HuValue

Method Overview

HuValue is a card-based design tool for thinking about and discussing human values. This tool supports designers with simple but familiar materials during their design process to analyze everything (object, subject, situation) while remaining aware and sensitive of human values. 

An example of the toolkit components from the method website.

Getting Started

Materials: Problem frame, HuValue toolkit (for purchase and contains a value wheel, 45 value words, and 207 picture cards)

Participants: Individual/Team

Elements (from the publicly available academic paper):

The elements of the HuValue tool are intended to bridge the gap between the abstract level of human values and the practical level of design.

The value framework is illustrated in a circular form as the value wheel. The Value wheel is a circle with nine value clusters. Each value cluster is introduced with an icon, a label, a mood board, a descriptive sentence, five key values, and some relevant terms. In the wheel, anyone can rank the value clusters in their order of importance to her/himself. Each value cluster has a 5-point scale: ‘Extremely important’, ‘Very important’, ‘Important’, ‘Somewhat important’, and ‘Not important’. In addition to the words, colour saturation separates various levels of the scale: the highest saturation is for ‘Extremely important and the lowest saturation for ‘Not important’ with three more in between.

The value words are 45 two-sided cards with a value word on the front and its relevant value cluster at the back, based on empirical research for grouping the value words (Kheirandish 2018).

The picture cards contain 207 cards of three different types: 66 activities, 66 personas, and 75 products/services. Every activity card contains a picture showing an activity or behaviour, without any description. At the bottom of each card, there is a space in which people can write their own interpretation. The persona and product cards are combinations of pictures and texts. Persona cards include well-known people from all over the world in different disciplines, without judgement about their positive or negative influence, in addition to some artificial personas. Product/service cards present a wide variety of products, services, and design concepts.

 

This methods microsite is based off of analysis which is available in a preprint manuscript. Feel free to review our methodology and other details! We welcome your comments and feedback ! Please also use this form if you would like to suggest a method as an addition to the collection!