Digital Good Index

The Digital Good Index is a set of tools to evaluate whether digital technologies have good societal outcomes. It builds on digital society research from the Digital Good Network and beyond.

Read the latest about our work on the Digital Good Index.

Measures of the digital good

The Digital Good Index is based on ten values underpinning a good digital society, which we propose are measures of the digital good:

Involving stakeholders, especially those who are minoritised or disadvantaged, listen to their views (in all stages – evaluation, design, development, deployment)
Using participatory, co-design methods (in all stages – evaluation, design, development, deployment)
Taking action towards equality
Taking action towards collective wellbeing
Taking action towards minimising environmental impacts
Ethical data practices
Considering the values of those involved
Preparing for future uses
Minimising negative impacts on people’s jobs
Ensuring meaningful transparency, communication and explanations

image of summit event, credit Joe Turner BBC

These ten components of the digital good emerge from our analysis of Digital Good Network research. You can read more about this in our paper: Evaluating the societal impacts of digital technologies.

The Digital Good Index is for anyone who builds, develops, procures, or wants to evaluate digital technologies.

It has three elements: the Digital Good Builder, a Glossary, and Case Studies of the Digital Good.

1. Digital Good Builder

The Digital Good Builder is a values-based tool to help evaluate whether a specific technology has positive outcomes for people and society. With the Digital Good Builder, you identify the ‘digital good’ values that underpin the technology you are evaluating, and identify an action plan to enable you to achieve these values.

The Digital Good Builder also links you to existing good guidance to help you improve the societal outcomes of your digital technology.

In Spring and Summer 2026, we are co-designing the Digital Good Builder with stakeholders across our network. If you’d be interested in getting involved in our co-design work, contact us.

An early version of the Digital Good Builder will be available to use from Autumn 2026.

The Digital Good builder is structured around the ten measures of the digital good:

Digital Good Measure	Example questions
1. Involving stakeholders, especially those who are minoritised or disadvantaged, listen to their views (in all stages – evaluation, design, development, deployment) 2. Using participatory, co-design methods (in all stages – evaluation, design, development, deployment)	Who might be disadvantaged or adversely affected by the technology? Is there deliberate engagement of these communities in your technology project? Are the methods you are using to include people accessible and inclusive?
3. Taking action towards equality	Is the technology accessible and easy to use? Does the technology accommodate a wide range of individual preferences & abilities? Can the technology be used by those with disabilities or those at risk of exclusion?
4. Taking action towards collective wellbeing	Does the technology improve people’s wellbeing, online and offline? If so, which people, and in which ways? What behaviours, actions or practices does the technology foster? Are they healthy or harmful?
5. Taking action towards minimising environmental impacts	Is there ways to ensure the technology is repairable, both for hardware and software? Does it require new hardware? Has the hardware used in the technology been developed from sustainable materials?
6. Ethical data practices	What data underpins the technology? Is it available, easy to access, proprietary, open? What happens to the data gathered for this technology – where does it go, who has access to it?
7. Considering the values of those involved	Who made the technology? What is the business model? Who profits? Who benefits financially from this technology? How?
8. Preparing for future uses	What future uses of the technology are envisioned? What might go wrong? How might it go wrong?
9. Minimising negative impacts on people’s jobs	Will developing, deploying or procuring the technology change people’s jobs? If so, how? Will it replace a skilled human task? Will it change organisational culture, for example by lessening human interaction?
10. Ensuring meaningful transparency, communication and explanations	Have you talked to users or affected groups about the aspects of the technology to make transparent? Are you communicating what users want or need to know? Are you making sure that you are not communicating too much/too little/too complex information?

2. Glossary

Equity, wellbeing, resilience, sustainability, commons, openness, allyship, civic tech, standards and benchmarks, stewardship – the terms used in evaluating the good digital society can be confusing. Often, they are contested, understood in different ways by different people. This can make values-based evaluation difficult.

The Digital Good Index will include a glossary of digital good concepts, like an index at the back of a book, to help you have conversations about how to evaluate digital technologies. It will draw on the range of topics and perspectives across our research network.

We will publish the glossary in Autumn 2026. We will also develop a set of evaluative cards based on the glossary, to prompt reflection and discussion.

3. Case studies of the digital good

Digital Good Network researchers are thinking about what makes a good digital society and how we get there, often focusing on particular aspects of our social world. This will include our existing research and findings from our final round of funded projects, Blueprints for a good digital society.

These reports will be a set of case studies for the digital good, outlining what a specific aspect of social life, or a social institution, looks like in a good digital society. By ‘a specific aspect of social life or a social institution’, we mean a particular, defined area or component of how people live, interact and organise themselves in society.