The work of technology practitioners is inherently ethical, requiring attention to a range of constraints, stakeholders, and forms of knowledge. In previous work, my collaborators and I have described some of these factors through the lens of ethical mediation, indicating the role of the designer in building ethical awareness and the ways this awareness may inspire action. In this talk, I will focus on how this complexity is further complicated by the introduction of legal and regulatory knowledge. I will describe insights from a recent pilot project that reveals knowledge complexity related to increasing regulatory interest around design practices, and then link these insights to my experiences as an expert consultant on multiple US legal cases.

About the speaker:
Colin M. Gray (they/them) is an Associate Professor in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington, where they are Director of the Human-Computer Interaction design (HCI/d) program. They hold appointments as Guest Professor at Beijing Normal University and Visiting Researcher at Northumbria University. Colin’s research focuses on the ways in which the pedagogy and practice of designers informs the development of design ability, particularly in relation to ethics, design knowledge, and design methods. Colin’s research and engagement activities cross multiple disciplines, including human-computer interaction, instructional design and technology, law and policy, design theory and education, and engineering and technology education.