A value-oriented and culturally informed approach to the design of interactive systems

Cultural aspects such as values, beliefs, and behavioral patterns influence the way technology is understood and used, and the impact it may cause on the environment and on people. Although there is influential literature devoted to the subject of values and culture in Human-Computer Interaction, there is still a lack of principled and practical artifacts and methods to support researchers and practitioners in their activities. In this paper, we present a Value-oriented and Culturally Informed Approach (VCIA) to sensitize and support Computer Science and Engineering professionals in taking values and culture into consideration throughout the design of interactive systems. The approach is grounded on theoretical and methodological bases of Organizational Semiotics, Building Blocks of Culture, and Socially Aware Computing. VCIA offers a set of artifacts and methods articulated to support the design process in its different stages and activities: from the identification of stakeholders and their values, to the organization of requirements and the evaluation of the designed solution. In this paper, we present VCIA's principles, artifacts, and illustrate its usefulness in bringing values into consideration, supporting a socially aware system design.