Empowering/ethical human-centred design

http://nxhx.org/Choicemaking/

But consider that, in choosing a metric around which to characterise choices, we would want one that: (a) accommodates many value systems across different users, (b) aligns with user intuitions about what's good, and (c) aligns with human needs. 

What are the value systems for an audience who chooses to read info about sustainability?

What would be intuitively good for my users? Things that are good for people, planet and profit? Current/known/historical rhetoric around sustainability messages. Not another preachy and scary news site. Affirmative. We know that the world is fucked. The scary facts are important and relevant - we want to read that stuff sometimes but not all the time. It gets a bit much. An audience who is feeling brave and positive - able to confront the scary world issues. Another audience is one who is feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed and wants information on good things that they can do straight away to combat the bad things happening. Another wants something to look forward to other than the doom and gloom - upcoming events? People to network with? Other resources? Another group might want to read about positive things/advances that are happening in the world. Another might want to read about climate change deniers - funny, perspective?

As philosopher Ruth Chang has argued, it seems likely that we define and adjust our values while making choices. Specifically, we evolve our values when we have an initial difficulty making a choice because one option seems better in some ways, and another better in a different way. Dr. Chang suggests these are the moments where we reexamine and change our values, and that we often choose a new, more general value for ourselves that makes the choice more clear. If this is correct, we need a name for the environments in which this activity of self-construction can proceed fluidly. We will call these environments of expressive choice. To make an expressive choice, users must be able to explore a space of values that might apply to the choice, and to organize the options in front of them in terms of whatever they decide matters to them. As simple a thing as providing widgets for changing the sort order and filtering of options creates more possibility for expressive choice.

Affirmative, expressive choices - knowledge is power - help people to feel solid, included, understood in their identities, decisions, knowledge. Let them see everything and choose what they want to view in more detail.

If menus are to help us find decisions we won't regret, they must allow us to explore what’s important to us about the options, and to navigate according to what we've decided is important.

What options need to be available for the user to choose from in order to decide what's important to them? How much the news will affect them, be taxing of them - their time, their mood, emotions, ideas? 

While human pursuits in general are of infinite variety, the key categories for everyday life are: (a) terms related to ideal schedules (e.g. “frequent exercise”), (b) ideal personal states (e.g. “getting hitched”), and (c) ideal tactics (e.g., “acting boldly”).

Human pursuits of sustainability knowledge - what do they want to gain? 

state - a way of living or existing
schedule - a plan of things that will be done and the times when they will be done
tactics - the art or skill of employing available means to accomplish an end

examples, aspirational ideals

plans, hope, future vision - facts on the state of the world

pragmatic ideas, skills, means, what is possible, achievable - things that have worked? are working?

Facebook and Google know how many people clicked on a URL or linked to a URL, but they don’t currently know how many are glad they went, and why.

We can think of this “big data” about people and URLs as a kind of collective intelligence we share with one another, but when you look at the metrics that we mainly use to propel media coverage—likes / clicks / views / purchases / downloads—a better name might be “collective impulse”, because this data is dominated by samples from the impulsive, lost moments in people's days.

As such, this new big data about people, choices, and outcomes would constitute a real collective wisdom: an alternative to virality, a new claim as to what's worth sharing.

If collective wisdom can be used to drive distribution and ranking of options, it will mean less-regrettable options at hand for most people. That will mean fewer desperate choices and more lives well lived.

An outcomes-based review must remind its user of the costs involved in the engagement (time and money, ideally as authenticated via the service provider or the platform), then give them a quick, precise way to report what the engagement was about, how their desired outcomes have worked out so far, and what else has happened.

The results suggested that user behavior can change significantly when recommendations are ordered by desired outcome and ranked by reported likelihood of an outcome working out.

https://vimeo.com/123488311

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YiOVj8jKehGf1j62fVtmN1yPfPK3iVI75n7Va__Vw14/edit#heading=h.jnq0tjh6ft3r

http://tinyletter.com