Applying Value Sensitive Design to Location-Based Services: Designing for Shared Spaces and Local Conditions

Paper Title

Applying Value Sensitive Design to Location-Based Services: Designing for Shared Spaces and Local Conditions

Publication Info

• Topic area: Adapting Value Sensitive Design (VSD) for Location-Based Services (LBS) with spatial and locality-specific considerations.
• Keywords: Location-Based Services, Value Sensitive Design, shared spaces, locality-specific design, stakeholder analysis, e-scooter sharing, spatial entanglement, digital-physical alignment.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing design approaches, including VSD, inadequately address value tensions in shared physical spaces and locality-specific contexts of LBS. These gaps hinder the systematic identification and incorporation of stakeholder values shaped by spatial and contextual factors.
• Significance: Addressing these challenges is crucial for designing LBS that are inclusive, context-aware, and capable of mitigating conflicts between direct and indirect stakeholders in shared environments.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work has applied VSD across various domains but struggles with shared physical spaces and context-specific values. Studies have critiqued VSD for its reliance on universal values and lack of guidance for locality-specific applications. This paper builds on these critiques to propose a domain-specific adaptation of VSD for LBS.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Location-Aware Value Sensitive Design (LA-VSD), a domain-specific adaptation of VSD tailored for LBS, introducing three heuristics to address spatial entanglement and locality-dependent impacts.
• Novelty:
  1. Introduces LBS-H1: Consider Local Space-Sharing Scenarios to identify stakeholders through spatial and local contexts.
  2. Proposes LBS-H2: Adapt Methods to Capture Local and Physical Interactions to refine empirical methods for shared-space dynamics.
  3. Develops LBS-H3: Align Values Across Digital and Physical Layers to ensure value alignment in hybrid systems.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  1. Conceptual investigation: Identify stakeholders and value tensions using local data and space-sharing scenarios.
  2. Empirical investigation: Adapt interviews and observational methods to capture shared-space interactions and local regulations.
  3. Technical investigation: Align stakeholder values across digital and physical components of LBS.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • LBS-H1 identified pedestrians, cyclists, and councils as key stakeholders in e-scooter sharing, with spatial co-presence as a critical factor.
  • LBS-H2 revealed frictions in shared spaces, safety design gaps, and the influence of local regulations and cultural practices on LBS adoption.
  • LBS-H3 proposed design directions such as context-aware route recommendations, footpath-detection algorithms, and improved physical infrastructure.
• Advantage over baselines: LA-VSD systematically integrates spatial and locality-specific considerations into VSD, addressing gaps in prior methodologies.
• Experiments / evaluation: Applied heuristics in a case study of e-scooter sharing in Melbourne, using trip data analysis, semi-structured interviews with 23 participants, and thematic analysis to validate the framework.
• Limitations and future work: The framework was tested in a single locality and domain, with conceptual rather than implemented technical solutions. Future work should expand to other LBS, geographic contexts, and long-term evaluations.

Summary

This paper introduces Location-Aware Value Sensitive Design (LA-VSD), a domain-specific adaptation of VSD for Location-Based Services (LBS). By addressing spatial entanglement and locality-dependent impacts, LA-VSD provides three heuristics: LBS-H1 for stakeholder identification, LBS-H2 for capturing shared-space interactions, and LBS-H3 for aligning values across digital and physical layers. A case study on e-scooter sharing in Melbourne demonstrated the framework's ability to surface stakeholder values and propose actionable design directions. While the findings are context-specific, LA-VSD offers a practical, adaptable approach for designing inclusive and context-aware LBS. Future research should extend its application to diverse domains and geographies.