Cover image: Conversation model, from Dubberly Design Office and Paul Pangaro, after Gordon Pask.
Public Lecture
What pragmatic steps can designers take toward creating ethical interfaces?
This talk proposes that “designing for conversation” become the primary goal of interaction designers. This doesn’t mean voice alone: here “conversation” means the authentic, connected, co-participatory, open-ended, social and cognitive resonance experienced in the best human-to-human conversations. In any modality, with humans or machines, only such interactions have the power to reach agreement, build trust, forge relationships, and enable the cooperation and collaboration that we call community, governance, culture, and society.
So, the minimal ethical interface is a conversation that enables reliable interactions about action and intent. Principles, parables, cybernetic models, and implementations are used as exemplars.
DownloadPAudio Recording of Lecture (32')
Download"Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics" by Heinz von Foerster
DownloadConversation is the Heart of Interaction, IXDA PGH, 2018
DownloadConversation is more than interface, IXDA 2017
DownloadBlog Posts on Conversation & Design
DownloadLinks about Designing for Conversation
ViewPangaro's RSD5 Video on Vimeo
Paul Pangaro's career spans startups, consulting, research, and teaching. He studied theatre, film criticism, and computer science while earning a B.S. at MIT, spending the rest of his time acting in plays and writing software for interactive graphics and computer-generated film. On graduating Pangaro worked on neural simulations with Jerry Lettvin and then joined the research staff of the MIT Architecture Machine Group where he met Gordon Pask and consequently completed a PhD with Pask at Brunel University (UK). He has built systems for rich interaction with online content, designed processes of organizational transformation (including “innovation”), and proposed methods for designing. His researching and making is grounded in the twin concepts of “design for conversation” and “design as conversation.” From 2015 through 2018 he chaired the MFA Interaction Design program at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. In January 2019 he joined Carnegie Mellon University as Professor of the Practice in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. His work can be found at http://pangaro.com/.