Understanding Culture with a Transnational Population: a Value-Sensitive Approach

It is widely acknowledged in design that culture is embodied in many aspects of an individual’s identity. Many design methods operationalize this understanding through the use of cultural markers or predefined cultural dimensions. Here, we take a first step to distil the culturally specific values of the Saudi culture. We adopt a bottom-up approach that allows for values to emerge from the data by reflecting on two studies of a transnational population: a form of identity where the choice of cultural values is conscious and deliberate. Despite their different goals, the two studies yield common overarching core cultural values. Using a value-sensitive approach, we propose a process for designers to identify culturally specific values, illustrating this in our context of interest: Saudi culture.