Value Change Sensitive Design: Elements of a Proces Ontological Framework and Method

This chapter addresses the need to monitor and respond to changes in values and the other core elements of a technology project or product during its lifespan—from its initial design phase through completion and into implementation and maintenance. The complexity we aim to address is that technology projects and products are situated in sociotechnical systems that undergo change in many of their parts over time. We are introducing the turn to Process Philosophy into Value Sensitive Design projects and literature to bring conceptual systems where all parts of the system undergo change over time. Values Sensitive Design (VSD) literature has traditionally applied conceptual systems called “structure and change” systems where most of the structure remains stable while some parts undergo change. We call our program of method development: Value Change Sensitive Design methods (VCSD). Our approach uses Process Ontology and Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory to develop a minimal ontological system and a diagramming tool—a schema—for marking and tracking changes in the situation of technology projects and products. The minimal ontological system focuses on values and other core elements of sociotechnical systems that affect design and outcomes of projects using Value Change Sensitive Design. The minimal framework articulates a temporal duration (window) of a change process by centering on an “event” during which a change takes place. We combine this process ontological framework and diagramming tool with the tools of historical analysis called path dependence analysis and process tracing to propose a full method for discovery and characterizations of causal mechanisms underlying changes in sociotechnical systems. This chapter is a contribution to the philosophical literature in Value Change Sensitive Design and Values Change.