Intentional and Responsible: Incorporating Social Values Into the Design Process

Abstract

Unintended consequences of technology are ubiquitous and often negative. Certain communities, the Amish for example, have minimized these consequences by understanding and agreeing upon the social values they seek to preserve, and by making technology choices based on these values. Although similar strategies are not widely implemented in Western society, technology developers should be intentional and responsible about the impact of their work. Existing design strategies that deal with values (e.g., contextual design) focus on adapting to business culture rather than preserving social values. This article proposes a new process model that focuses on articulating social values during the design phase as a method by which to evaluate the attributes of the system being developed, and discusses a planned experimental design intended to measure the effectiveness of this approach. By considering the relationship between design decisions and social values, this model may result in a design strategy that is both intentional and responsible.