Semiotics, Compassion and Value-Centered Design

Abstract

It is difficult to design systems that satisfy users; failure is common, and even successful designs often overrun time and cost. This motivates user-centered design methods. But users often don't know what they need or else cannot articulate it (due to tacit knowledge), and also are often not aware of key impacts of organisational context on how they work. This motivates using ethnographic methods. However these can be slower and more expensive, and can still fail. We argue that values are keys to the promise of socially sensitive design. Algebraic semiotics provides a rigorous notation and calculus for representation that is explicitly value sensitive, while compassion supports both better analysis and better ethics in design. Together with discourse-based value discovery methods and iterative design, these enable a method that we call value-centered design; some case studies are discussed.