Provoking Value Reflection through Play and Speculative Design

Abstract

The design of technology is shaped by human values, which may be either explicitly expressed or implicitly embedded within artefacts. While design methodologies and technology assessment frameworks aim to produce technologies that align with users’ needs—and, by extension, their values—they frequently prioritise usability and seamless interaction, often at the expense of critical reflection on the human values of various stakeholders. Such risks are particularly salient in healthcare technologies that mediate patients’ experiences of diagnosis, treatment, and engagement with health data. Misalignments between the values embedded in these technologies and the lived realities of users can compromise inclusivity, trust, and the meaningfulness of these interactions.

This paper presents an exploratory study investigating how the design of healthcare technologies can be informed by values systems. Using Glaucoma as a case study, the research examines how such technologies reflect, reinforce, or conflict with the values held by users and other stakeholders. Employing ethnographic fieldwork, a custom-designed card game for value elicitation, and speculative design workshops involving ophthalmologists, philosophers, designers, and AI researchers, we propose a bottom-up methodology for value identification. The findings contribute to advancing human-centred design beyond a reductive focus on efficiency and usability, towards cultivating richer, more critical, and value-sensitive user experiences in computational health artefacts.