Building a "-Sensitive Design" Methodology from Political Philosophies or Ideologies

Abstract

Value-based approaches such as Value Sensitive Design (VSD) enable technology designers to engage with and integrate human values in technology through a tripartite methodology of conceptual, empirical, and technical investigations. However, VSD contains pitfalls in both translating values to requirements and a lack of normative grounding, leading to adaptations such as Jacobs' Capability Sensitive Design (CSD). Inspired by CSD and extensions of the design approach, we propose the concept of creating -Sensitive Design (-SD); a meta-framework to embed various political or ideological values as norms in a design research process. We exemplify this through \emph{Dependency}-Sensitive Design (DSD), combining ideas from Kittay's critiques of classical liberal theory within a practical VSD framework. Finally, we push for further work combining philosophy and design in areas beyond CSD and DSD.