Simone Barbosa

Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This is the system that I have therefore designed for you…: Taking responsibility for what we create.

2 PM IST Nov 08, 2020

Abstract

Design matters, both the product and the process. As designers, we are responsible for what we create and unleash on the world. However, we have often seen a gradual shift of responsibility towards “the system” or “the algorithm”. As we increasingly imbue digital technologies with learning capabilities, we run the risk of distancing ourselves further from the consequences our own creations bring to individuals, societies, and the world at large. For us to reduce harm and harness our full potential to do good through our designs, we need to face the challenges head on and take responsibility for what we create, as we create it. In this talk, I will discuss how semiotic engineering has been addressing this issue by proposing that designers should assume a first-person role in their designs and by equipping them with epistemic tools to support the design process.

Biography

Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa is Associate Professor at the Informatics Department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), where she teaches, advises and conducts research in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Level 2 researcher in CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development in Brazil), her current research interests involve: model-based interactive systems design; data science, information visualization, and visual analytics; digital storytelling; increasing the quality of use (e.g. usability, communicability, accessibility) of interactive systems in diverse domains, by means of adaptation, analogy-making mechanisms, and other artificial intelligence techniques. In 2010 she co-authored the HCI textbook ‘Interação Humano-Computador’, for the Brazilian Computer Society series, first published by Elsevier, now self-published. [View complete profile]