Tarot Cards of Tech

A component of designing new technologies is imagining the impact they will have on the world. These cards can be used during team meetings to perform an informal impact assessment. 

The Tarot Cards of Tech is a tool consisting of 12 cards. These are designed to provide a brief, more intuitive impact analysis of a technology. Each of the 12 cards has a front side that names a fictional character who matches the questions described on the back. The questions consist of a main question followed by two to three supporting questions. These are questions you can ask yourself or your team to assess the impact of the application.

For example, the card Mother Nature has as the main question "If the environment was your customer, how would this affect your product?" and one of the subquestions is "Which commentary would the environment have on your product?".

The design of the card is meant to initiate a fast and informal discussion, which stimulates discussion between the team members.

This card set was developed by Artefact, a 'responsible design & strategy firm' founded in 2006 in Seattle, Washington, USA. Artefact has responsibility as a guiding principle throughout its development process and works with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

This tool was not developed by the Knowledge Center Data & Society. We describe the tool on our website because it can help you deal with ethical, legal, or social aspects of AI applications. The Knowledge Centre is not responsible for the quality of the tool.