2010 - 2013

The importance of design ethics in HCI has gained increasing attention the last several years. In this research, we propose a new concept of interaction that restructures its conventional notion. It is expected that this new concept will increase social empathy among people, which will eventually result in more positive ethical behaviors. This new structure of interaction breaks the current closed interaction cycle that focuses on a complete input-output feedback loop. Instead, it makes the cycle imperfect so that people cannot experience it without seeking help from others or being helped by the same. We call this concept altruistic interaction design and designed a case, the Altruistic Fan, as an applied product example. This paper explains the concept of altruistic interaction design and its application process to a real product. The study closes with the results of an exploratory user study utilizing an altruistic interaction design product (Altruistic Fan).