Values in technology and practice: using Activity Theory to consider the role of values and technology in everyday activities

Abstract

We have incorporated technology in many of our everyday activities like working, socialising, eating and exercising. These technologies alter how we behave, and often do so quite deliberately in service of aspirations such as fitness or weight loss. Moreover, they frequently impinge upon the things that we think are important in our lives, our values; things like family, intimacy, privacy or the environment.

A design methodology called Value Sensitive Design [68] aims to account for values in technology design. However, VSD often focusses on the level of technological artefacts [49,140] rather than the broader 'context of use' that a piece, or pieces, of technology might be deployed in. this limits the kind of values that it can consider, and the influence that artefacts have on the broader human activities in which they are embedded. To make it easier to consider values in contexts of use, it could be helpful to combine VSD with theories about how human activity is structured. One such theory, often used with HCI, is called Activity Theory [41,100]. However, values are not explicitly accounted for within Activity Theory, which complicate its applicability to VSD.

In this thesis, I report on investigations in two domains; privacy, and wellbeing; both of which bring values and everyday behaviours together, Through these investigations, I identify ways that Activity Theory can account for the observed practices, propose ways in which values can be made explicit within Activity Theory, and consider some design implications that arise. In doing so, I contribute a theoretical account of human activity in which values are explicit, which may be used as a model for conducting VSD at a 'context of use' level.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Richard C. Gomer: orcid.org/0000-0001-8866-3738

ORCID for monica schraefel: orcid.org/0000-0002-9061-7957

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