Care Centred Value Sensitive Design: Developing Design Requirements for a Feeding Robot in Eldercare

Abstract

With an anticipated shortage of carers due to demographical changes, there is the possibility that a greater need of automation in healthcare will one day be met with an increasing number of care robots. Considering the sensitive and morally complex environment in which care robots will be used, special attention must be paid to their ethical implications. In this master thesis, the care centred value sensitive design (CCVSD) approach by van Wynsberghe (2013b) is applied to incorporate human values relevant to key stakeholders in the development of design requirements for a feeding robot in the context of eldercare. The tripartite methodology of value sensitive design (VSD) is applied. For value elicitation, mainly 11 value-oriented semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders are conducted. Moreover, the values hierarchy tool by van de Poel (2013) is used to specify the values by norms and concrete design requirements. Also, the values in motion design (VMD) approach by Poulsen et al. (2019) is used to consider customisation in the design.