Embodying values in the design of ICTs

When it comes to designing technological tools, we often think of functional affordances / requirements / constraints / or tradeoffs, but very rarely do we explicitly refer to symbolic and value-oriented affordances or expressions.

In Human-Computer Interaction research, the closest idea I have found is that of a design rationale, i.e., a grouping of reasons for justifying decisions that are made in the design process. But design rationales tend to take the form of reasons supporting once again functional requirements exclusively, leaving aside the question of value.

In Information Systems research, we have had the closely related ideas IT artifacts’ spirit (the technology’s overall goal, as it is presented to users) or symbolic expressions (the communicative possibilities of a technical object for a specified user group), but they were not presented as part of an intentional design aspect. 

Happily, I have found more on value-driven design in the philosophy of technology and dual nature of artifacts domain. Of high interest and as an illustration in the game design domain, I ran into the Value@Play project from researchers at NYU. This project is about understanding “how designers can be more intentional about the ways in which they integrate human values into their game-based systems.” Have a look at the short video capsules of game designers interviews, they provide a nice flavour or interesting design-related aspects such as the expression of values in games, layers of values, user-driven values, or the consciousness of designing to convey specific values.

We seem to be at the beginning of thinking of IT design with values (such as justice, autonomy, trust, comfort, friendship, sociality, participation) in mind. But isn’t it an exciting path worth of exploration for research and practice?

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