A value sensitive approach to communicate with users and designers in cross-cultural contexts

Abstract

Culture is embodied in many aspects of the identity of an individual. This makes it a critical component of understanding the design of technology for its intended users. Cross-Cultural Design has emerged as an approach to incorporate culture in the design of technology using off-the-shelf cultural studies. However, relatively little work has focused on how to approach culture and how to integrate cultural insights in the design of technologies. Additionally, the design space of this thesis, namely cultural values and how they impact the visibility of women in the digital media, is largely under-explored. The research presented in this thesis investigates how to develop value sensitive methods for conducting and communicating culturally specific research. This thesis presents an investigation on the visibility of Saudi women in the digital media using culturally specific methods. Following the Value Sensitive Design methodology in this context, this thesis describes: how I propose a bottom up approach to define culture, enabling value sensitive methods for user research that informs the design of technology; how I approach the integration of these cultural values in evaluating existing systems and develop an implicit value eliciting method; and how I adopt a Double Ethnography approach to develop effective methods for communicating culturally specific research to a multifunctional team of designers. In response to this context, I introduce two communication methods: Scenario Co-Creation Cards and Research Snippets, addressing these requirements. Scenario Co-Creating Cards are a novel value eliciting method which incorporate the cultural value of the users, while Research Snippets are a research communication method, which help designers to understand culturally specific research. In presenting the findings of a real-world deployment and evaluation of these two methods, this thesis contributes to current discourse in HCI on how to conceptualize cultural research to bridge the communication gap between user researchers and designers. This thesis is inspired by Vision 2030 (National Transformation Plan) in which women are supported to fully participate in all aspects of Saudi society. The past few years have witnessed ground-breaking reforms in Saudi Arabia to improve the rights and mobility of women. A major part of the reform was transforming the public sphere to be more accommodating to women, including their appointment to leadership positions. This thesis aims at understanding how to promote and support the visibility of women within their frames of cultural and individual values. We built this understanding from the voices of transnational Saudi women who have experienced a higher level of visibility. However, by improving our understanding of how to design across cultures, this work should contribute toward Vision 2030, helping to empower and support the visibility of all women across the entire nation.