How to Utilize the HuValue Tool for Daily Life Product Design

Abstract

To support designers considering human value in their design process, the HuValue tool was developed. This tool is instanciated as a tangible, card-based design toolkit including a value wheel, 45 value words, and 207 picture cards, grounded in a comprehensive value framework. Using this toolkit can enable designers to be aware and sensitive to human values and consider various value aspects of their design challenge through different types of values, even if they personally do not value them. To know whether our tool is useful in a design process, we conducted a quasi-experimental study with 64 first year bachelor students in the context of a project based course of an industrial design program. We supported randomly selected students in 12 group projects with four students each, to use our tool during their whole design process (phases: vision, ideation, conceptualization, realization, and validation). Six project groups received the toolkit, an introduction and also guidance during the semester about how to use it in different design phases (Trained Groups). The remaining six of these 12 project groups received the toolkit and an introduction to its usage (Introduction Groups). Additionally, four project groups without any support for human values were used as benchmark (Control Groups). It was up to the students in all 16 groups if at all, and if so when and how to use our tool. We evaluated all the 16 project groups’ final designs whether they used the HuValue tool in their design process, if so, how and in which part they used our tool. This setting gave us the opportunity in gaining insights how to propose relevant usage of our tool. The results showed that nine out of the 16 in total (=56%) and eight out of the 12 tool-based (=67%) project groups reported using our tool during their design process for different purposes. Even one of the control groups got - beyond our control - access to our toolkit and used it. The project groups which used the tool applied it in the following phases: vision, ideation, conceptualization and validation, but not realization.