‘What is fair shipping, anyway?’ Using design fiction to raise ethical awareness in an industrial context

Paper in proceeding, 2019

© 2019 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). The HCI community cares for the human and social aspects of technologies. Ethical discussion on the social implications of new technologies often happen among researchers, but it is important to raise this discussion also in the industry that designs and implements new systems. In this paper, we introduce a case in which design fiction was used as an ethical discussion tool among company partners. We report the process of creating and prototyping a fictional world embedded with conflicting values that aimed to shift the focus from industrial merits towards societal values and raise discussion among participants. Moreover, we examine the challenges and propose suggestions in crafting critiques and friction to the industrial context. Our findings suggest why and how one should use design fiction as a means to raise ethical awareness in a technology- and profit-focused context, to support further activities on developing more humane technological futures.