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human values. For example, if a standards committee were considering adopting a protocol that
raised serious privacy concerns, a Value Sensitive Design analysis and design might result in an
alternate protocol that better addressed the issue of privacy while still retaining other needed prop-
erties. Citizens, advocacy groups, staff members, politicians, and others could then have a more
effective argument against a claim that the proposed protocol was the only reasonable choice.
Human Values (with Ethical Import) Often Implicated in System Design
We stated earlier that while all values fall within its purview, Value Sensitive Design emphasizes
values with ethical import. In Table 16.1, we present a list of frequently implicated values. This
table is intended as a heuristic for suggesting values that should be considered in the investiga-
tion—it is definitely not intended as a complete list of human values that might be implicated.
Two caveats. First, not all of these values are fundamentally distinct from one another.
Nonetheless, each value has its own language and conceptualizations within its respective field,
and thus warrants separate treatment here. Second, as noted above, this list is not comprehensive.
Perhaps no list could be, at least within the confines of a paper. Peacefulness, respect, compas-
sion, love, warmth, creativity, humor, originality, vision, friendship, cooperation, collaboration,
purposefulness, devotion, loyalty, diplomacy, kindness, musicality, harmony—the list of other
possible moral and non-moral values could get very long very quickly. Our particular list com-
prises many of the values that hinge on the deontological and consequentialist moral orientations
noted above: human welfare, ownership and property, privacy, freedom from bias, universal usabil-
ity, trust, autonomy, informed consent, and accountability. In addition, we have chosen several other
values related to system design: courtesy, identity, calmness, and environmental sustainability.
Heuristics for Interviewing Stakeholders
As part of an empirical investigation, it is useful to interview stakeholders, to better understand
their judgments about a context of use, an existing technology, or a proposed design. A semi-
structured interview often offers a good balance between addressing the questions of interest and
gathering new and unexpected insights. In these interviews, the following heuristics can prove
useful:
In probing stakeholders' reasons for their judgments, the simple question “Why?” can go a
good distance. For example, seniors evaluating a ubiquitous computing video surveillance system
might respond negatively to the system. When asked “Why?” a response might be: “I don't mind
my family knowing that other people are visiting me, so they don't worry that I'm alone—I just
don't want them to know who is visiting.” The researcher can probe again: “Why don't you want
them to know?” An answer might be: “I might have a new friend I don't want them to know about.
It's not their business.” Here the first “why” question elicits information about a value conflict
(the family's desire to know about the senior's well-being and the senior's desire to control some
information); the second “why” question elicits further information about the value of privacy for
the senior.
Ask about values not only directly, but indirectly, based on formal criteria specified in the con-
ceptual investigation. For example, suppose that you want to conduct an empirical investigation
of people's reasoning and values about “X” (say, trust, privacy, or informed consent), and that you
decided to employ an interview methodology. One option is to ask people directly about the topic.
“What is X?” “How do you reason about X?” “Can you give me an example from your own life
of when you encountered a problem that involved X?” There is some merit to this direct approach.
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