Ethics through aesthetics: a trefoil design research agenda

The products and systems we design transform society. As design encompasses ever more complex, ‘Ambient Intelligent’ technologies, its influence on society concurrently becomes increasingly complex, profound and ethically relevant. Designers have both an opportunity and responsibility to take this social influence explicitly into account in the design process, inspired by a vision on a desired social transformation. A challenge for design research is to find how to design for such social transformation. In the current paper we present three research-through-design approaches we are currently pursuing, namely (1) an explorative approach, (2) an in-depth approach, and (3) a cultural-societal approach. These approaches are illustrated with concrete design research work and results. The paper concludes with a preliminary evaluation of these approaches and a reflection on how these three design research approaches complement each other in terms of resulting design knowledge.