Critical Computing Seminar Series
Value Sensitive Design Book Discussion with David Hendry and Batya Friedman
Batya Friedman, Co-Director, UW Tech Policy Lab; Co-Director, Value Sensitive Design Lab; Adjunct Professor, University of Washington Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and University of Washington Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; Faculty Associate, Center for Human Rights
David Hendry, Associate Professor, Information School, University of Washington; Adjunct Professor, Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering
Bio: Batya Friedman pioneered value sensitive design (VSD), an approach to account for human values in the design of information systems. Her work has focused on a wide range of values, some include privacy in public, trust, freedom from bias, moral agency, sustainability, safety, calmness, freedom of expression, and human dignity; along with a range of technologies such as web browsers, urban simulation, robotics, open source tools, mobile computing, implantable medical devices, computer security, ubiquitous computing and computing infrastructure. She is currently working on multi-lifespan information system design and on methods for envisioning – new ideas for leveraging information systems to shape our futures.In 2012 Batya was awarded the SIG-CHI Social Impact Award.
For the last decade, David worked on a series of community-based projects on youth, homelessness, and digital technology, investigating how youth employ technology and how technology might be designed to improve the well-being of youth. David is currently at work on new ideas related to skillful practice and value sensitive design, developing design-oriented educational case studies in Tech Policy. More broadly, with others in the value sensitive design community, he is supporting the diffusion and appropriation of value sensitive design.
Book Abstract: Implantable medical devices and human dignity. Private and secure access to information. Engineering projects that transform the Earth. Multigenerational information systems for international justice. How should designers, engineers, architects, policy makers, and others design such technology? Who should be involved and what values are implicated? In Value Sensitive Design, Batya Friedman and David Hendry describe how both moral and technical imagination can be brought to bear on the design of technology. With value sensitive design, under development for more than two decades, Friedman and Hendry bring together theory, methods, and applications for a design process that engages human values at every stage. After presenting the theoretical foundations of value sensitive design, which lead to a deep rethinking of technical design, Friedman and Hendry explain seventeen methods, including stakeholder analysis, value scenarios, and multi lifespan timelines. Following this, experts from ten application domains report on value sensitive design practice. Finally, Friedman and Hendry explore such open questions as the need for deeper investigation of indirect stakeholders and further method development. This definitive account of the state of the art in value sensitive design is an essential resource for designers and researchers working in academia and industry, students in design and computer science, and anyone working at the intersection of technology and society.