Every project involves a whole range of values depending on the nature of the client, users, site, climate and even the designer. The focus on improving architectural design for low-income housing contributes to add more value to these projects. By determining the important value-based index related to the design problem early in the programming process, the architect is able to identify crucial areas. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an effective and appropriate mechanism that captures and reflects the user's requirements through a comprehensive analytical evaluation of the low-income project during architectural programming. The paper attempts to identify some of the criteria which include human, environmental, cultural, economic, aesthetic, safety, temporal and technological issues. These eight criteria are explained to help defining the goals, facts, needs and ideas of each project, so as to enable the development of a value-based index for architectural programming. Furthermore, a low-income housing project case study is evaluated where the effectiveness of addressing client / user needs is assessed in a quantifiable manner