Consumer feedback: ethicising with humour in a product review workshop

The use of irony and humour to articulate concerns related to the ethics of design is evident in some of the consumer reviews on e-commerce websites including Amazon. Although these reviews have become a viral sensation on the internet, the use of such irony and humour in discussions concerning design ethics is only briefly mentioned in academic design literature. In this article, I reflect on a product review workshop that I hosted at an academic conference in which the participants reviewed a consumer product using a similar form of irony and humour. I conclude by suggesting that the workshop can be understood as methodologically useful to provoke discussions concerning design ethics whilst enabling the study of the use of irony and humour during such discussions in design settings. I also claim that such a workshop encourages the application of an ironic and humorous approach to discussing design ethics beyond design workshops, and the immediate aims and objectives of the workshops irony and humour is explored within.