Reconceptualising the notion of values in design talk

Incorporating values in design is seen as a way of making outcomes more ethical. Values are conceptualised as inner mental preferences that inform decisions. Methodologies such as Value Sensitive Design advise on how to collate stakeholders’ values, treating values as identifiable through asking people about them. This paper offers a different way of looking at values, using discursive psychology to analyse what designers do when they are asked about values in interviews. The analysis shows that when participants are asked about the influence of values in their work, many seek to justify them by explaining where they came from. Difficulty is seen when they attempt to describe how values influence decisions. The findings suggest that asking people to identify their values may be problematic, since responses may involve situated identity management rather than revealing underlying mental states.