About

1. Background and Motivation

The concept of value in design and HCI research has evolved significantly over the past decades, moving from predominantly economic considerations to a more nuanced understanding that encompasses social, ethical, and experiential dimensions.

Value Sensitive Design (VSD) emerged as a foundational framework, providing methods to consider human values throughout the design process. This approach emphasises the importance of examining both direct and indirect stakeholders, investigating how system properties support or hinder human values, and understanding how values manifest in practice.

Building on VSD, Worth-Centered Design introduced the concept of “design worth” – examining what makes technology worthy of human effort and attention. This framework shifted focus from abstract values to concrete benefits, considering practical utility alongside experiential and social worth.

Values in design should be treated as hypotheses that are continuously tested and refined through practice, rather than fixed principles.

The digital economy has further complicated our understanding of value, introducing new dimensions of data-driven value creation and destruction. While traditional economic frameworks like Service-Dominant Logic help explain value co-creation between stakeholders, they fail to fully capture the complexities of Human-Data Interaction.

Digital technologies fundamentally change how values are reflected and enacted in society, requiring new frameworks for understanding value creation and destruction. These changes have particular significance for design practice.

Values and ethics in HCI have evolved from focusing on individual user experiences to considering broader societal impacts. This expansion of scope aligns with calls to envision systemic effects throughout the interactive system design process. The emergence of data-driven design has introduced new challenges in balancing different forms of value – economic, social, moral, and ethical.

Recent work has highlighted how value can be both created and destroyed through design decisions. Feminist HCI frameworks demonstrate how design choices can either perpetuate or challenge existing power structures, while values-led participatory design approaches show how community engagement can help navigate complex value trade-offs.

Designing mobility applications to enable efficient wayfinding may undermine other values, such as a sense of community and discovery of place. These perspectives resonate with emerging research on value co-destruction, which highlights how misaligned values or misused resources can lead to negative outcomes.

As data-driven technologies become increasingly prevalent, designers face new challenges in understanding and managing value creation and destruction. This includes considerations of data practices, algorithmic fairness, and the broader implications of AI systems.

These challenges call for new approaches that can help designers navigate the complex landscape of value in Human-Data Interaction.

3. Workshop Objectives and Themes

In this workshop, we aim to better understand the complexity of design practice for value creation and destruction in Human-Data Interaction by synthesising both published and unpublished works.

Our goal is to create an unapologetically honest platform for broader public discussions about data-driven design’s real impact on society and its unintended consequences.

To achieve this, we will explore the following topics and themes through the application of Speculative Design, Participatory Design, and Systemic Design techniques to concretise pathways for Value Creation and Destruction in Human-Data Interaction.

3.1 Creating a Safe Space for Honest Dialogue

We will begin the workshop by challenging the dominant narrative of design as solely a driver of value creation. By removing professional façade, participants will share genuine stories of unintended consequences, failures, and ethical dilemmas in Human-Data Interaction.

We will deliver interactive design activities that incorporate an adaptation of Design. Regret. Confess. – a project for Melbourne Design Week, June 2025 – that collects narratives of catastrophic oversight, regret, and failures of design in Human-Data Interaction.

This will culminate in the co-creation of a set of Confession Cards, which will serve as a stimulus for the next activity.

3.2 Encouraging Critical Self-Reflection on Value Destruction

We will examine diverse mechanisms of what value destruction means and how value is created and destroyed in Human-Data Interaction.

Using Giga-mapping techniques and our bespoke Confession Cards, participants will gain deeper understanding of how design decisions shape particular versions of reality and navigate inherent value conflicts.

This approach moves beyond oversimplified narratives of value creation and innovation, fostering a deeper engagement with the complexities of data-driven design practice.

3.3 Envisioning the Future of Value Destruction

Participants will recognise that failures and unintended consequences are inevitable yet essential aspects of Human-Data Interaction.

Adopting a speculative design approach, they will collaboratively develop provocative ideas for novel tools, methods, and future scenarios aimed at mitigating the tensions between value creation and destruction.

These explorations will consider moral, social and environmental implications, while seeking to minimise unintended harm.

3.4 Establishing a Platform for Value Creation and Destruction

We will document design’s shadow side and alternative approaches through the workshop website and publications, ensuring that insights reach beyond the workshop event.

The website will act as a central hub for ongoing discussions, allowing a wider audience to engage with emerging challenges and collaboratively develop strategies for navigating complex value trade-offs.

We believe DIS to be the ideal venue to explore this topic and create a discursive platform, given its diverse attendees working across data- and AI-related topics, methodologies, and disciplines.

The prevalence of HCI research on Human-Data Interaction aligns with the community’s growing focus on value creation, displacement, and destruction in the digital economy.

4. Anticipated Outcomes

This workshop aims to create a platform that extends beyond the workshop event, fostering continued reflection, dialogue, and action on the complexities of value creation and destruction in Human-Data Interaction.

As a journey toward it, the key outcomes of the workshop will include a position paper, a platform for public discourse, and increased public awareness.

Position Paper

We aim to use the insights gathered in this workshop and through the examples provided in the call to develop a position paper which will continue the conversation and pose questions for future work.

By documenting key arguments, case studies, design failures, ethical dilemmas, and overlooked consequences, this position paper will serve as a foundational resource for designers, researchers, and policymakers engaged in data-driven value creation.

Public Awareness

We also intend to disseminate this work in engaging and accessible formats to audiences beyond the HCI community, fostering connections with the public and initiating collaborative partnerships (e.g., in collaboration with Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester).

Platform for Public Discourse

To ensure that the dialogue continues beyond the workshop, the workshop website will serve as a community-driven resource that invites designers, researchers, and the public to engage in an open and honest dialogue about the real impact of design on society.