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VCIA is a Value-oriented and Culturally Informed Approach to the design of interactive systems that involves a set of artifacts and underlying theories and methods articulated to support the explicit considerations of values and culture in different design stages -- see Figure 1. 

Figure 1. VCIA model.

Different artifacts were created/adapted to support designers in a value-oriented and culturally informed design of tecnology. These artifacts were experimented in different contexts related to the design of applications to promote social interaction. Below you can download them, and see a brief presentation and some references for each one.

VCIA artifacts by Pereira and Baranauskas are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

In this page you find:

• The Value Pie (VP) 
• Value Identification Frame (VIF)
• Culturally Aware Requirements Framework (CARF)
• Valuation Framing for Social Software (VF4SS)
• eValue
• Value Comparison Table (VCT)
• Stakeholder Identification Diagram (SID) -- from Organizational Semiotics
• Table of the Building Blocks of Culture (to appear)

Value Pie (VP)

The Value Pie is an artifact created to organize the values in social software according to their formality, cultural nature and interplay. The artifact is available in the paper bellow (Pereira et al., 2013a) -- free access. See also Pereira et al. (2013b) for examples and additional discussions. 

A Table of 28 Values in Social Applications (with the list of values, their definition, examples and references) is also available in (Pereira et al., 2013a).

Publication related to this artifact:

• Pereira, R., Baranauskas, M.C.C., Silva S.R.P. Social Software and Educational Technology: Informal, Formal and Technical Values. Educational Technology & Society, 16(1), 4-14, 2013a.
• Pereira, R., Hornung, H., Baranauskas, M.C.C. Cognitive Authority revisited in Web Social Interaction. chapter in Frameworks of IT Prosumption for Business System Development, IGI Global, pp.142-157. 2013b.

Value Identification Frame (VIF)

The VIF artifact was created to support the identification of the values related to the different stakeholders that may be direct or indirectly interested and/or affected by the system being designed. Its input is the list of stakeholders and its output is a list of the values each different stakeholder brings to the project.

The basic assumption of the artifact is: each stakeholder has a set of values that may cause/suffer impact with the introduction of the innovation being designed. The analyst’s work is to map what values each stakeholder brings to the project and have to be considered in the design. 

• Click here to download the template of the artifact

Publication related to this artifact:

• Pereira, R., Buchdid S.B. and Baranauskas, M.C.C. Keeping Values in Mind: Artifacts for a Value-Oriented and Culturally Informed Design. in 14th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2012). pp. 25-34. 2012.

Culturally Aware Requirements Framework (CARF)

The CARF artifact was created to support the identification and organization of requirements that are related to cultural aspects of the different stakeholders and their values. Its inputs are: the 10 areas of culture; the list of stakeholders; and the values mapped for each stakeholder through the VIF. The output is a ranked list of requirements that are related to the stakeholders and their values.

The basic assumption of the artifact is: values are culturally developed according to the Hall’s 10 areas of culture. Depending on the way the innovation is designed it will impact on different aspects of these areas, promoting/inhibiting the values of different stakeholders. The analyst’s work consists of: i) identifying requirements for the project according to the 10 areas in order to respect the values of the stakeholders, ii) defining priorities among these requirements and iii) dealing with possible conflicts.

• Click here to download the template of the artifact

Publication related to this artifact:

• Pereira, R., Buchdid S.B. and Baranauskas, M.C.C. Keeping Values in Mind: Artifacts for a Value-Oriented and Culturally Informed Design. in 14th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2012). pp. 25-34. 2012.
  

Valuation Framing for Social Software (VF4SS)

The VF4SS is an artifact created to support the analysis and evaluation of applications through the lenses of culture, from the stakeholders’ point of view. The artifact is an adaptation of the Valuation Framing, from Organizational Semiotics theory, in order to account for values in the context of applications intended to promote social interaction.

Its input is the list of stakeholders and its output is a description/understanding of the cultural dimensions of a product from the  stakeholders' point of view.

The basic assumption of the artifact is: all the stakeholders involved in a project are accustomed to have, in their cultural settings, a range of behavior patterns divided into 10 areas, or the building blocks that Hall, in his The Silent Language, calls Primary Message Systems (PMS). The analyst’s work consists of questioning, predicting and hypothesizing how the innovation may affect/is affecting these stakeholders regarding these areas.

• Click here to download the template of the artifact
  

Publications related to this artifact:

• Pereira, R. and Baranauskas, M.C.C. Seeing Social Software Analysis and Evaluation through the Lenses of Culture. In R. Zhang et al. (Eds.): ICEIS 2011, Springer LNBIP 102, pp. 374–387, 2012.

• Pereira, R., Baranauskas, M.C.C., Almeida, L.D., Miranda, L.C. de, Piccolo, L.S.G. and Reis, J.C. Towards a Culturally Aware Design for Social Software. International Journal of Digital Society (IJDS), Volume 3(1), pp.590-599. 2012.

eValue

The eValue was created to support designers in a culturally informed and value-oriented evaluation of existing applications, or their prototypes.

The values identified through the VIF and their related requirements specified through the CARF may be used as its input. The output is a list of problems, ideas and notes related to the stakeholders’ values, the specified requirements, and the way the application was designed.

The basic assumption of the artifact is: every interactive system is designed to allows users to interact with it and through it, for different purposes and by means of different interface and interaction resources. Depending on the way the system was designed it will favor/inhibit behaviors that will impact either positively or negatively on users’ values. The analyst’s work consists of exploring the system, questioning and analyzing the way it is communicating values, taking notes and proposing design alternatives.

• Click here to download the template of the artifact

Publication related to this artifact:

• Pereira, R., Buchdid S.B., Miranda, L.C. and Baranauskas, M.C.C. Considering Values and Cultural Aspects in the Evaluation of Interactive Systems Prototypes. in International Conference on Information Society (i-Society 2012). pp. 395-400. 2012.

Value Comparison Table (VCT)

The VCT is an artifact inspired on the VF4SS for supporting designers in identifying and comparing how values are being technically promoted or inhibited by different Web applications according to the way they were designed. Its input is a list of applications to be compared, and its output is a map of the way different applications are supporting values.

Differently from the eValue that is directed to the evaluation of an application, this artifact is intended to support the discussion and comparison between different applications regarding the way they were designed. The basic assumption of the artifact is: every system allows users to interact with it and through it, for different purposes and by means of different interface and interaction resources. Depending on the behavior favored or inhibited by the system, it will impact either positively or negatively on users’ values related to cultural aspects that pervade everyday life: from the way we learn and play to the way we manage time and space; from the way we interact and associate to the way we work and subsist in the world. The analyst’s work consists of exploring each system, questioning and analyzing how they support values. 

• Click here to download the template of the artifact
  

Publication related to this artifact

• Pereira, R., Baranauskas, M.C.C. and Almeida, L.D., The Value of Value Identification in Web Applications. In Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on WWW/Internet. pp.37-44. 2011.

Stakeholder Identification Diagram (SID)