasonable to consider that the ethics level realizes the widest conceptual space. Thus, we can consider that a designer can consider the widest range of design solutions when he or she reconsiders design ideas with regards to their most fundamental purposes. Therefore, we can set a sub-hypothesis as follows: Secondly, we can predict that the distance between the target level and the ethics level is in proportion to the difficulty in experiencing the creativity support effect of ethics. A designer who initially sets the parts level as the target level in design will probably experience more difficulty doubting from the ethics level. Nonetheless, he or she will obtain a wider conceptual space for design solutions than a designer who initially sets the interaction level as the target level, because the changes of the levels in the hierarchy by the former designer is larger (higher) than the latter one. Therefore, we can set the other sub-hypothesis as follows: Then, we assume that clearly applying the ethical design theory to design ideas promotes ethical designs. It also enables us to directly observe the creativity support effect. For doing these, we set Dfrome as an experimental environment because Dfrome supports practicing the ethical design theory and thus is the most effective environment to observe such effect. Therefore, we can set the other two hypotheses as follows: Finally, when the above-mentioned hypotheses are confirmed, we can consequently confirm that Dfrome supports creativity. The last hypothesis is as follows: In short, Hypothesis 1 is the focus of the paper. The Hypothesis 2 and 3 reflect the means to realize this verification. The Hypothesis 4 reflects the verification of the other three hypotheses. Although the Hypothesis 4 is one of the reasons for providing Dfrome, we omit its discussion because its conclusion can be drawn from the conclusions of the other hypotheses.

By conducting user studies, we thus verify the existence of the creativity support effect of ethics by evaluating these hypotheses.

We deal with three kinds of user studies to verify the existence of the creativity support effect of ethics. These include (a) stakeholder impact studies, (b) editing-idea studies by students, and (c) editing-idea studies by professionals. Thus, in our analysis and discussion, we basically compare results by grouping them into a group comprising the evaluating impact study of (a) and another comprising the editing ideas studies of (b) and (c).

We next describe the common settings of the user studies and typical settings of each user in order. The studies also include an exceptional case (e.g., the semi-automatic generation of items not used by a subject and additional explanations provided in the experimental instruction for answering a question form a subject). The influence of these exceptions on the study results are discussed in Sect. 7.

This paper reports results of newly conducted user studies and those already published (Sekiguchi and Hori 2019) to realize a more comprehensive analysis, including an update of interpretations and comparisons between the new and former findings.

To appropriately report the results of the user studies, we applied a categorization. Table 7 classifies subjects’ experiences by the two elements discussed in Sect. 5. As shown in this table, we set six (\(=\) 3 \(\times\) 2) patterns: i to vi. Concerning the first element (i.e., a designer doubts his or her own ideas from higher levels, including the ethics level), we set a question “Did the subject experience doubt at the higher levels?” and set three answers. Regarding the experiences of subjects whose answer is considered to be was “Yes,” there were two possible answers: including the ethics level and without the ethics level. Thus, we divided these as two answers into “Yes (including the ethics level)” and “Yes (without the ethics level).” The third captured the situation in which the answer of the question is considered to be “No.” Concerning the second element (i.e., a designer becomes aware of a wider conceptual space of design solutions), we set a question “Did the subject become aware of a wider conceptual space?” and set two answer options: “Yes” and “No.” The subjects’ experiences were also gleaned from the user-action logs, operation screen records, questionnaire responses, discussions during the hearing, and other relevant records. The results also revealed limitations of the present version of ethical design theory. These results are separately discussed in later subsections.

In this section, we verify that ethical considerations promote creativity and discuss possible updates to Dfrome and extensions of ethical design theory that would reconcile the above-noted limitations.

Ethics are often regarded as barriers to innovation. However, practitioners of ethical design theory who use Dfrome are expected to gain creative activity, (A) by reconsidering their design ideas from ethical perspectives, and (B) by becoming aware of a wider conceptual space. User studies confirmed that both processes are feasible.

We organized the key factors of success when experiencing the creativity support effect of ethics (e.g., the way to provide information, the design of designers’ personal concerns, and the visualization of design from the ethics level), and discussed how to utilize them to successfully emerge in design activities. We also updated the ethical design theory to better explain the obtained observation data, which revealed limitations in the experimental version of the theory. The suggested solutions included adding another temporal axis to the originally three-dimensional theory, imposing the social contexts of each user as constraints on further creativity support, and clarifying the perspective of ethical design theory as a representation field.

In future works, we plan to update Dfrome to correspond to the extended version of ethical design theory. We will also check the theory in additional user studies and update it in consideration of the cyclic relation among theory, experimental equipment, and observed data. By collaborating with ethicists, policymakers, economists, and other experts, we plan to enrich the contents of Dfrome by accumulating new data of their specialties and to discuss the validity of ethical design theory. Finally, we plan to establish ethical design science as an organic discipline for systematically designing a better world.