A set of critical heuristics for value sensitive designers and users of persuasive systems

This paper proposes a set of critical questions to guide reflections on persuasive systems. The questions are mainly based on value-based practical reasoning as suggested in argumentation research. Value based reasoning is involved in any persuasive design discourse to assess the purposiveness, goodness or rightness of system actions to be designed. In this approach, the critical questions are structured according to practical discourses suggested by Habermas (1993) in order to help focusing on, and guiding, pragmatic, ethical, and moral discourses of persuasive system design and use. This paper contributes to the current research by enriching reflective methods with a set of concrete questions which can in particular be employed for a value sensitive participatory design of persuasive systems. This article is conceptual-theoretical by its nature. It illustrates the applicability of the approach by employing it to analyze a commercial webbased persuasive system.