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Introduction

The moment a novel technological device is launched in society, it faces “the acid test of reality”: acceptance by user–customers, which depends on numerous individual and social factors. From engineering research that shows the feasibility of certain devices with novel features to the marketing of products that incorporate those devices, a transition must occur. Making the transition from the sphere of research to that of innovations, taken as marketed novel products, amounts to bridging the gulf between two worlds: those of science and marketing. How are these two worlds reconciled?

Several approaches have been proposed to mitigate the inadequacies of the “science-driven” approach, under which research guides the placement of novel devices on the market. Scientific discoveries don’t necessarily result in products and services that consumers want (Lorinc 2011). Norman (1998) points out that this is so even when marketing is focused on technological feats: “Marketing, moreover, becomes primarily feature-driven: query the existing customers for the features they desire most and pressure the engineering team to add them to the product, often with little regard, understanding, or even interest upon the impact on the coherence and integrity of the product.” This author recommends reversing the whole perspective by adopting human-centered design, which deploys the SSH to deepen the user’s experience. The bridge between science and marketing, then, is built with an understanding of the consumer. This understanding makes it possible to modify the technology so consumers’ requirements are satisfied. A variety of tools exist to promote an understanding of the consumer and consumers’ product use, thus fostering successful marketing.

The “value sensitive design” approach distinguishes itself from other approaches, by placing the emphasis on incorporating into the design process concerns raised by products’ social impacts on values. “Value Sensitive Design is a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner throughout the design process” (Freidman et al. 2008, 2013). First developed for information systems, this approach mobilizes an integrative tripartite methodology (conceptual, principled and technical) to analyze the different uses of information systems in society. In the same trend, Verbeek (2006) states that analysis of social impacts is necessary to the exploration of technologies’ moral dimensions: “One of the things that should be taken into account in such analyses is the social impact that the technology in design will have as soon as it enters society. As recent research in science and technology studies and the philosophy of technology has shown, technologies profoundly influence the behavior and experiences of users.” This approach is characterized by the involvement of the discipline of ethics, specifically applied ethics, in the process of technological development. Under the traditional model, a judgment of social acceptance was looked for once a product had been marketed; but that’s too late for the social response to influence development. If social concerns are taken into account right from the stage when designers are thinking about functionalities, it becomes possible to influence the device and its uses (Van der Burg 2013).

Human centered design and value sensitive design develop support procedures that aim at individual and social acceptance of the products. If user experience has received wide attention since its beginning, incorporating the social acceptance of products by taking into account the social impacts of the technology in a support procedure is more recent. Responsible innovation has been proposed as a broad theme where theoretical and practical analysis on how to make innovation responsible converge by taking into account the possible impacts of the innovation on individuals, institutions and society (Doorn et al. 2013; Owen et al. 2013; Koops et al. 2015).

Any approach to support the development of technological innovation deploys tools, concepts, and methods of analysis developed in the social sciences or humanities to influence technological development. Whereas psychology, physiology, ergonomics are at the core of user experience research, ethics and applied ethics are at the heart of responsible innovation. Besides the difference of data that are invested in support procedures from social sciences and humanities, these approaches also vary in the way they interact with the decision-makers. Some decision makers expect that the social sciences and humanities data will clearly identify the right way to do things. Where ethics and applied ethics data is concerned it is impossible to arrive at such a conclusion because in the normative domain there is no right way to do things. This is why support procedures that integrate ethics are based on the accompaniment of the decision-makers in their decisional process (Fisher and Schuurbiers 2013; Van de Poel and Doorn 2013).

To understand the specific nature of an approach, one must at least answer the following questions: who is providing the support; who is being supported; by what means; with what tools; and, above all, to what end (Patenaude 2014)? In this article, a support procedure is set out and presented, which was developed and experimented with for promoting responsible^Footnote1 social uses (RSU). Resumed briefly this support procedure helps the decision-makers in a process of technological development to recognize and evaluate the impacts of their product on the persons (user-experience) as well as on personal, professional or organizational practices.

In order to answer the first question: who is providing the support, the genesis of the project is described and the identification of the principal characteristics of the two approaches that were merged, namely: user experience and ethical acceptability of technological development, to constitute the support procedure introduced herein:. The second section will describe the aim of this procedure, namely its general purpose and fundamental basis. The description of the component parts of the procedure will summarize the means as well as the tools used and experimented to support the decision-makers in their final decisions.

Like any other product, proposing the RSU approach should fill a social need. Social sciences and humanities’ research imbedded in support procedures may vary methodologically and theoretically but they all attempt to reconcile science and the market. The third section will highlight what is specific to the RSU approach by a comparison with other support procedure in innovation.