Values at play: design tradeoffs in socially-oriented game design

ABSTRACT

Significant work in the CHI community has focused on designing systems that support human values. Designers and engineers have also become increasingly aware of ways in which the artifacts they create can embody political, social, and ethical values. Despite such an awareness, there has been little work towards producing practical methodologies that systematically incorporate values into the design process. Many designers struggle to find a balance between their own values, those of users and other stakeholders, and those of the surrounding culture. In this paper, we present the RAPUNSEL project as a case study of game design in a values-rich context and describe our efforts toward navigating the complexities this entails. Additionally, we present initial steps toward the development of a systematic methodology for discovery, analysis, and integration of values in technology design in the hope that others may both benefit from and build upon this work.

REFERENCES

• 1: Mark S. Ackerman , Lorrie Cranor, Privacy critics: UI components to safeguard users' privacy, CHI '99 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [doi>10.1145/632716.632875]
• 2: Philip E. Agre, Introduction, Technology and privacy: the new landscape, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997
• 3: American Assn of Univ, Woman (AAUW).Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age. (April 2000). Available Online: http://www. aauw.org/2000/techsavvy.html
• 4: Kent Beck, Extreme programming explained: embrace change, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1999
• 5: Bødker, S., & Grøønbæk, K. Design in action: From prototyping by demonstration to cooperative prototyping." In J. Greenbaum & M. Kyng (eds.), Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, USA (1991).
• 6: Brunner, C. Opening technology to girls: The approach computer-using teachers take may make the difference. Electronic Learning, 16:4 (February 1997), 55.
• 7: Philip Brey, Disclosive computer ethics, ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, v.30 n.4, December 2000 [doi>10.1145/572260.572264]
• 8: Catsambis, S. The path to math: Gender and racial-ethnic differences in mathematics participation from middle to high school. In Sociology of Education 67 (1994), 199--215.
• 9: Melissa Chaika, Ethical considerations in gender-oriented entertainment technology, Crossroads, v.2 n.2, p.11-13, Nov. 1995 [doi>10.1145/332180.332183]
• 10: Chmielewski, D.C. Kids turning to instant messaging. Knight Ridder, (25 Feb 2004). Available Online: http://www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0225faminstantmessage.html
• 11: Chu Clewell, B. Breaking the barriers: The critical middle school years. In The Jossey-Bass Reader on Gender in Education. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA (2002), 301--313.
• 12: Chris Crawford, The Art of Computer Game Design, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Berkeley, CA, 1984
• 13: Allison Druin, Cooperative inquiry: developing new technologies for children with children, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.592-599, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303166]
• 14: Farnham, S., Zaner, M., Cheng, L. Supporting Sociability in a Shared Browser. In Proceedings of Interact Conference, Tokyo, Japan (July 2001).
• 15: Mary Flanagan, "Next level": women's digital activism through gaming, Digital media revisited: theoretical and conceptual innovation in digital domain, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003
• 16: B. J. Fogg , Hsiang Tseng, The elements of computer credibility, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.80-87, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303001]
• 17: Bjorn Freeman-Benson , Alan Borning, YP and Urban Simulation: Applying an Agile Programming Methodology in a Politically Tempestuous Domain, Proceedings of the Conference on Agile Development, p.2, June 25-28, 2003
• 18: Batya Friedman, Value-sensitive design, interactions, v.3 n.6, p.16-23, Nov./Dec. 1996 [doi>10.1145/242485.242493]
• 19: B. Friedman , D. Howe , E. Felten, Informed Consent in the Mozilla Browser: Implementing Value Sensitive Design, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'02)-Volume 8, p.247, January 07-10, 2002
• 20: Batya Friedman , Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Human values, ethics, and design, The human-computer interaction handbook: fundamentals, evolving technologies and emerging applications, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 2002
• 21: Friedman, B., Kahn, P. & Borning, A. Value Sensitive Design: Theory and methods. Technical Report 02-12-01, Comp. Sci. & E., UW, Seattle, WA, USA (2002). Available Online: http://www.urbansim.org/papers
• 22: Batya Friedman , Peter H. Khan, Jr. , Daniel C. Howe, Trust online, Communications of the ACM, v.43 n.12, p.34-40, Dec. 2000 [doi>10.1145/355112.355120]
• 23: Batya Friedman , Helen Nissenbaum, Bias in computer systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.14 n.3, p.330-347, July 1996 [doi>10.1145/230538.230561]
• 24: Glass, R. L. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, USA, (2000).
• 25: Joan M. Greenbaum , M. Kyng, Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 1991
• 26: Rebecca E. Grinter , Leysia Palen, Instant messaging in teen life, Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, November 16-20, 2002, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA [doi>10.1145/587078.587082]
• 27: Hughes, T. Human-built world: how to think about technology and culture. University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA (2004).
• 28: Kori Inkpen , Kellogg S. Booth , Maria Klawe , Rena Upitis, Playing together beats playing apart, especially for girls, The first international conference on Computer support for collaborative learning, p.177-181, October 1995, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, Indiana, United States
• 29: Yasmin Bettina Kafai, Minds in Play: Computer Game Design as a Context for Children's Learning, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, NJ, 1995
• 30: Kirkup, G. & Abbot, J. The Gender Gap. A Gender Analysis of the 1996 Computing Access Survey. PLUM Paper #80. (Programme on Learner Use of Media) The Open University: Milton Keynes, UK (1997).
• 31: Latour, B. Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts. In W. Bijker and J. Law (eds.) Shaping Technology/ Building Society. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (1992) 225--258.
• 32: Laurel, B. The Utopian Entrepreneur. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (2001).
• 33: Khalid Al Mubireek , Suzanne K. Damarin, Gender-oriented vs. gender-neutral computer games in education, 2003
• 34: Michael J. Muller , Sarah Kuhn, Participatory design, Communications of the ACM, v.36 n.6, p.24-28, June 1993 [doi>10.1145/153571.255960]
• 35: Mumford, L. Authoritarian and Democratic Technics. In E. Katz, A. Light, & W. Thompson (eds.) Controlling Technology: Contemporary Issues, 2nd ed., Prometheus Books, NY, USA (2003).
• 36: Jakob Nielsen, Paper versus computer implementations as mockup scenarios for heuristic evaluation, Proceedings of the IFIP TC13 Third Interational Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, p.315-320, August 27-31, 1990
• 37: Nissenbaum, H. Values in the design of computer systems. In Computers in Society (1998), 38--39.
• 38: Leysia Palen , Jonathan Grudin, Discretionary adoption of group support software: lessons from calendar applications, Implementing collaboration technologies in industry: case examples and lessons learned, Springer-Verlag, London, 2003
• 39: Seymour Papert, The children's machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer, Basic Books, Inc., New York, NY, 1993
• 40: Resnick, M. Rethinking learning in the digital age. In The Global Information Technology Report 2001-02: Readiness for the Networked World (2002). Available Online: http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/pdf/gitrr2002 _ch03.pdf
• 41: Marc Rettig, Prototyping for tiny fingers, Communications of the ACM, v.37 n.4, p.21-27, April 1994 [doi>10.1145/175276.175288]
• 42: Richardson, H. S. Practical Reasoning about Final Ends, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (1994).
• 43: Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. Rules of Play. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA (2003).
• 44: Schön, D. The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, NY, USA (1983).
• 45: Shannon, V. The end user: Playing to a new audience. International Herald Tribune (11 JUNE 2004), http://www.iht.com/articles/524535.html
• 46: Ben Shneiderman, Universal usability, Communications of the ACM, v.43 n.5, p.84-91, May 2000 [doi>10.1145/332833.332843]
• 47: Elliot Soloway , Mark Guzdial , Kenneth E. Hay, Learner-centered design: the challenge for HCI in the 21st century, interactions, v.1 n.2, p.36-48, April 1994 [doi>10.1145/174809.174813]
• 48: Suchman, L. Do categories have politics? The language/action perspective reconsidered. In CSCW Journal, 2:3 (1994), 177--190.
• 49: Von Prummer, C. Women-friendly perspectives in distance education. In Open Learning, 9:1 (1994), 3--12.
• 50: Winner, L. Do Artifacts Have Politics? In The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA (1986), 19--39.
• 51: Zimmerman, E. Play as research: the iterative design process. In B. Laurel (ed.) Design Research. Cambridge: MIT Press (2003). Available Online: http://www.gmlb.com/articles/iterativedesign.html

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Prototyping

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
gender and computing, programming pedagogy, social issues, values