Refining Design Principles for Value-Sensitive Digital Social Innovation to Support Homeless Neighbors

Homelessness is a major global challenge. It can have a negative impact on people’s social, physical, and psychological well-being, which makes those experiencing homelessness a particularly vulnerable group in society. Digital social innovations (DSIs) try to address social issues such as homelessness with the help of digital solutions. Since homeless neighbors are vulnerable, DSIs need to be designed and developed to fit their values and needs. Prior research has contributed design principles (DPs) to be acted upon for the creation of value-sensitive DSIs. However, these DPs have only been abstracted based on one action design research project, implicating a low projectability level. By analyzing these DPs’ fitness within currently available DSI applications to support homeless neighbors, we further codify, generalize, and refine them, inducing higher projectability. Researchers and practitioners can draw on our refined DPs to better understand value-sensitive DSI projects and simultaneously use this knowledge for instantiations