Understanding and Developing for Cultural Identities Across Platforms: Value-Driven Design Principles and Best Practices in a Qataris

We aim to assess the current tactics used by Qataris and other GCC nationals to express identity through uses of virtual identity technologies (e.g., social media profiles and avatars), which are not necessarily designed with their values in mind. This investigation will result in (1) articulation of base principles and best practices for developing technologies that empower Qataris to enact traditional values and cultural norms, (2) new computational techniques for understanding user values and practices in virtual identity systems, and (3) a novel application illustrating the efficacy of our discovered design principles. The key milestone for Year 1 is (1) above, with a focus on integrating both computational (machine learning/data-mining) and social science approaches (qualitative interviews).