IN-PERSON Prague Research & Teaching Conference

Abstract

In China, design ethics is mainly addressed as a separate course in a design curriculum and is only offered in the later years of undergraduate programmes or at graduate level in a few colleges. However, undergraduate design students need to develop an awareness of design ethics early in their academic careers in order to improve their value judgements and systematic analytical skills. Based on personal teaching experience as a professional lecturer of a modern design history course, the author develops a different approach. This method involves integrating design ethics into the first year undergraduate design history course and using these discussions as a thread for understanding the development of design history. The proposed teaching method begins by extracting ethical issues from classic design history cases using case studies. The method dissects ethical dilemmas within typical design cases by reorganising documentation and reconstructing contexts. This approach is more effective in raising students’ ethical awareness and makes design theory less abstract. It stimulates understanding of the situations of different stakeholders in a specific case, as well as the designer’s own moral values. Moreover, this method, based on a global historical perspective, considers the impact of cultural values from different regions on design ethics choices. This teaching approach allows design history research to better support design practice, providing students with the necessary insights for future practical projects. Combining design history research with design ethics analysis is not only a teaching method, but also an exploration of new paradigms and narratives in design history.