In the multimedia design field, we have recently witnessed a shift of focus from products and the user' s experience to social effects of technologies and the quality of life. In this context, values play an important role. They may be inscribed within an artifact as symbolic meanings or as a built- in use consequence. In spite of their growing relevance, there is not yet a markup language for value annotation. This paper describes a proposal for filling this gap. After a brief review of various perspectives on the concept of value and relevant taxonomies, we discuss the syntax and semantics of a preliminary version of the ValueML language together with an example of annotation of a commercial video clip.
