# Ethics Pathways: A Design Activity for Reflecting on Ethics Engagement in
HCI Research

Inha Cha<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Georgia Institute of TechnologyUnited States ,
Ajit G. Pillai<EMAIL_ADDRESS>The University of SydneyAustralia
and  Richmond Wong<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Georgia Institute of TechnologyUnited
States

(2024)

###### Abstract.

This paper introduces Ethics Pathways, a design activity aimed at
understanding HCI and design researchers’ ethics engagements and flows during
their research process. Despite a strong ethical commitment in these fields,
challenges persist in grasping the complexity of researchers’ engagement with
ethics —practices conducted to operationalize ethics—in situated institutional
contexts. Ethics Pathways, developed through six playtesting sessions, offers
a design approach to understanding the complexities of researchers’ past
ethics engagements in their work. This activity involves four main tasks:
recalling ethical incidents; describing stakeholders involved in the
situation; recounting their actions or speculative alternatives; and
reflection and emotion walk-through. The paper reflects on the role of design
decisions and facilitation strategies in achieving these goals. The design
activity contributes to the discourse on ethical HCI research by
conceptualizing ethics engagement as a part of ongoing research processing,
highlighting connections between individual affective experiences, social
interactions across power differences, and institutional goals.

Ethics, Research ethics, Reflection, Design Activity

††journalyear: 2024††copyright: rightsretained††conference: Designing
Interactive Systems Conference; July 1–5, 2024; IT University of Copenhagen,
Denmark††booktitle: Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’24), July
1–5, 2024, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark††doi:
10.1145/3643834.3660714††isbn: 979-8-4007-0583-0/24/07††ccs: Human-centered
computing††ccs: Social and professional topics Codes of ethics

Figure 1. This example showcases the results of a participant and demonstrates
the various elements and settings utilized in our activity, including a map
for participants to create a set of paths depicting their engagement with
ethics (center); a set of path cards to metaphorically represent different
steps, decision points, and obstacles in their process (right); a set of pawn
pieces to represent stakeholders in the story, and sticky notes to annotate
the steps along the path (left).

In the center of the desk, there is a background paper serving as a space for
participants to arrange their road cards, environmental elements, and sticky
notes. This picture shows what a participant made through the activity. To the
right, we have road cards for easy accessibility during the activity. To the
left, we set colorful pawns opting for character forms with minimal inherent
meaning. Characters and corresponding incidents or endings are represented
through the placement of these pawns and sticky notes.

##  1\. Introduction

Research ethics has been a cornerstone of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
research for decades (Mackay, 1995), with courses (Munteanu et al., 2021),
workshops (G. Pillai et al., 2021), SIGS (Fiesler et al., 2022a), and panels
(Bjorn et al., 2018; Densmore et al., 2020; Fiesler et al., 2022b) being
organized at major conferences in the field to help researchers in the field
learn about and reflect on ethical issues in their work. Furthermore, there is
a growing interest in navigating the evolving norms and expectations
surrounding research ethics in the fields of HCI and design research (Densmore
et al., 2020; Brown et al., 2016; Vitak et al., 2016; Spiel et al., 2019) due
to the complexity faced by researchers working with technology and new forms
of data collection that have socio-technical implications, while also
increasingly working in sensitive settings with marginalized communities.
While HCI researchers typically undergo formal ethics reviews for their
evaluation or field research protocols (Munteanu et al., 2015) (such as
through institutional review boards or other forms of industry ethical
research review, e.g., (Cohn Jackman, Molly, 2016)), establishing a cohesive
understanding of research ethics remains a persistent challenge within the HCI
community. This challenge is further intensified by the diverse disciplinary
traditions within the research community, the constant evolution of
technology, research methods, and the variations in standards among different
institutions and governments (Fiesler et al., 2022b). One significant issue
arises from potential discrepancies between the approved protocols by research
ethics boards and the practicalities of conducting HCI research in
nontraditional research environments outside of the ”lab” (Munteanu et al.,
2015). Relying solely on formal documentation as a means for ethical research
may overlook the importance of researchers engaging in moral reflection and
considering the ethical implications of their research itself (Munteanu et
al., 2015). While ethics in HCI encompasses both research ethics and product
design ethics, we focus on research given the rich discussion within HCI on
researcher ethics, as well as our own positionality as researchers.

Shilton (Shilton, 2013) underscores the significance of recognizing the
contextual nature of ethics, the researcher’s role, and the influence of
systems and infrastructure within the institution. In navigating the intricate
interplay of ethics and research, it is crucial to acknowledge that HCI and
design researchers are also inherently embedded within institutional contexts.
They consistently interact with individuals, tools, resources, and
administrative processes, collectively shaping the institutional
infrastructure. The ethical dimensions associated with HCI practices are
inherently complex, contingent, and intertwined with various factors,
including individuals’ ethics knowledge and judgment (Gray et al., 2023).
Despite HCI researchers’ awareness of ethical issues, there exists a gap in
understanding the ethical complexities they experience during their work
practices. Previous studies have explored how researchers navigate and respond
to ethical challenges through conventional research methods such as
interviews, surveys, or literature reviews (e.g.,(Vitak et al., 2016; Nunes
Vilaza et al., 2022; Salehzadeh Niksirat et al., 2023)).

In this paper, we take a design-oriented approach to understanding
researchers’ past ethics engagements in situated contexts. Ethics engagement
involves taking steps to put an individual’s ethical values into practice
within a specific context. We view the collective aspect of ethics engagement
as ”ethics flows”—the dynamic and interconnected processes through which
ethical considerations are navigated and managed within the research
environment. We reflexively created a design activity as a vehicle for
knowledge generation, both in the sense that (a) we thought about and learned
how to conceptualize ethics flows and ethics engagement through our hands-on
immersion in making the activity, and (b) the activity itself can be used with
participants to helps us understand other people’s practices.

We present our design activity, Ethics Pathways, which aims to understand the
nuanced process of navigating engagement with ethics throughout the research
journey. We developed the activity and refined its mechanics across multiple
pilot studies and six play-testing sessions. Play-testing participants used
the activity to reflect on ethics engagements such as inadvertent data
recipients, the moral complexities associated with probing into people’s
emotional states, and the moral quandaries faced by a junior researcher in
upholding ethical standards during unethical corporate research and
development projects. Ethics Pathways consists of four main steps: 1)
”Incident Description,” where participants recall and explore the origin of an
ethical issue; 2) ”Character Design,” where participants recount the roles of
relevant stakeholders by describing them as characters in their ethics
narrative; 3) ”Path Design and Action Notes,” involving reflection on chosen
paths, possible alternative actions, and barriers to action related to their
ethics engagement by using a deck of cards we created; and finally, 4) a
”Reflection and Emotion Walkthrough,” where participants revisit their
narrative, addressing reflection questions from facilitators to delve into
emotions, resources, and lessons learned in the ethical decision-making
journey.

This paper provides two main contributions. First, it contributes the design
activity of Ethics Pathways and documentation of the authors’ reflections
about what we learned during the design and facilitation process. Ethics
pathways can serve as both a way to gain insight into people’s engagement with
ethics processes and to help activity participants self-reflect on their own
practices. Second, through the design of Ethics Pathways, we contribute a
conceptual framing of ethics engagement and flows that views research ethics
as a set of ongoing practices that are affected by a combination of
individuals’ affective experiences, their social interactions across power
differences, and the goals and politics of the institutions they work within.
This framing opens up new opportunities for HCI and design research to think
about research ethics beyond individual decision-making, to also consider
interventions or tools that can address issues related to social and
institutional power structures.

The paper begins by reviewing related works and detailing the development of
the Ethics Pathways. It then presents the final version of the Ethics Pathways
activity. Following this, the paper reflects on the lessons we, the authors
learned through the changes in our design and facilitation practices,
discusses how the activity’s conceptual lens of ethics engagement can help us
better understand ethics in situated practice, and consider future uses and
applications for Ethics Pathways.

##  2\. Related Work

Ethics Pathways builds upon various previous initiatives that employ
complementary methods to explore and highlight discussions on values and
ethics through design approaches.

###  2.1. Conceptualizing Ethics Engagement as a Part of Practice

Our design activity investigates ethics engagement—the array of individual
actions taken to operationalize ethics. We use the term ethics engagement to
refer to a collection of perspectives that views ethics as related to
practice. We describe these perspectives and how we see them fitting together.

This paper conceptualizes ethics as part of the everyday work practices of HCI
and design researchers, building on a broader body of research that connects
ethics to situated and lived experiences (JafariNaimi et al., 2015; Le Dantec
et al., 2009; Gray and Chivukula, 2019). In using the term ”ethics” we refer
to moral debates about social values, politics, and power (Shilton et al.,
2018). Following past work informed by practice-led approaches, we do not pre-
define what gets included or excluded as an ethical issue, leaving that as an
”actor’s category,” allowing research participants to define it as they
understand it (Kuutti and Bannon, 2014; Stolterman, 2008). However, there are
several aspects of conceptualizing ethics that we find important. Because we
view ethics as being a part of situated and lived experiences, ethical
practices are also situated in specific organizational and institutional
contexts, and affected by things like organizational structure, organizational
incentives, interactions among stakeholders, resources, and infrastructures,
organizational policies, or social power dynamics (Gray and Chivukula, 2019;
Chivukula et al., 2023, 2020; Wong, 2021; Ali et al., 2023; Deng et al.,
2023). Furthermore, because ethics are a part of lived experiences, navigating
ethical dilemmas and making ethical decisions are also embodied, felt and
affective processes (Garrett et al., 2023).

We also draw on research that highlights critical reflection as an important
part of professional design practice (Schön, 1992; Adam et al., 2021), which
can also lead to reflection and consideration of the ethical and values-laden
dimensions of one’s work (Sengers et al., 2005; Friedman et al., 2013;
Munteanu et al., 2015). Engaging in ethical reflection fosters a deep-seated
understanding of moral values, enhancing one’s ability to discern right from
wrong in complex scenarios (Schmidt, 2014; Padiyath, 2024). Over time, these
reflective practices become intrinsic to the professional’s character, guiding
not just isolated decisions but shaping their entire approach to their
research practice (Chivukula et al., 2020; Antes et al., 2012; Singhapakdi et
al., 1996).

We are also inspired by the concept of ethics flows, which emphasizes that
ethical decision-making is influenced by: personal codes; informal workplace
ethics; formal codes, policies, and frameworks within institutions; and the
social infrastructure within the organization(Pierce and Henry, 1996).
Chivakula et. al. share this understanding of ”ethical flow” by showing how
the journey of an individual within the design process is an entanglement of
the social values of an individual, the organization, and the situated context
of the design process (Chivukula et al., 2020). In their work, they also
highlight a gap in understanding ’ethical flows’ and call for future work in
this space (Chivukula et al., 2020). Our work seeks to address this by
developing a design activity to enhance the understanding of HCI and design
researchers’ situated ethics engagement practices (Boyd and Shilton, 2021).

Ethics engagement thus consists of the array of individual actions taken to
operationalize ethics within a situated context. Like ethics flow, we view
ethics engagement as a dynamic process that interconnects individuals’
decision-making and affective experiences, with the broader institutional
infrastructures and social dynamics that they must interact with and operate
within. Engagement with ethics also includes practices of critical reflection,
enabling designers and researchers to assess situations ethically, take
responsibility for engaging with ethical issues, and make informed decisions
(Green, 2021).

###  2.2. Reflection on Research Ethics in HCI

Research ethics in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a critical area of
concern, as it involves the responsible conduct of research and the
consideration of the impact of HCI technologies on users and society, as
evidenced by multiple panels and town halls at major HCI conferences (e.g.
(Fiesler et al., 2022a; Densmore et al., 2020; Bjorn et al., 2018;
Frauenberger et al., 2017)). Ethical considerations in HCI research encompass
a wide range of issues, including user privacy, informed consent, data
protection, and the potential for technology to influence user behavior and
decision-making (Ahuja and Kumar, 2021). In the domains of HCI and design
research, there is a burgeoning interest in grappling with the shifting norms
and expectations pertaining to research ethics. Although HCI researchers often
undergo formal ethics reviews for their evaluation or field research
procedures, fostering a unified comprehension of research ethics continues to
be a persistent challenge within the diverse HCI community (Abbas et al.,
2019).

Formal ethics reviews for research (such as through institutional review
boards) do not capture or address all ethical issues in research. Ethical
issues and harms can still occur even if a research protocol is approved by an
ethics review board, such as privacy issues that persist even when using
publicly available data, which often only need a light ethics review process,
if any, especially in a U.S. context (Vitak et al., 2016; Fiesler and
Hallinan, 2018). Challenges posed by studying emerging technologies—such as
artificial intelligence and big data—may not be adequately addressed by
traditional ethics guidelines (Gray et al., 2018). The disparate forms of
labor conducted by researchers, as well as how researchers engage with project
”failures” also have ethical implications for how researchers are accountable
to one another and to their research subjects (Howell et al., 2021).
Conducting research with participants can present ethical challenges when
unexpected situations arise during the research process, especially when
working with sensitive issues or vulnerable groups (Waycott et al., 2015).
Direct engagement with participants, such as in participatory design, raises
specific ethical issues such as power dynamics, representation, and the
potential for unintentional exploitation of participants (Munteanu et al.,
2015; Parvin, 2018).

These issues suggest the need for HCI and design researchers to critically
reflect (Sengers et al., 2005) on research ethics, beyond formal ethics review
processes. For instance, Munteanu and colleagues advocate for ethical
reflexivity in participatory HCI research, where researchers continuously
reflect on and adjust their methods to ensure that the rights and well-being
of participants are safeguarded throughout the research process (Munteanu et
al., 2015). Others describe the need for continual and open reflection about
ethical issues as a part of HCI and design scholarship (Nathan et al., 2016)
and as a moral professional responsibility (Durgahee, 1997).

However, the ethical tensions experienced by HCI and design researchers within
their situated work practices are not adequately explored. There is much prior
work studying ethical tensions experienced by computing and design
practitioners situated in product development practices (e.g., (Gray and
Chivukula, 2019; Wong, 2021; Pillai et al., 2022; Chivukula et al., 2020;
Popova et al., 2024; Widder et al., 2023; Deng et al., 2023)). However when
considering ethics in HCI and design research, most prior work seeks to
understand ethical practices through the use of literature reviews (Salehzadeh
Niksirat et al., 2023; Nunes Vilaza et al., 2022), theoretical exploration
(Brown et al., 2016), critical self-reflection on the authors’ practices
(Howell et al., 2021; Munteanu et al., 2015), or surveys (Vitak et al., 2016).
Few studies are seeking to study how other researchers approach ethical
tensions in their work. Some of this may be in part to difficulties due to
concerns about anonymity, sensitive details, or participant confidentiality.
Nevertheless, this leads to a limited understanding of the considerations and
steps that researchers take to resolve these tensions or ethical dilemmas.
This gap highlights the need for more in-depth exploration and documentation
of the ethical decision-making processes in research, which are crucial for
comprehending and navigating the ethical landscape researchers encounter.

###  2.3. Ethics-Focused Design Methods

A multitude of resources have been developed to facilitate engagement with
ethical considerations in various contexts within the design process (as
surveyed in (Chivukula et al., 2022; Friedman et al., 2017; Wong et al.,
2023)). These resources include tools and methods that are primarily intended
to comprehend user perspectives or consider how users and stakeholders may
experience harm and range from simple checklists to more complex approaches.
Examples of these approaches include speculating future scenarios (Wong and
Nguyen, 2021), analyzing stakeholder dynamics (Friedman, 1996), and employing
value-based methods (Friedman et al., 2013; Nathan et al., 2008a). Broadly,
these methods tend to focus on creating more just and ethical outcomes of
(product) design processes and do not necessarily provide insight into the
ethical dilemmas faced in research processes and practices.

Recently, the tech industry has seen a surge in the creation of tools,
methods, and activities specifically designed for tech workers. Notable
examples include Microsoft’s Inclusive Design Toolkit (Fraga Viera et al.,
2020) and IBM’s Everyday Ethics for AI (Francesca Rossi, 2018). Research
studying how computing and design practitioners engage in ethical tensions and
dilemmas in situated organizational practice has led to new design activities
to help practitioners navigate these situations. For instance, Gray,
Chivukula, and colleagues have created practitioner resources to find existing
ethical design methods and activites (Gray et al., 2023), as well as creating
workshops that help practitioners develop their own plans of action for when
they encounter ethical tensions in their work (Gray et al., 2022; Chivukula et
al., 2023). However, these focus on design practitioners (often in product
development contexts), rather than the ethical tensions and dilemmas of
researchers.

Multiple scholars have used design fiction as a way to reflect on ethical
aspects of research practice, including writing fictional paper abstracts to
consider potential positive and negative directions in future research
(Blythe, 2014; Baumer et al., 2014), exploring the limits of institutional
review boards in identifying potential ethical harms that could result from
the use of publicly available data (Pater et al., 2022; Fiesler, 2019), or
more broadly considering the downstream or unintended harms that could arise
from HCI and design research projects (Soden et al., 2019; Sturdee et al.,
2021a; Lindley et al., 2017).

While these approaches are highly useful, they also emphasize a focus on the
ethical impacts resulting from research outcomes. This approach overlooks a
critical aspect: the practices, interactions, and affective experience of
researchers grappling with ethical tensions during their research process.
Recognizing this gap, our objective is to take a design-oriented approach to
create an activity in which researchers can participate that helps us
understand their practices and experiences related to ethical tensions and
ethical decision-making, and help them reflect on their experiences.

##  3\. Design Process

In this section, we provide a high-level overview of the design process of
Ethics Pathways. In Section 4, we present and describe the activity steps in
the final version of Ethics Pathways, and in Section 5, we reflect on what we
learned through the process of designing and facilitating the activity.

Ethics Pathways is an activity aimed at understanding an HCI or design
researcher’s reflections about the complex and messy process of ethics
engagement during the research process. Participants tell a story about an
ethical issue they faced before by creating a representation of a path on a
map that represents their different steps or decision points. The activity
also provides prompts that help participants reflect on and discuss: their own
emotional experiences; the role of other stakeholders in the situation; and
the role of the broader organizational or institutional context where they are
doing their research. The activity comprises an introduction before the main
activity, followed by four key tasks:

  1. (1)

Sensitizing Participants to Their Ethical Issues: Several hours or days before
starting the activity, participants are invited to reflect on ethical issues
they may have encountered during their previous or current research
experiences and what actions they have taken.

  2. (2)

Incident Description:  At the start of the in-person activity, participants
are prompted to recall an engagement with ethics and their first instance of
recognizing, realizing, or identifying the ethical issue, delving into its
origin and awareness, which kicks off the process of ethics engagement.

  3. (3)

Character Design:  Participants choose tokens to represent stakeholders, or
”characters,” in their narrative of ethical action, including themselves.

  4. (4)

Path Design and Action Notes:  This step constitutes over half of the
activity’s time. Here, participants use a set of physical ”path cards” to
create a map that reflects either the path of actions they have taken or
alternative paths that they speculate that they could have taken. Participants
annotate their paths with ”action notes” to detail their stories,
incorporating elements such as resources they used, other stakeholders’
actions and reactions, and other personal reflections.

  5. (5)

Reflection and Emotion Walkthrough: Once their fictional map is complete,
participants revisit their narrative and address reflection questions and
prompts provided by facilitators. These questions cover a spectrum of aspects,
including reflecting on emotions, resources utilized, and lessons learned
throughout the ethical decision-making journey.

In the remainder of this section, we provide more details about our process of
developing Ethics Pathways.

###  3.1. Motivation and Goals

Our primary goal in developing Ethics Pathways was to craft an activity that
could help us understand participants’ experiences engaging with ethics and
decision-making in their research. Specifically, we sought to understand how
participants reflect on their previous encounters with ethical issues in their
research, the actions they took, and the broader context of these decisions.

Our focus on action and decision-making draws on research that conceptualizes
ethics and values as inherently being a part of lived experiences and human
actions (Frauenberger et al., 2016; Le Dantec et al., 2009; JafariNaimi et
al., 2015). A body of research extends this conception of ethics as situation-
dependent and lived experience to focus on the emotional, affective, and felt
aspects of engaging in ethical action (Su et al., 2021; Garrett et al., 2023;
Popova et al., 2022). In order to surface researchers’ experiences engaging
with ethical issues, we are inspired by reflective design’s call for using
design to help support users’ critical reflection that can ”highlight the
choices one makes in everyday activities and to offer up new choices that may
not have been in the user’s awareness” (Sengers et al., 2005)—in our case, we
focus on HCI and design researchers making these reflections. Given the
personal nature of ethical issues, we are attentive to the fact that some
participants may feel that these reflections are personal and sensitive.

We also recognize that ethical action and decision-making are not solely based
on individual actions, but occur within complex assemblages, including
societal norms, institutional contexts, and organizational policies (Shilton,
2013, 2018). Much work has shown how ethical action in industry research and
design is affected by organizational factors including social power, relations
among different stakeholders, institutional infrastructures and resources, and
different incentives that institutions and individual researchers might have
(Chivukula et al., 2020; Wong, 2021; Gray and Chivukula, 2019; Ali et al.,
2023; Widder et al., 2023; Popova et al., 2024; Madaio et al., 2020). Our
design goal of Ethics Pathways is thus not only to facilitate a deeper
understanding of an individual’s own stance on ethical matters, but to also
shed light on the interactions between individuals, their environment, and
institutional structures.

Specifically, our design goals for Ethics Pathways are to empower participants
to:

  1. (1)

Engage in a thorough, step-by-step reflection of past ethical issues,
enhancing their understanding and insight;

  2. (2)

Share their lived and emotional narratives, along with their preferred level
of obfuscation when designing characters or describing stories;

  3. (3)

Map and analyze the institutional infrastructure that played a role in their
ethical experiences by fostering a sense of embodiment in their recounting;

  4. (4)

Envision alternative actions and decisions they would have liked to take in an
ideal situation;

  5. (5)

Discuss the complexities and interactions with other individuals and
communities involved in addressing ethical issues.

###  3.2. Design Inspiration

To create an activity to help researchers reflect in ways that would achieve
the above goals, we considered various metaphors, narrative styles, and world-
building mechanics to structure our activity.

The main metaphor we use in the activity is ”paths.” We initially explored a
range of metaphors in our early design explorations, inspired by ethics flow
to represent a complex ecosystem before settling on the metaphor of paths. The
chosen metaphor, paths, not only captures the dynamic nature of ethical
decision-making but also provides a familiar and versatile framework for
building narratives. This approach allows for step-by-step consideration,
accommodating the complexities of ethical experiences. We also explored
various narrative styles and world-building mechanics. We delved into methods
like ’Timelines (Wong and Nguyen, 2021)’ and ’Ethics Pondscape (Pillai et al.,
2022)’, as well as design approaches like ’user journey mapping’ (Endmann and
Keßner, 2016) and the hero’s journey (Sarantou et al., 2018), ultimately
choosing pathways as our primary modality for its simplicity and ability to
provoke deep reflection.

Our design process also incorporated insights from world-building mechanics,
emphasizing path-building inspired by ’Dungeons and Dragons (Crigger, 2021).’
Additionally, we drew from the interactive aspects of ’Saboteur (Moyersoen,
2004) ’ to enhance the design of our paths as cards. The integration of
diverse narrative forms and game mechanics aimed to address multiple levels of
experience, encompassing procedural nuances, roles, infrastructural dynamics,
and emotional journeys. This approach seeks to facilitate a meaningful
exploration of ethical issues, providing participants with the ability to
reflect on both their individual experience, as well as the broader context of
their decision-making

Subsequently, we iterated on the design of the method multiple times, which we
explain more in Section 3.4.

###  3.3. Pilot Sessions and Playtesting Sessions

Table 1. Playtesting Session Participants _No._ |  _Current roles_ |  _Research experience_ |  _Research area_
---|---|---|---
P1 |  PhD candidate and IRB student member |  3 Years academic research |  Trust and adoption of technology
P2 |  PhD Student |  1 Year academic and 9 years industry research |  Tangible interfaces, Games, and VR technologies
P3 |  Assistant professor |  7 Years academic research |  Critical making, Emotional AI
P4 |  PhD candidate |  3 years academic research, 7 years industry research |  UX Research, Queer HCI, Tangible embodied interaction
P5 |  PhD student |  2 Years academic research |  Emotional AI
P6 |  PhD candidate |  15 Years academic research with multiple institutions |  Urban planning, Afrofuturism, media studies

We conducted pilot sessions and playtesting sessions with participants at a
research university in the southeastern region of the United States between
October 2023 and January 2024. We conducted informal pilot sessions 111We
distinguish between pilot sessions and playtesting sessions in our paper.
During pilot sessions, we informally engaged participants in activities
designed to assess the viability of our initial idea of activities, design
artifacts, and query protocol. We did not collect data during pilot sessions,
many of which involved colleagues who were already familiar with our research
motivations. We refined our approach based on feedback from the pilot
sessions. This iterative process helped us develop Ethics Pathways by
considering participant feedback in conjunction with our original motivations
and goals. across three sessions with four participants to test and iterate
early versions of our activity, to develop the basic structure and mechanics,
leading to the development of the five steps as outlined in Section 3.

We then conducted more formal playtesting sessions with six participants,
where we recorded the sessions and asked participants for feedback in a more
structured way. The purpose of the playtesting was to gather feedback and
refine our activity’s designed elements (such as how to represent paths and
characters) and facilitation procedures, rather than formally evaluating the
activity. The protocol for playtesting sessions was approved by a university
institutional review board. Playtesting sessions lasted between 50-90 minutes.

We purposively recruited participants from our university who self-identified
as HCI or design researchers, and self-reported experiencing ethical issues or
dilemmas while doing their research projects and have taken actions. Six
people responded to our recruitment call, with a range of 2–15 years of
research experience. Participants ranged from Ph.D. students in their first
year to their final year and an assistant professor. (See Table 1 for
participant information.222 We did not ask participants for their gender but
did ask them for their preferred pronouns to help facilitate our interactions
with them. For anonymity, we do not share gender pronouns in the table, but
report that 4 participants use she/her pronouns; 1 uses he/him pronouns; and 1
uses they/them pronouns.) While we recruited participants from an academic
setting, we purposively sought to include participants who also had industry
research experiences, ending up with 2 (P2 and P4). One of these participants
(P4) reflected on an incident that occurred while they were an industry
researcher.

We requested feedback from each participant regarding the effectiveness of our
method with a short semi-structured interview at the end of the playtesting
session. This included asking about aspects that worked well and those that
could be enhanced. Additionally, we asked participants whether they would
consider using this activity in the future and under what circumstances. We
were also interested in their opinions on the potential adoption of our method
by others. Collecting this feedback helped us understand how our activity
might work at facilitating reflections on ethical action and decision-making,
and helped us identify areas for improvement.

After each of the pilot sessions and playtesting sessions, the session
facilitator(s) would share their notes and reflections from the session with
all the authors about what worked well, what could be improved, and
participants’ feedback. Through these discussions, we iteratively refined the
actions that participants take in each activity step, the physical design
materials used in the activity, and our facilitation techniques and
strategies.

###  3.4. Iteration of Design and Facilitation

During initial pilot sessions, we brainstormed a range of metaphors and
activities that might help participants reflect on their experiences with
ethical action and decision-making, including paths, flowing rivers, and
ecosystems. We also considered having participants reflect on their past
experiences by retelling their stories as metaphorical ”superheroes” with
different powers and weaknesses. The pilot sessions helped us identify that
the ”paths” metaphor worked well to help participants think through different
past actions and decisions. After pilot sessions, we set out to create an
activity that would let participants reflect on their past actions by
representing them as a path; think about various characters or stakeholders
involved in their experience; and consider the role of their institutional or
organizational context.

We created the first version of Ethics Pathways for our playtest sessions,
which we continued to iterate across our playtest sessions in response to
participant feedback. In early playtest sessions, our focus on the ”paths”
metaphors led us to design an initial version of an activity where
participants created a physical map of a complex landscape representing their
ethical journey, seeking to immerse participants fully in the metaphorical
world. Early iterations involved a set of printed cards representing different
path steps, 3D-printed vehicles that could represent different characters and
stakeholders that move along the path, and 3D-printed environmental elements
to represent resources or contextual factors (such as a wall to symbolize
feeling trapped, mountainous terrain to indicate the ups and downs, or thorns
to represent difficulty within the path). The main goal of these sessions was
to gather feedback and ideas on how to improve the various elements of the
activity, rather than evaluating the content of participants’ reflections and
stories generated during the activity.

Based on playtesting feedback, several key insights emerged. Participants
found the activity confusing due to the diversity of elements and the number
of instruction steps we initially had to introduce each of the elements. To
address this, we simplified the activity. Simplification was identified as a
crucial step forward. Consequently, we removed aspects of the activity that
involved using 3D-printed vehicles and removed the use of 3D-printed
environmental elements, as these were deemed unnecessarily complex. We found
it more effective to concentrate on path design in the activity, and to prompt
participants to reflect on the role of other stakeholders and contextual
resources through the facilitators’ questions.

With a renewed focus on the path design part of the activity, we found that
participants were interested in exploring what could have been done in
different situations had different decisions been made. To facilitate this, we
redesigned our path cards to be double-sided(Fig. 2-A). We introduced
different background colors to visually differentiate between actual
experiences and alternative paths of action. This color variation allows
participants to easily indicate whether their expressed thoughts represent the
way they have chosen in the previous experience or speculative alternatives.

Additionally, we shifted from using 3D-printed vehicle figures to more
abstract and minimalistic character forms—a set of pawns–to help simplify the
process of describing characters and stakeholders (as early playtesting
participants spent a long time debating the metaphorical meaning of the
different 3D-printed vehicles, which took away time from describing and
reflecting on their past actions) (Fig. 2-B). While we simplified the number
of steps in the overall activity, we also found it helpful to create a printed
set of instructions and activity overview sheets to give to participants at
the beginning of the main activities, helping them understand the whole
activity before starting.

Figure 2. The final kit of materials for Ethics Pathways: A - new path card
sets including a diverse set of paths in various shapes. The light and dark
versions allow participants to distinguish between actual experiences and
speculations about alternative paths that could have occurred; B - characters
and stakeholders are now represented by using colorful pawn game pieces; C -
providing sticky notes for participants to annotate their paths to describe
incidents and endings.

In the next section, we will describe the specific details and step-by-step
instructions for using our final version of Ethics Pathways.

##  4\. Introducing Ethics Pathways

In this section, we present the steps of Ethics Pathways. The main
contributions of this paper are the proposed design activity itself, and our
reflections on what we learned while developing and facilitating the activity.
Analyzing the content of participants’ narratives and experiences from the
playtest sessions is beyond the scope of this paper; however, we provide
illustrative examples of participants’ stories throughout this section to
illustrate the types of reflections that might occur during each step of
Ethics Pathways.

Each subsection begins by providing an overview of the facilitation
instructions given to participants for each step and a description of the
purpose of that particular step. Additionally, with their consent, we have
included examples of our participants’ works to share their experiences and
further illustrate the process.

The activity consists of an introduction followed by four high-level steps,
which can be summarized as follows:

  * •

Step 1: Sensitizing Participants to Their Ethical Issues (5 mins)

  * •

Step 2: Incident Description (10 mins)

  * •

Step 3: Character Design (15 mins)

  * •

Step 4: Path Design and Action Notes (30 mins)

  * •

Step 5: Reflection and Emotion Walk-through (15 mins)

The following materials are used during our activity (Fig 2):

  * •

Path Cards and Blank Cards (2in x 2in)

  * •

Two Sizes of Sticky Notes (3in x 3in, 1.5in x 2in)

  * •

Multicolor pawns

  * •

Pens and Markers

  * •

A0 Sized Background Paper (approximately 33in x 47 in)

Before starting the activity, we set these materials up on a desk. Each
participant sat at the desk where materials were prepared. For our playtest
sessions, we also included consent forms on the desk and set up a camera to
record participants’ actions. These are not inherently necessary to facilitate
Ethics Pathways as an activity but can be useful if Ethics Pathways is being
used as part of a research study.

###  4.1. Step 1: Sensitizing participants to ethical issues

We began to engage with participants before the activity session itself.
Before the activity session, we emailed each participant, providing them with
detailed information that included their session schedule, date, and location.
This information was sent individually via email 3–7 days prior to the
session. We also encouraged participants to reflect on any ethical issues they
may have encountered during their previous or current research experiences and
the actions they have taken to resolve them. We emphasized that if they have
any questions or concerns, they should feel free to contact the researchers
during this period.

Each session consisted of 1 participant and 1-2 facilitators. Once the
participant arrived on the day of the activity session, we first asked them
about their background information and demographics. The questions also
included their previous research experience (e.g., research experience, types
of research, organization types, and roles) and their exposure to ethical
issues. By collecting this information, the facilitator can gain insights into
the participant’s backgrounds and experiences, which can help tailor the
activity content and discussions accordingly. The participant and facilitator
start to build rapport during this step. It also creates an opportunity for
the participant to reflect on their own research experiences and any
engagement with ethics.

We provided the participant with a single sheet of instructions outlining an
overview of the main activity. This guided them to understand the various
activities included in the entire session. Throughout the activity, we
encouraged them to think aloud, sharing their thoughts and feelings as they
participated.

###  4.2. Step 2: Incident Description

Figure 3. We provide the intersection path card with a blank sticky note to
describe the incident at the beginning of the main activity. We inform them to
write down the initial moments of the story they bring up during the activity.

To begin the activity, we placed the intersection path card (Fig. 3) in the
center of the map. We asked the participant to share their interpretation of
the intersection and use it as a starting point to tell their story. The
facilitator told the participant:

> Facilitator: “Now, let’s take a moment to delve into the ethical issue
> you’ve encountered. Please share with me the initial interaction you had
> with the ethical issue. How did you first come across it? Reflect on the
> origin of the issue and consider how you became aware of it. Once you have
> formed an understanding, please write it down next to the square sticky note
> provided beside the path card in the middle of the map.”

We allowed the participant to describe the incident as they wanted. If the
participant wanted to share their experience in specific detail, they could
describe it on the incident sticky note, or if they preferred to provide a
more abstract representation of the event due to privacy and confidentiality
concerns, they could describe it in a more obfuscated way.

Figure 4. Example of incident card created by P2 in step 3

####  4.2.1. Example

P2 recounted a story that highlighted the ethical dilemmas associated with
data collection and its ultimate recipients related to a past project. In this
particular incident (Fig. 4), P2 and his colleagues collected data without
being fully aware of its intended use, which turned out to be for the police
and soldiers, which P2 felt raised ethical concerns. The lack of clear
communication regarding the original intent of the project’s funding
contributed to this issue.

###  4.3. Step 3: Character Design

In this step, the participant was instructed to design characters representing
themselves and other stakeholders in their stories. They were provided with a
set of multicolored pawn game pieces which they could label. These labels
could be identifying names or pseudonyms (again, allowing participants to
obfuscate their stories in case of privacy concerns). We also encouraged our
participants to provide additional information about the characters, such as
their roles or associations (e.g., advisor, manager, participant, etc.).

####  4.3.1. Example

P6 addressed ethical dilemmas in the context of redevelopment and urban
planning projects. Their story featured different stakeholders (Fig. 5),
including three professors with different academic positions (assistant,
adjunct, and associate). The project involved collaborating with the city’s
development department and local centers, and the characters in the story
reflected not only individuals involved in the design process but also the
institutes and organizations that took part in the decision-making journey.

Figure 5. Left: P6 moving character pawns while explaining her story; Right:
examples of characters designed by P6 representing stakeholders, including an
adjunct professor, local gardener, developers, assistant professor, associate
professor, and a local education center.

###  4.4. Step 4: Path Design and Action Notes

After selecting characters in their stories, the participant was instructed to
reflect on their actions and the role of characters in each step of their
journey. This reflection was prompted by the use of two design elements: path
cards and action notes.

The participants were provided with path cards that represent the steps of
their story as it unfolds from beginning to end. Path cards were printed 2in x
2in cards that we created, which depicted various types of roads including
straight roads, intersections, U-turns, winding roads, and blocks (Fig 2-A).
They were encouraged to express their feelings and experiences through the
shape of the road and other details. They could also draw or write their own
different terrains or elements on the path cards to represent complexity, such
as obstructions like dead ends, stop signs, or potholes to represent
distractions. Light and dark versions of the path cards allow participants to
distinguish between their actual experiences and speculations about
alternative paths that could have occurred.

Additionally, we provided participants with action notes, small-sized 1.5in x
2in sticky notes, which allowed participants to annotate each path step to
describe their actions, others’ reactions, or the results of their actions.
Participants were also asked to affix one action note for each corresponding
path card.

Combined, the path cards and action notes allow the participant to visually
and narratively express their thoughts and experiences while reflecting on
their journey. The facilitator introduced these elements by saying:

> Facilitator: ”While designing the path, you can describe the alternative
> path as well. For example, you can describe a situation in which you were
> aware of a possible action but couldn’t execute it at the time. You can also
> describe a new path or action you discovered through reflection after the
> situation or while designing the map today. To represent alternative paths
> or actions that didn’t happen in real-life experiences, you can flip the
> card and use a card with a different background color but the same shape.”

We concluded the path design exercise by requesting the participants to
describe the endings of their stories and the factors that influenced the
endings and to write those down on a sticky note and place them on their map
as well.

Figure 6. P5 designing her paths and adding action notes in Step 4

####  4.4.1. Example

P5’s paths (Fig. 6) revolved around the judgment and thought process regarding
the issues that arose from the lack of sufficient prior notification to her
research participants about the potential emotional discomfort they may
experience during their involvement in a research project on emotional AI
(EAI). She depicted the actions that caused the problems using path cards that
had roads with holes, representing her mistakes. She used path cards that had
blocked roads to portray actions that couldn’t be taken due to opposition or
the input of participants. For example, she wanted to use a real EAI system,
but due to ethical concerns related to data training, her advisor made her use
a wizard-of-oz EAI system. So, she placed a path card with a blocked road to
symbolize an obstacle preventing her from using the real EAI system.
Additionally, while reflecting, she depicted alternative paths by flipping the
cards, indicating the actions she would have taken if given the chance. For
example, she learned from this experience that users find it difficult to
request pauses or share their emotions with researchers, even when
experiencing emotional frustration (Fig. 7). She emphasized the importance of
researchers paying more attention to understanding users’ emotions while
participating in her study.

Figure 7. P5’s session results

###  4.5. Step 5: Reflection and Emotion Walk-through

After completing the path design, we engaged the participant in revisiting
their maps of their journey. By inviting participants to walk through their
stories once again, we sought to gather a more detailed and nuanced
understanding of their experiences. We encouraged them to recount their
stories and provide descriptions of the stakeholders involved at different
points along their journey. To capture a comprehensive understanding of their
journey, we posed reflection questions to the participants. These questions
covered a wide range of aspects, including stakeholders, emotions, resources,
communities, barriers, changes, and lessons learned. Here are example
questions we used in step 5:

  * •

What were people’s reactions along the way?

  * •

Were there any stakeholder concerns or feedback that influenced the project?

  * •

What resources did you have along the way?

  * •

If you could change one thing during the journey, what would you choose?

  * •

What are the key takeaways or lessons you’ve gained from this experience?

We also prompted the participant to consider whose perspective should be taken
into account when determining the success of the journey. In cases where
multiple paths were possible, the participant was encouraged to describe each
potential ending. Furthermore, if the outcome was portrayed as positive or
negative, the participant was asked to elaborate on why they felt that way, to
gain a deeper understanding of their journeys and the various factors that
influenced their ultimate outcomes.

Figure 8. P4 session’s results with three paths, including one path they went
through before and two alternative paths. We replicated their map using our
finalized kit, and the composition of our map was identical to their original
version.

####  4.5.1. Example

P4 described an ethical dilemma they faced when they were responsible for UX
research for a multi-level marketing company at the design agency they were a
part of (Fig. 8). They discussed the ethical issue of conducting research for
a company that was not ethically sound. However, they could not refuse the
task and continued with it, which led to problems. During the workshop, they
designed three possible paths to address this dilemma. One path involved
discussing the actual events that took place. A second path explored the
actions they could have taken at that time but didn’t. The third path showed
new possible ways that they could consider during the session’s path design,
which they hadn’t known about before. P4 mentioned the difficulty of raising
the issue due to being in an entry-level position at the time and the lack of
sufficient organizational support. They also discussed the multi-faceted
nature of the organizational decision-making structure as a contributing
factor to the issue. Reflecting on the activity as a whole, P4 said, “Oh, it
just happened? I think that when I recall it, I was there were no decisions
that I could have made. Like I literally didn’t even think that I could build
a map out of this issue because I thought well it just did the project and I
didn’t. (…) So I mean, maybe there’s some way to differentiate in the cards
like potential avenues versus actual avenues. I realized these were things
that I could have done. But I didn’t do. And having some cards built in to
talk about things that were possible like on reflection like what was possible
but was maybe closed off to me for whatever reason I think would be really
helpful. (….) I like the challenge of having to actually think through the map
because it made me realize that there were these possibilities, that there
were these avenues and it made me more. Reflective of what was available to
me, or maybe what was not available to me.” Through a walk-through, they were
able to think about the issue from multiple perspectives and consider the
possibilities of alternate actions.

##  5\. Discussion

We have introduced a structured, step-by-step approach designed specifically
for HCI and design researchers to thoroughly examine and reflect on their
engagement with ethics during their research experiences. In this section, we
discuss three themes: 1) our self-reflections on how our design process and
facilitation practices helped us achieve our design goals; 2) how we can
understand ethical actions in practice through the lens of ethics engagement;
and 3) how we consider Ethics Pathways in relation to other ethical reflection
and speculation activities and consider future ways to adapt and use Ethics
Pathways.

###  5.1. Reflections on our Design Process and Facilitation Practices

As described in Section 3.1, we described a set of goals that we wanted Ethics
Pathways to help scaffold several actions for participants:

  * •

Engage in a thorough, step-by-step reflection of past ethical issues,
enhancing their understanding and insight;

  * •

Share their lived and emotional narratives, along with their preferred level
of obfuscation when designing characters or describing stories;

  * •

Map and analyze the institutional infrastructure that played a role in their
ethical experiences by fostering a sense of embodiment in their recounting;

  * •

Envision alternative actions and decisions they would have liked to take in an
ideal situation;

  * •

Discuss the complexities and interactions with other individuals and
communities involved in addressing ethical issues.

In this subsection, we discuss how choices we made during our iterative design
process and how choices we made in our facilitation of the activity
collectively support these goals. Additionally, we consider how design and
facilitation choices supported participants in anonymizing or obfuscating
potentially identifiable details throughout the activity.

####  5.1.1. Achieving our Design Goals through Choices in Our Design
Iterations and Facilitation Practices

Our high-level goal was to provide an activity that would scaffold
participants’ ability to describe and reflect on their past experiences with
ethics engagement. There are many elements that we wanted participants to
describe and reflect on (including step-by-step actions, lived and emotional
experiences, institutional infrastructure, envisioning alternate actions, and
discussing interactions with other stakeholders). While at first, we
considered creating different mini-activities or steps to focus on each of
these elements separately, our iterative design and playtesting process led us
to focus the final version of Ethics Pathways on the path design steps and
integrate consideration of these elements into the ways participants did their
path design.

Initially, our focus in character design (Step 3) was on having participants
meticulously define the attributes, abilities, and traits of the central
characters in their stories, to create fleshed-out personas that could be
represented by 3D-printed vehicles. However, upon reflection among the authors
and the realization that early participants spent a lot of time focusing on
character traits, we shifted our emphasis. Instead of solely examining the
competencies and individual traits of stakeholders, we directed our attention
toward understanding the roles and interactions among these stakeholders
within their pathways. This led us to represent characters as pawn pieces,
with labels that could be used to indicate their roles and could be easily
”moved” along the path to depict the dynamic social interactions in
participants’ narratives. This allowed us to surface how these social
interactions influenced participants’ experiences of engaging with ethics.

Considering the path design part of the activity, in early iterations of our
activity, we initially assumed a linear progression in participants’ stories
of ethics engagement, with a clear starting and ending point. However,
feedback from early pilot participants challenged this assumption. Some
struggled to identify a definitive endpoint or resolution, while others
described parallel activities leading to diverging paths. This prompted us to
realize that our approach needed to support less linear explorations of
participants’ journeys. Consequently, in the final version, the path begins at
the center of the map (Step 2) and can branch out in multiple directions
without a predefined endpoint.

Additionally, participants expressed interest in exploring alternative
decisions when designing their paths or when doing the walk-through (Steps 4
and 5). We recognized the value of this approach for fostering critical
reflection, by allowing participants to consider these alternatives or to help
them reason through why they made the choices they did on their actual path.
Consequently, in the final version of the activity, we explicitly provided
support for participants to speculate about alternate paths using dark path
cards and verbally suggesting to participants that they could depict alternate
paths if they wished to do so. This allowance for envisioning alternative
actions and decisions facilitated participants’ critical reflection process,
enabling them to articulate desired actions and recognize the barriers and
constraints affecting their choices.

We also refined our facilitation of the study steps. One aspect we considered
at the beginning of our design process was whether to incorporate think-aloud
during the study. We debated between having participants explain their
thoughts after completing the entire path or having them think aloud while
designing each step of the path. Based on pilot sessions, we found that
incorporating think-aloud naturally would be more effective in understanding
participants’ thought processes in their path design.

Reflecting on these decisions helped us think more about how we were
conceptualizing ethics engagement and ethical flows, which we discuss more in
Section 5.2.

####  5.1.2. Fostering Confidential Discussions through Obfuscation,
Abstraction, and Anonymization

When discussing ethics within situated and sensitive contexts, it might be
difficult for researchers to talk about prior ethical issues encountered in
work due to confidentiality, privacy, IRB protocols, power imbalances among
research collaborators, or other concerns. These might hinder open reflection
and discussions about their experiences engaging with ethics. We consistently
considered approaches to support open yet confidential discussions about
ethics engagement. Hence, an approach that involves creating characters and
using narratives, allows participants to describe their experiences at various
levels of obfuscation based on their individual comfort.

When creating characters, participants are asked to select a character pawn
for themselves and label other pawn tokens to represent characters involved in
the journey. These labels can be pseudonyms (as well as identifying names).
The participants can assign different roles or associations to these
characters at a level of detail of their choice, such as ”manager” or any
other relevant position. By utilizing characters to represent stakeholders and
assigning them roles within the ethics journey, participants can explore the
dynamics and relationships involved without revealing specific identities or
organizations.

Similarly, with the use of path cards, participants have the flexibility to
provide specific or abstract descriptions of their paths and actions. This
flexibility allows participants to navigate confidentiality concerns by
abstracting sensitive details while still conveying the essence of their
ethics engagement. For instance, participants may use symbols like a blocked
road path card to signify barriers encountered, while also being able to add
depth by sharing the nature of the obstruction without disclosing identifying
details about the specifics of that barrier.

Regarding facilitation, we also considered the physical location where we
conducted the activity to safeguard confidential or sensitive information. In
part, these choices were made in response to potential participants expressing
concerns about confidentiality during recruitment. As part of these measures,
we made sure that the sessions took place within closed environments and with
one participant at a time to minimize exposure to others. Additionally,
participants were assured of the confidentiality of their information, with
explicit communication about the purpose of data usage and the exclusion of
sensitive content from the dataset. During the activity, participants were
given the option to designate certain information as ”off the record” if they
wished to exclude it from the analysis. These measures aimed to foster trust
and confidence among participants, create a safe space where participants feel
comfortable sharing their experiences, and enable the participants to engage
in meaningful dialogue without apprehension about privacy concerns.

We next turn to discuss how our design and facilitation choices helped us
critically reflect on our own conceptual lens of ethics engagement, and how
that helped us think in new ways about ethical flows in practice.

###  5.2. Ethics Engagement as a Lens for Understanding Ethical Flows in
Practice

To understand people’s ethics engagements—the array of actions taken to
operationalize ethics—we use our design activity to surface stories of ethics
flows. Rather than focusing on outcomes which is technical and design research
often looks to when assessing ethics (such as identifying downstream harms and
negative impacts) (Selbst et al., 2019; Lindley et al., 2017), we use the path
activity to shift our focus to ethics flow, which illustrates how individuals
navigate ethical dilemmas intertwined with the social values of the
individual, the organization, and the specific contextual environment.
Interdisciplinary research drawing on legal and policy perspectives highlights
that legitimate and ethical action is not solely dependent on outcomes, but
also requires processes that are seen as ethical and legitimate (Selbst et
al., 2019; Freeman, 2000; Koops, 2008). By shifting our focus from outcomes to
the flow, Ethics Pathways unravels the complexities of the research process,
illuminating how individuals navigate their engagement with ethics.
Highlighting what current practices and processes look like in organizational
contexts and opening up discussion about what improved practices and processes
might look like. Furthermore, some participants opt to omit an ending point of
their ethical journey, or they arrive at the realization that a definitive
solution may not exist. The design of the activity supports this,
acknowledging and respecting the intricacies of non-linear narratives and
recognizing that ethical dilemmas often do not follow a straightforward path
and sometimes either do not have a resolution or the meaning of ”resolved” is
not shared between the stakeholders.

Through our activity, we observed that participants’ ethical dilemmas are
specific to their organizational and institutional settings. These factors
play a significant role in shaping their ethics engagement and, eventually,
the flow. To exemplify this, we share several example stories from our play-
test participants:

  * •

P2 shared that his flow of ethics engagement was shaped by the complicated
relationships between stakeholders that involved soldiers in the defense
field, police, and funding institutions. With the pawn pieces set within the
paths constructed by P2, they showcased their engagement with ethical tension
caused by military personnel and police officers receiving research data from
research institutions.

  * •

P4 used Ethics Pathways to paint a picture of power structures within the
organization, discussing the moral dilemmas faced by a junior researcher when
working on an unethical corporate project. Despite recognizing the company’s
unethical practices, the participant felt constrained by their position within
the organizational hierarchy and struggled to refuse participation, which
conflicted with their personal ethical standards. By going through the path,
P4 reflected on moments of personal introspection and the influence of
organizational structures on their decisions, steered by the questions from
the facilitator.

  * •

P6 shared their journey of transparency and trust. As an assistant professor
collaborating with a senior professor on a project funded by a government
agency, P6 found that undisclosed political motivations emerged at the end of
the project. This led to frustration among research participants. Feeling
powerless as the lead researcher on individual studies within the project, P6
highlighted structural issues stemming from disparities in stakeholder
information and unclear communication. Despite these challenges, they
recognized instances where clearer communication could have been initiated to
address issues more effectively using the alternate pathways.

In our research, we encouraged participants to reflect on their past
experiences as a way to construct in-depth narratives of engaging with the
ethics flows. We aimed to capture the multifaceted layers involved in ethical
decision-making. Echoing Durgahee’s perspective on the value of reflection
through storytelling (Durgahee, 1997), our approach enabled participants to
critically recount their experiences and decisions, especially in situations
with ethical nuances or sensitivity. throughout the journey described by the
path highlights how engaging with ethics is a social process that often
involves interactions among stakeholders with varying goals and different
amounts of social power (Gray and Chivukula, 2019; Widder et al., 2023).
Through this activity, participants could either resolve ethical dilemmas or
gain deeper insight into the factors driving them through reflection.

Ethics Pathways helps us conceptualize ethics in a way that draws our
attention to ethics flows in practice (rather than focusing on outcomes).
Importantly, our focus on flows opens a problem space, highlighting how
research ethics are not solely decisions made by individual researchers but
are ongoing practices that are embedded and situated in a broader set of
interconnected affective experiences, institutional infrastructure, power
structures, and social relationships. The relationships are dynamic and
ongoing and are constantly being enacted (or challenged). This also builds on
some existing research, considering the affective experience and tacit skills
required when dealing with research failures (Howell et al., 2021) or building
relationships with community participants (Le Dantec and Fox, 2015). We
believe that this research suggests several new opportunities and directions
for HCI and design researchers interested in design for research ethics:

  * •

Designing ethical changes and interventions in organizational processes:
Ethics engagement, in part, depends on the organizational and institutional
context. What might it look like to consider ethics engagement at an
organizational or institutional level rather than an individual decision-
making level? Future work can further explore, probe, or seek to change
factors like organizational policies, programs, and structures. Through this
process, individuals are not only encouraged to reflect on their actions but
also provided with opportunities to understand events from various
perspectives, fostering a diversified approach to problem-solving.

  * •

Designing to help researchers navigate power-laden contexts in practice:
Researchers’ actions related to ethical engagement do not occur within a
vacuum but in a complex knot (Jackson et al., 2014) of institutional systems
and policies, as well as power-laden social interactions with other
researchers and stakeholders. Future work can consider investigating tools,
practices, or strategies that can help researchers navigate these social and
political contexts, acknowledging these social power differentials.

  * •

Design for ongoing reflection: Formal ethics documentation such as an IRB
often only occurs once at the beginning of the research process. Inspired by
reflective design (Sengers et al., 2005), reflection in action (Schön, 1992),
and our conceptualizing of ethics engagement as an ongoing, enacted set of
practices, we might create new tools that help support researchers’
reflections on their ethics engagements in an ongoing, long-term manner.

In our design activity, we recognized that ethics engagement transcends grand
ideas, emphasizing instead the significance of how individual perspectives are
actioned. Ethical engagement is the culmination of myriad small choices made
within specific contexts, akin to navigating a constantly shifting path or
flow. This flow or path is constantly changing and adapting, with twists and
turns just like the situations we face. The choices we make along the
way—taking a left turn, going back – are connected to how we feel about them
and are influenced by the broader landscape we traverse—the rules, safety
infrastructure, and fellow travelers (other stakeholders) on the journey.
Embedded within this dynamic is the necessity for critical reflection, which
serves as a compass to assess the fairness and justice of our decisions and
reminds us of the weight of responsibility they carry. This reflective process
not only informs our present actions but also reshapes the trajectory of
ethical flows and our paths, enabling us to make more informed choices and
fostering a diversified problem-solving approach that embraces varied
perspectives.

###  5.3. Considering Ethics Pathways in Relation to Other Design Activities
and Future Applications

We consider how Ethics Pathways builds on other design activities while
providing new perspectives, and we suggest future uses and application areas
for Ethics Pathways.

Many current design activities that consider ethics primarily focus on
speculating about potential ”downstream” ethical harms resulting from research
and development, often utilizing speculative methods like design fiction
(e.g., (Nathan et al., 2008b; Soden et al., 2019; Sturdee et al., 2021b;
Lindley et al., 2017; Ballard et al., 2019)). These activities aim to explore
the broader impacts of research and development outcomes. However, they often
overlook addressing the questions around ethics embedded within the
researchers’ situated and lived experience of the research process itself,
which Ethics Pathways highlights. Ethics Pathways also attempts to allow for
speculation on alternate pasts by allowing and encouraging speculation on what
could have been done in their specific situations by reflecting on what had
transpired before.

Other ethics-oriented speculation activities (Pater et al., 2022; Fiesler,
2019) have shown how design fiction and speculative design can be utilized to
reflect on research ethics, particularly as a way to consider the ethical
harms that can occur in research projects that are approved (or do not require
review) by an IRB, particularly when using publicly available data. Like our
work, these consider how ethics is an ongoing process beyond formal
documentation. In addition to these types of ethical issues, Ethics Pathways
also highlights how other social interactions and institutional dynamics in
the research process can require ethical engagement.

In addition, Gray et al. (Gray et al., 2022) proposed a scaffolding method to
assist HCI practitioners in contemplating ethical dilemmas. These tools and
activities serve as evidence of using design as a self-reflective tool;
however, their focus primarily lies in creating forward-looking plans for
practitioners rather than Ethics Pathways’ focus on reflecting on past
experiences and learning about other researchers’ practices. During our
sessions, participants are encouraged to reflect not just on their own actions
but also on the larger institutional dynamics, which encompass social and
physical infrastructures. By prompting contemplation of past events and the
intricate workings within institutions, we aim to cultivate a deeper
understanding that goes beyond individual or team behavior. This involves
exploring the complex interplay of institutional dynamics and their influence
on ethical decision-making.

####  5.3.1. Future Applications of Ethics Pathways

Overall, we find that Ethics Pathways is a resource-efficient research probe
for understanding individuals’ ethics engagement processes. It could be
applicable in a broad spectrum of environments, particularly in HCI and design
research. While our development of Ethics Pathways focused on participants
currently doing HCI research in academia (although some had prior industry
experience), we note that Ethics Pathways may also have applications beyond
this context.

Practitioners studying research and design ethics can leverage its potential
as a probe, providing a deeper understanding of how individuals navigate
ethical decisions in embodied and situated contexts. This aspect enables
facilitators and researchers to delve into participants’ narratives,
extracting valuable insights into the intricate processes of ethical flows.
Beyond research contexts, Ethics Pathways could be used to understand the
experiences of HCI researchers and practitioners grappling with ethical
considerations in technology development in industry. However, careful
consideration of confidentiality and anonymity may be required if participants
from the industry have concerns about nondisclosure agreements or potentially
sharing proprietary information. We believe that our design and facilitation
considerations surrounding obfuscation, abstraction, and anonymization would
allow industry participants to share their experiences of social interactions,
organizational barriers, and their felt emotions without violating any secrecy
agreements.

For helping researchers critically reflect on their own experiences, the
Ethics Pathways activity serves as a learning and reflection tool, fostering a
deeper understanding of one’s own ethics engagement processes. Several
participants in our playtesting sessions had new insights into their own
practices and potential alternatives they could have taken while participating
in the activity. The activity could be adopted and integrated into educational
contexts and used to aid in teaching students and new researchers how to think
reflexively and critically about ethical issues that emerge during their
research process. Also, the generated stories from participants can offer
versatile educational applications as well, serving as scenarios for ethics
education training, and as a complementary tool alongside others like the
Ethical Disclaimer (Gispen, [n. d.]) and Dilemma Postcards (Chivukula, 2021)
activities.

For future facilitators of Ethics Pathways, we note that we found that the
facilitation of the activity is a nuanced process, requiring substantial
effort from the facilitator. Despite its seemingly straightforward concept,
the facilitator plays a pivotal role in guiding participants through
reflective questions, ensuring a flexible and holistic exploration of ethical
challenges. Prior research using design activities in workshop settings has
highlighted that the design and parameters of the activities alone are not
enough to create a generative or reflective space for participants; the
facilitators’ choices in language, prompts to participants, responses to
participants’ questions, and their own understanding of the social context
also help create the conditions for participants’ ability to successfully
engage in the activity (Wong and Nguyen, 2021; Rosner et al., 2016; Andersen
and Wakkary, 2019). Our matching insights underscore the active role of the
facilitator.

For instance, we encouraged participants to engage in self-reflection
voluntarily while designing and reviewing their paths. As part of this
process, we invited and reminded participants to express their thoughts,
emotions, and reflections by placing path cards and describing their actions
at each step. When participants created alternative paths, we asked for some
reflective prompts to help participants draw connections between the fictional
alternative paths and their real-life experiences. Through this approach, we
prompt participants to explore and reflect on the factors that inspired them
to consider alternative options. Future facilitators of Ethics Pathways should
be conscious of the active role they can play in helping to prompt
participants to reflect throughout the activity.

##  6\. Conclusion

This paper introduces Ethics Pathways, a design activity for examining the
complexities of HCI and design researchers’ ethics engagement during their
research process. The activity is resource-efficient and guides participants
through sharing personal reflections. By depicting past experiences as a set
of paths (as well as speculative alternative paths of action), the activity
can serve both as a way to gain insight into participants’ past engagement
with ethics and can help participants self-reflect on their past actions.
Importantly, through reflections during our design and facilitation process,
we conceptualized ethics engagement as ongoing practices, rather than a set of
outcomes. This conceptualization allowed us to begin understanding connections
between individual affective experiences, social interactions across power
differences, and institutional goals. We suggest that a focus on ethics
engagement, its ongoing practices and flows opens up a new design space for
creating changes within institutions and social practices related to research.
The Ethics Pathways activity has potential future applications in various
contexts, serving researchers, educators, and technology professionals, where
it can be used to help enhance understanding of in-situ ethics and promote
responsible and ethical research practices.

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Figure 9. P6’s final results

##  Appendix A Narrative of P6 using Ethics Pathways

###  A.1. Incident

P6 was discussing her involvement as a junior assistant professor in a grant
project focused on the redevelopment of a historically lower-income
neighborhood, particularly incorporating urban agriculture into the
redevelopment plans.

###  A.2. Stakeholders

Various partners were involved, including local community members, city
agencies, educational institutions, an adjunct professor, an associate
professor, local gardeners, developers, and P6 itself.

###  A.3. Journey

P6 recounted their experience working on an urban planning grant project with
a senior faculty member at a university. The project focused on the
redevelopment of a historically lower-income neighborhood that had
transitioned from an industrial area to a residential one.

  * •

P6 depicted her involvement as a straightforward path initially: P6 received
an email invitation to participate in a grant proposal. They agreed to join
the project as co-investigators. P6 attended meetings and proceeded through
the initial stages of the project smoothly.

  * •

P6 depicted this process with a winding road card: The proposal writing
process commenced, involving collaboration and back-and-forth with
stakeholders. P6 mentioned specific entities involved, such as the local
education center and city development agencies. There were hierarchies and
identities within the project stakeholders.

  * •

P6 used the road card with potholes: P6’s involvement mainly revolved around
internal interactions during proposal preparation. P6 clarified that certain
individuals were not directly involved in the project, emphasizing the role of
the main investigator, who was the head of a local agency, and her own role as
an assistant professor. P6 thought that the main investigator sought promotion
and job advancement, which may have contributed to the project’s visibility.
There was significant press coverage during this phase, possibly due to the
popularity of urban agriculture at the time. The grant project was eventually
approved, marking a significant milestone in the process.

  * •

P6 described barricades and holes in the process, with bridges representing
progress and holes indicating potential problems: The holes were particularly
evident during discussions with the local community education center,
highlighting issues such as a lack of community involvement in the project
discussions. P6 and two other faculty members proposed ideas for gardens and
buildings with agricultural or natural features to a local agency. After
securing funding, they presented their ideas to the community, inviting input
and participation.

  * •

P6 designed the speculative paths regarding co-design with residents: P6
questioned whether there should have been earlier involvement with the
community before obtaining federal funding. They contemplated an alternative
scenario where earlier community involvement could have led to better
outcomes. P6 acknowledged that one of the faculty members had been actively
engaged with the community for a long time, contrasting her own involvement
primarily in university events. They suggested that earlier community
engagement could have prevented potential problems or concerns raised by the
community later in the process.

  * •

They divided responsibilities among themselves and others, including faculty
members and local activists. P6 integrated the project into her classes,
collaborating with students and community organizations. Classes were
conducted to incorporate the project’s themes into architecture, landscape
architecture, and urban planning coursework. P6 referred to an upcoming
community meeting where the project might be discussed further. P6 and others
were involved in developing garden ideas and working with community members.

  * •

There was ongoing interaction and problem-solving through meetings and
discussions. P6 encountered challenges with separate coursework and
involvement in the project. There’s a problem with community members getting
the impression that all the proposed ideas for redesigning the community will
be implemented, leading to negative associations with the project.

  * •

P6 designed left-side paths to illustrate interactions with stakeholders who
were left behind: Meanwhile, the redevelopment agency, in collaboration with
private developers, is heavily involved in the project, aiming to profit from
it by redeveloping the neighborhood, potentially leading to gentrification.
Private developers are putting up signs in the neighborhood indicating
impending development, despite the fact that they’ve forced people out of
buildings they own with the expectation of receiving federal grant dollars to
redevelop the area.

  * •

Ending: Despite the challenges and bumpy decisions, they continue working
together, and a mutual design plan is developed, including a demonstration
garden aimed at regenerating the polluted, post-industrial neighborhood.

###  A.4. Reflections

P6 was concerned about how the project’s success might have been used to
further agendas tied to gentrification and racial dynamics in the community,
even if that wasn’t what they had intended. She had reflected on how well-
meaning projects could end up being used for unintended purposes. P6 had also
learned the importance of managing expectations and recognizing the potential
for projects to be utilized in ways that did not align with their original
intentions. This reflected a deeper understanding of the complexities involved
in community projects.

###  A.5. Thoughts and Opinions about Ethics Pathways

She provided feedback on the facilitation method used, appreciating certain
aspects, such as the gradual approach to information dissemination and the use
of hand-drawn visuals. However, she also suggested improvements, such as the
need for more pawns and considerations regarding color choices, indicating a
thoughtful reflection on the process itself.