What conflicting interests (e.g. financial returns, social responsibility, environmental sustainability) do we perceive in our field of research?
Does our project follow current trends or hot topics? What particular areas might need attention?
Are there norms embedded in the technology concerning gender roles or what it means to be a “woman”, “transgender” or “man”? How has research considering gender been studied up to now?
Might “ people with disabilities” with different experiences be considered as an important interest group?
Values
How does our project contribute to making the world a better place?
Technology design is based on values, e.g., privacy and security, power relations, distribution of work, production conditions, gender equality and participation, anti-racism, trans*gender equity, disability justice, inclusion, user empowerment, sustainability, ecological responsibility. How do we reflect and integrate such values in our project?
Does our field of interest provide opportunities for inclusive technology design?
Power Relations
Gender-specific distribution of work, unequal pay, and social inequalities reflect power relations. An analysis of such aspects in our field might broaden our research perspective.
Benefit
What target groups do we want to serve?
Who else might be affected by our research?
What population groups might be excluded by the envisaged technologies and do we want that?
What new perspectives might be opened up if we include “ people with disabilities” in our concepts?
Do current technologies equally serve many groups of people? Can we make out fields of hidden work or marginalised life domains which have not been served yet? Which groups are less prioritised?
Knowledge
In which ways might new knowledge (from other cultures, various life domains, new application areas) inspire our research and development? And how are we giving credit to these cultures and areas of expertise?
Are there findings in disciplines like
Gender Studies
, Black Feminism, Critical Race Studies, Disability Studies, Health and Nursing Sciences that might inspire our research?
Language
What terms, scenarios, representations, visualisations, and images are commonly used in our field of research? Do they mirror a diverse group of people and contexts? Do they reinforce stereotypes? Can we try out new ones and experiment with them?
Concept of the Human
What (and whose) life domains and what everyday contexts seem interesting for our research?
What kinds of people do we have in mind when formulating our project goal? Are they mainly like us or do we also imagine completely different population groups?
Will we include “ people with disabilities”in our concepts?
What roles do we assign to them? Are these roles gendered?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional background or discipline.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
How inclusive is our general company policy, e.g., in terms of family-friendliness (non-judgemental flexibility in working time and/or place) or protection from discrimination (in particular for minorities)?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder”to a member of our team?
How are decisions made in the company, at the workplace and in work processes? How do power and hierarchy relations influence our cooperation?
Phase Project Definition
Relevance
What priorities have driven our field of research?
What life domains (e.g., recreation, health care, work) does our current research address? In what ways (negative, positive) will our project change people’s lives?
How do we deal with
socially marginalised groups in our application area?
Are there norms embedded in the technology concerning gender roles or what it means to be a “woman”, “transgender” or “man”? How has research considering gender been studied up to now?
How do we deal with users, acknowledging their physical characteristics (height, eye colour, weight, etc.), abilities, financial means, or cultural norms?
Values
Technology design is based on values, e.g., privacy and security, power relations, distribution of work, production conditions, gender equality and participation, anti-racism, trans*gender equity, disability justice, inclusion, user empowerment, sustainability, ecological responsibility. How do we reflect and integrate such values in our project?
Is our project meant to support the status quo or do we strive for change?
How will we combine and balance conflicting social and technical factors?
How do we deal with conflicting values in our project?
What are our institutional values and how do they align with product development?
Power Relations
Do we work for social change? Or do we want to advance the status quo?
Gender-specific distribution of work, unequal pay, social inequalities reflect power relations. An analysis of such aspects in our field might broaden our research perspective.
Benefit
What target groups do we want to serve?
What population groups might be excluded by the envisaged technologies and do we want that?
How can our target groups be broadened and involved?
Knowledge
What kinds of and whose knowledge will we use for our research and development? (e.g., common knowledge, the knowledge of the target group, scientific knowledge
How can we acquire knowledge about the application area? Could we broaden our repertoire of methods, e.g. by ethnographic observation and analyses, interviews and focus groups with users?
Are there findings in disciplines like
Gender Studies
, Black Feminism, Critical Race Studies, Disability Studies, Health and Nursing Sciences that might inspire our research?
Language
What terms, scenarios, representations, visualisations, and images are commonly used in our field of research? Do they mirror a diverse group of people and contexts? Do they reinforce stereotypes? Can we try out new ones and experiment with them?
Concept of the Human
What kinds of people do we have in mind when formulating our project goal? Are they mainly like us or do we also imagine completely different population groups?
Does our project deal with a rich and diverse social world?
How can we avoid generalizing situations or stereotyping? For example, diversity aspects such as gender intersects with variables like educational background, socioeconomic status, age, or ethnicity. The experiences of Black migrant girls in Germany will differ from those of Black girls with migrant history in Germany.
What cultural, social, or political contexts should we study? Are there life domains and everyday contexts that might be particularly productive to inform our scenarios and use cases?
Participatory design, inclusive design, value-based design, or reflective design are approaches that include user participation and help to integrate gender/diversity-aspects. What if we used these approaches?
Will we include “ people with disabilities”in our concepts?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional or disciplinary background.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
Do we need/provide childcare for lengthy project meetings at inconvenient times?
How are decisions made in our company, at the workplace and in work processes?
How do power and hierarchy relations influence our cooperation?
How is our work process organised?
How can we assign diverse roles and duties and provide opportunities?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder” to a member of our team?
How do we ensure gender and diversity sensitive language and conduct e.g., avoid ableist language or derogatory terms for gays? Do we have a code of conduct for the project?
What development approaches do we use?
Whose voice is louder and whose voice is never heard?
Phase Analysis
Relevance
What categories of analysis seem most relevant for our project and why? What additional categories might be interesting?
Power Relations
To what extent do the various persons or groups involved have a say in our research and development process?
External conditions can affect different people in different ways, e.g., jogging at night may be more dangerous for a Black trans woman; budget cuts or instability in health care may adversely affect persons with lesser income – how do we take that into account?
Which of our technologies or procedures may bear particular risks for certain groups?
Benefit
Do current technologies equally serve many groups of people? Can we make out fields of hidden work or marginalised life domains which have not been served yet? Which groups are less prioritised?
How usable are current work tools or technologies for diverse persons? Are current work tools efficient and effective for all?
Are there domains that cannot or should not be supported technologically?
How can we assess conflicting needs and interests in order to reconcile them?
Knowledge
What are the key concepts and terms in our research field? Do assumptions concerning gender, race, class, dis/ability, or other social categories underlie these concepts and terms?
How can we integrate findings from social science concerning the work or application domain, activities, and social structures in our analysis?
How do we include the domain expertise of potential users in our research and development project? What techniques for participatory analysis and design might help us?
Language
Do we formulate system requirements so they can be understood and verified by various stakeholders?
Concept of the Human
What might help us to get a more diverse and varied image of potential users?
What are the reasons for involving various groups to different degrees (or not at all) in our research and development process?
What reference models do we use in order to study and model human behaviour or abilities?
Who will definitely not benefit from our research and why?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional or disciplinary background.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
How are decisions made in our company, at the workplace and in work processes?
How do power and hierarchy relations influence our cooperation?
How is our work process organised?
Whose voice is louder and whose voice is never heard?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder” to a member of our team?
How do we ensure gender and diversity sensitive language and conduct e.g., avoid ableist language or derogatory terms for gays? Do we have a code of conduct for the project?
What development approaches do we use?
Phase Concept Development
Relevance
To what extent do we try to meet requirements?
What efforts do we find acceptable for that?
Values
How do we decide about tools, technologies, and procedures to be used? Do we follow economic, ecological, personal or other interests?
Power Relations
On what basis do we take decisions about concepts?
Whose requirements do we follow?
How transparent is our decision process for others?
Knowledge
In computing, “ knowledge has to be formalised”. We will encounter limits of formalisation - how do we deal with them?
How do we combine knowledge and findings from different disciplines?
Concept of the Human
To what extent can social diversity be integrated in our concept development? Does it open up new perspectives? What aspects do we leave out?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional or disciplinary background.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
How are decisions made in our company, at the workplace and in work processes? How do power and hierarchy relations influence our cooperation?
How do power and hierarchy relations influence our cooperation?
How is our work process organised?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder” to a member of our team?
What development approaches do we use?
Whose voice is louder and whose voice is never heard?
Phase Realisation
Relevance
To what extent do we try to meet requirements and include concepts?
What efforts do we find acceptable for that?
Which aspects from our concept do we leave out during the technical realisation and why?
Power Relations
Do we work for social change? Or do we want to advance the status quo?
Knowledge
How customisable will our product be? And by whom and for whom?
Language
How can we avoid technical language and formulate for audiences without technical expertise?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional or disciplinary background.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
How is our work process organised?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder”
to a member of our team?
What development approaches do we use?
Whose voice is louder and whose voice is never heard?
Phase Evaluation
Relevance
What (and whose) quality criteria do we use for evaluation?
Values
How can we test our system in the field?
How can we evaluate our system with diverse groups and under various external conditions?
What happens to results that show that things do not work out? How can we use these results in a constructive way?
Power Relations
What degree of significance will we attribute to test results?
How much effort do we consider acceptable for product revisions?
Benefit
How about testing our research results also in contexts for which they were not intended?
Knowledge
How do we integrate evaluation results in product revisions?
Language
Will the testers easily understand tasks and scenarios?
How can we avoid technical language and formulate for audiences without technical expertise?
What images and scenarios do we use in tests? Do they address and appeal to all target groups?
Concept of the Human
Whom do we consider appropriate as a tester/evaluator of our draft or prototype?
Let us try to evaluate our system under other conditions (e.g., diverse users not from the primary target group)
Situations and places feel different for different persons. How do we take that into account in our evaluation procedure?
Work Culture
Is our project team diverse? Diversity may mean people’s age, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation – but also social roles (being a parent), professional or disciplinary background.
What measures might be taken to progress team diversity?
Do we need/provide childcare for lengthy project meetings at inconvenient times?
Is there a need for gender and diversity awareness training? How about assigning the role of a “gender/diversity-minder” to a member of our team?
Phase Dissemination
Relevance
To whom do we make our results and products available? Who will not have access and why?
How do we prepare and manage the introduction of our product?
In what way could we still achieve a broader audience?
What aspects could not be realised by our project but might be important for future research?
Knowledge
How do we support user groups with diverse levels of expertise in the introduction stage?
How about using a variety of media to make our material available, e.g., audio-visual material or interactive help?
How can the insights we gained be used in the future?
Does our research generate new questions or starting points for further research, in particular for interdisciplinary cooperation?
Language
What images do we use in marketing and public relations?
Do we address different target groups in specific ways?
How do we present important results from research and development to non-technical experts?
Concept of the Human
What persons or groups might be potential emissaries for our research results?
How do we make project results accessible?
Work Culture
How can we assign diverse roles and duties and provide opportunities?
How do we ensure gender and diversity sensitive language and conduct e.g., avoid ableist language or derogatory terms for gays? Do we have a code of conduct for the project?
How do we inform and support persons who conduct workshops and trainings for our product?