Selecting and Adapting Methods for Analysis and Design in Value-Sensitive Digital Social Innovation Projects: Toward Design Principles

Digital Social Innovations (DSI) aim to address social challenges, such as poverty and inequality, with information and communication technologies. The development of such innovations requires a broad understanding of the DSI ecosystem and the pluralistic values of the involved actors to enable sustainable development and long-term anchoring. In value-sensitive DSI projects, actors need to combine methods from DSI and Value Sensitive Design (VSD) with methods applied by the IS community for developing digital services. In this article, we address the challenge of selecting, adapting and combining methods in DSI projects. Based on the reflection of an action design research project related to the development of a digital donation system for homeless neighbors and a literature analysis, we developed design principles (DP) for the selection and adaptation of methods for supporting value-sensitive DSI projects.