This second class covers our full Redesign Method, walking you through our design methodology with a real project of yours, and giving you tools to monitor the success or failure of your design in terms of participants' values.

Intellectual Background

Some fields—science & technology studies, critical technology studies, media criticism—have shown themselves to be completely ineffective at setting technology or media on a better course. Few design practices have emerged from these disciplines, but those which have (such as Value-Sensitive Design) have shown themselves incapable of grappling with modern technological systems, which feature diverse audiences, global impact, and the pervasive restructuring of daily life and relationships.

So, we look to other fields. The classes we teach as part of Human Systems draw from much prior work:

• Our metrics, surveys and evaluation techniques descend from the capability approach, a human-values based evaluation methodology pioneered by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, and used by the World Bank and in other large scale projects. But we address some problems with the capability approach: it's imprecise notion of values ("capabilities and functionings"), and its tendency to assume universal human values.
• Our general approach to understanding social issues—in terms of social practices and breakdown in the viability of the relevant values—comes more from sociology and political theory (especially the tradition of pragmatists like Charles Taylor) than from critical tech or media theory. To this common sociological lens, we add more technical work on the evolution of norms (by Karl Opp, Simon DeDeo, and many others).
• The social science above has been given a stronger foundation based on recent work on agency and choice which is clearer about human values and their role in behavior, choice, and reasons. This is based on work by philosophers David Velleman, Ruth Chang, Isaac Levi, and Elizabeth Anderson.
• As we work to practically rebuild organizations and design teams around values, we are informed by previous changes in institutions and design processes from urban planning and public health, pioneered by a diverse crew including William Whyte, Esther Duflo, Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim. This is an area in which we still have much to learn, and are currently adding to the curriculum.

For more, see the bibliography over at ‣.

syllabus

Worksheets:

• Session 1

HS201 - Session 2 Worksheet

Suggested Reading

• 2018 Edelman, “How to Design Social Systems (without Causing Depression and War)”
• 2017 Scott Alexander, “Guided by the Beauty of Our Weapons”