Ethical Risks:

1. Inaccessibility for Vulnerable Populations:

   • Risk: The design may exclude individuals with physical or cognitive impairments (e.g., people with broken legs, cognitive or visual impairments).
   • Implication: This raises concerns about fairness and inclusivity. Public designs should cater to all people using crosswalks, including those with disabilities.
   • Recommendation: Consider integrating alternative mechanisms or notifications that are accessible to these groups, such as auditory or tactile feedback systems.

2. Over-Engagement Leading to Safety Hazards:

   • Risk: Users might become too absorbed in the game, losing track of time or surroundings, potentially leading to unsafe crossings.
   • Implication: This presents a serious safety risk, as users may fail to notice traffic signals, endangering themselves and others.
   • Recommendation: Implement strict time limits, automatic disengagement when lights turn green, and notifications to alert users to stop engaging in the game when it is time to cross.

Responsibility and Ethical Boundaries:

1. Responsibilities Taken by the Designers:

   • Traffic Signal Awareness: The design will detect traffic light changes, automatically ending the interaction when it is time for users to cross.
   • Ethical Justification: This ensures that the primary goal (safety while crossing) is met, helping users refocus on their surroundings when necessary.
   • Risk Management: Limiting the game's duration based on traffic light cycles mitigates the risk of over-engagement.
   • Preventing Game Addiction: Monitoring and discouraging excessive engagement in the game to prevent distraction or addiction.
   • Ethical Justification: Continuous use of the product could lead to impaired focus, countering the design’s core safety goals.

2. Responsibilities Not Taken by the Designers:

   • User Misbehavior (e.g., Hacking or Exploiting the Game): Designers are not responsible for individuals who misuse or manipulate the system in unethical ways, such as hacking.
   • Ethical Justification: Responsibility is placed on the users to engage with the system responsibly, and there is an expectation that users follow the intended purpose of the design.

Potential Unethical Situations:

1. Exclusion of People with Disabilities: Failing to consider alternative accessibility options could be seen as discriminatory.
2. Over-Engagement in the Game: There is a risk of creating the very problem (distraction) that the design is trying to mitigate if the users become too engrossed in the gameplay.

Ethical Implications:

1. Safety vs. Engagement Balance: While the design encourages safer behavior, it must carefully manage the trade-off between engagement and the user’s situational awareness.
2. Inclusivity in Design: Public installations should prioritize universal accessibility. Ignoring this might reflect negatively on the ethical responsibility of the designers.
3. User Accountability: By clearly defining the boundaries of user responsibility, the design maintains its ethical stance, though misbehavior like hacking remains an area of potential risk.

Conclusion:

The ethical risks involved in this design focus on accessibility, over-engagement, and user misbehavior. The ethical responsibilities of the designers are focused on ensuring safety, limiting addiction, and catering to the majority of users. However, further measures could be taken to address accessibility concerns for all pedestrians.

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Ethical Disclaimer Canvas

Current Situation

• Young people use smartphones while crossing road.
• They need to aware of the risk but they still do it.
• They usually use smartphones when waiting for green light, and immediately cross the road without refocusing their surrounding.

Stakeholders

• University students
• Car drivers
• Other pedestrians
• City government
• Developers

Our Design Intentions

We want our target users, university students, to shift attention from smartphones to our design. Our design aims to solve risky smartphone usage while crossing road instead of smartphone addiction because our user research showed that people often use their phones at familiar intersections but avoid them in unfamiliar areas.

Unethical Situations with Our Design

• People with broken legs, cognitive and visual impairment won't be able to play our design.
• People might become too absorbed in the game, causing them to lose track of time and cross the road without noticing.

We Take Responsibility For

• The installation location we choose should be at a signalized crosswalk between two sides of the street, as the game needs to detect the traffic light duration and force users to quit when the light turns green. This ensures they focus on crossing safely rather than remaining absorbed in the game..
• We need to pay attention to people's game addiction because it can lead to negative consequences, such as impaired focus and reduced safety awareness.

We Don't Take Responsibility For

• People's misbehavior, such as hacking, or exploiting game mechanics, is outside the ethical scope of the project because the focus is on promoting responsible usage, and ensuring a safe environment for all participants.