Value Sensitive Design and power in socio-technical ecosystems

Recent European policy papers call for the consideration of human values in design information technology. Value Sensitive Design (VSD) provides a framework systematically accounting technical artefacts. This paper examines how distribution power within socio-technical ecosystems poses challenge application VSD. It identifies four crucial factors determining effect on VSD: level decentralisation ecosystem; if VSD is applied at core or periphery; when can be exercised (temporality); and phase (conceptual, empirical, technical) that in. Based these factors, it outlines addressed.