Workshop on Value-Sensitive Design: Cultivating Research and Community

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing national awareness that the fast-paced development and deployment of information technology can transform society in paradoxical and/or unintended ways. There is general agreement that more research is needed to identify, understand, anticipate, and address the scope and trajectory of these changes. One new and promising approach is to better understand how the design of information technologies can be linked to social outcomes. Instead of assuming that the design of information technologies is a simple engineering feat whereby value-neutral systems specifications are produced and then - given sufficient time, money and skilled labor - achieved in a particular artifact, the design process is better understood as one where various stakeholders can have conflicting goals and priorities and where trade-offs are constantly balanced. In addition, designers often have implicit (and sometimes incorrect) assumptions about users and how they will use a particular artifact. As a consequence, a variety of social values can come to be embodied in artifacts, resulting in both intended and unintended consequences. To begin to understand how this works in practice and how designers of IT can become more sensitive to their role in fostering certain outcomes, more interest in doing this kind of research needs to be generated. This proposed workshop on Value-Sensitive Design intends to: 1) further develop and refine a research agenda; and 2) stimulate research by cultivating a broad community of researchers. To insure that multiple perspectives and communities are represented, multi-disciplinary research "teams" (often faculty and graduate students) will be identified by the organizers and its steering committee and invited. Each of four broad knowledge areas will be included - designers, humanists, social scientists and technologists.