Evolving Practices of End User Articulation in Software Co-Design

202 Pages·2014·7.29 MB·English

by  Jan Heß

Evolving Practices of End User Articulation in
Software Co-Design
Dissertation von Jan Heß
zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades Dr. rer. pol.
an der Fakult¨at III:
Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht
der Universit¨at Siegen
Finishing year: 2014
First supervisor: Prof. Dr. Volker Wulf
Second supervisor: Prof. Dr. Volkmar Pipek
Day of the oral examination: 6th of May 2014
printed on aging resistant and acid free paper
Abstract
Participatory design (PD) has a long history and originated in the
democratic framing of design activities for workplace settings. The
researchfieldofPDinvestigatesmethodsandtoolswhichinvolveusers
in (re-) design activities. In order to meet the user’s needs, the co-
design of software systems should be initiated at an early stage and
continuously adapted. A variety of activities help to establish a more
successful design process, including the reflection of requirements and
design alternatives or evaluation of prototypes. The main scope of
this thesis is the exploration of new forms of remote participation and
interaction technologies for co-designing software.
Social technologies change the way in which users are involved in
PD. One of the cases presented in this thesis provides results from a
long-term study with users from an online community. The aim was
to co-design a new product in a democratic way, covering all relevant
design and development steps. In another case study, the design of a
similar system was applied with users of local households. The results
of this study provide insight into how a process like this differs from a
distributed co-design applied online.
The results of both co-design studies emphasize the importance
of integrated toolkits which support the users in generating feedback
within the context of use. Based on this, two concepts were devel-
oped: Infrastructure Probes and a Cross Platform Feedback tool. The
evaluation of these tools carries several implications for how feedback
processes can be stimulated and moderated. In another design case,
the digital pen technology was customized for non-expert users. By
drawing services, or by using existing visualizations of services, the
participants were able to interact with a software system in an intu-
itive and easy-to-use manner.
All case studies presented in this thesis refer to new organizational
and technological forms of involving non-expert users directly in soft-
ware co-design. As an implication for design, a more integrated PD
processisrequiredalongwithqualitativereflectioninthebeginningas
wellasdistributedparticipationasfarasprototypesareavailable. The
usageofintegratedfeedbackchannelsbuildsthelinkbetweenuse-time
and design-time.
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Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks go to my thesis advisors Volker Wulf and Volkmar Pipek
for guiding me during the complete research process and sharing their valu-
able knowledge and experience.
I am also very grateful for the vital support of my colleagues who sup-
ported the research work and the publications throughout the last years.
Special thanks to my colleagues Christian D¨orner, Benedikt Ley, Corinna
Ogonowski,TimReichling,ChristianReuter,LinWanandTorbenWiedenh¨ofer
who contributed in discussion and research.
I also thank the persons who contributed to this work in a variety of differ-
ent ways, e.g. by supporting the implementation and evaluation. Thanks
to Bj¨orn Borggr¨afe, Markus Hofmann, Guy Ku¨stermann, Sinja Offenberg,
Martin Radvak and Benjamin Sprengart.
Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my wife Mareen who encour-
aged and supported me throughout the last years.
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Contents
1 Introduction 7
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2 Research Questions and Structure of the Thesis . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 Structure of the chapters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Participatory Design 13
2.1 Foundations of PD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Continuous user involvement and social technologies . . . . . 14
2.3 Co-design with users of an online community . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4 Co-designing with users of local households . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.5 Tools that support co-design activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.1 Cultural Probes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5.2 Feedback Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.5.3 Digital pen based interaction concepts . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Case Studies 22
4 Involving Users in the Wild - Participatory Product Devel-
opment in and with Online Communities 24
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4.2 The methodological foundations of PD . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.3 Community driven development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.3.1 Project context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3.3 Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3.4 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4 Empirical results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4.1 Role of the user, risk and motivation . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.4.2 Intensity of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.4.3 Decision process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.4.4 Organisation efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.4.5 Tools and structuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.4.6 User satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.4.7 Satisfaction of the employees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.4.8 Suggestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5.1 Motivations, Expectations and Risk . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.5.2 Lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3
4.5.3 Communication structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.6 Conclusion: towards a community driven process . . . . . . . 61
5 Understanding and supporting cross-platform usage in the
living room 65
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.2 Related work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.2.1 TV-centric systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.2.2 Cross media systems in general . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.3 SocialMedia project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.4 Living Lab concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.5 Methodology, approach results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.5.1 Diary Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.5.2 Creative workshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.7 Implications for design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.7.1 SocialMedia framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6 Expressing use: infrastructure probes in professional envi-
ronments 92
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.2 Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6.3 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
7 In-situ Everywhere: A Qualitative Feedback Infrastructure
for Cross Platform Home-IT 100
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.2 Context motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.3 Previous work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.4 Cross platform feedback infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.4.1 Feedback app . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.4.2 Towards meta-design variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
8 SupportingEnd-UserArticulationsinEvolvingBusinessPro-
cesses: A Case Study to explore Intuitive Notations and
Interaction Designs 109
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.2 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
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8.2.1 Business Process Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.2 End-User Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.3 Process Modeling for the End-User . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8.2.4 Visual Metaphors to Support Process Modeling by
End-Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
8.2.5 Integrating the End-User: An Interactive Process . . 116
8.3 End-user process adaptations: Understanding and expressing 117
8.3.1 Empirical Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8.3.2 Tailoring in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
8.3.3 Modeling Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
8.3.4 Results from Modeling Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.3.5 ImplicationsfortheDesignofaCommonProcessRep-
resentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.3.6 Evaluation of a Common Process Representation . . . 126
8.4 End-User Process Adaptation: Interaction Issues . . . . . . . 128
8.4.1 An Experiment in Pen-based Modeling Practice . . . . 128
8.4.2 Articulation Support for Conceptual Modeling . . . . 132
8.4.3 Supporting Modeling Interactions with a Paper-based
Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
8.4.4 Usage of the System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.4.5 Evaluating Paper-based Modeling Interaction . . . . . 137
8.5 IntegratingtheEnd-User: CombiningEaseofExpressionwith
Ease of Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
9 Using Paper and Pen to Control Home-IT: Lessons Learned
by Hands-On Experience 146
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
9.2 Smart remotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
9.3 Pen and paper interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
9.4 P-remote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
9.4.1 Pre-study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
9.4.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
9.5 Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
9.5.1 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
9.5.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.5.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.5.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
9.6 Customization variations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
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9.7.1 P-remote versus wireless keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.7.2 Haptic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.7.3 One hand or two hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.7.4 Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.7.5 Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.7.6 Paper-based interfaces for Home-IT . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.8 Summary and future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
10 Implications for Design 166
10.1 Reflecting co-design activities of home technologies . . . . . . 166
10.1.1 Co-design with users of an online community . . . . . 166
10.1.2 Co-design with users of local households . . . . . . . . 171
10.2 Tools that support co-design activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
10.2.1 Infrastructure Probes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
10.2.2 Cross Platform Feedback tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
10.2.3 Digital pen based interaction concepts . . . . . . . . . 176
10.3 Involving Non-Expert Users in Co-Design: Towards an inte-
grated infrastructuring perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
10.3.1 Processes-oriented view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
10.3.2 Toolkits for infrastructuring activities . . . . . . . . . 179
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1 Introduction
1.1 Motivation
Feedbackfromusersisofhighimportancewithaviewtoincorporatingtheir
needs in the design process. In order to develop functional and easy to use
software systems, users should be involved at an early stage of the design
process but also in a continuous manner. Participatory Design (PD) has
been a well-established field of research for more than 30 years now [24, 37].
PDhasitsorigininthedesignofsoftwaresystemsforworkplaces,butisalso
gaining an increasing impact in other areas, including the use of software at
home and in domestic settings.
The co-design of software systems, especially for special interest solu-
tions, requires flexible forms of user involvement. With the increasing im-
pactofsocialonlinetechnologies,PDcanbeappliedinadistributedmanner
[77, 45]. Social technologies, such as forums, blogs and web diaries, enable
new forms of distributed PD whereby users can contribute remotely in dif-
ferent phases of a design project [77]. Users can provide feedback on visual
concepts [64], prototypes can be shared [54], and in this way online product
communities are gaining importance in continuous software improvement
[150]. Although several studies have described the advantages of remote
participation, none of the known studies reflect in depth a complete co-
design process involving users from an online community. A more profound
reflection would help to understand all the phases of co-design, starting
with a discussion of requirements, framing of the decision process and the
evaluation of early alpha versions.
Another important approach to co-designing in close collaboration with
potential users is referenced as Living Lab [60]. Living Labs are real world
environments that support different stakeholders in cooperating and inter-
acting. Users from local households participate in a more long-term manner
by providing ideas and evaluating concepts in daily life. Compared to re-
mote forms of participation, close cooperation with potential users helps
to understand the current practice of technology use in a profound man-
ner. It seems especially important to understand the advantages and issues,
compared to online studies with distributed user involvement.
Instead of only involving users sporadically in certain steps of design,
infrastructuring is an integrated methodological approach [140] that goes
beyond ‘designing before use’. Use innovations may also occur in practice,
whenusersaredissatisfiedwithaparticularfunctionalityorwheninteresting
new ideas develop. In order to capture such situations and to bear them in
7
mind when improving a product, use time and design time need to be linked
more efficiently with each other. Toolkits for design should support a direct
reflection in context of use. Existing approaches include the visualization of
a potential product as an online mock-up [64], and feedback channels that
are directly integrated in the software [183]. Regarding the approach of
infrastructuring, in-situ design work requires more integrated concepts that
support users to reflect about certain technical and non-technical aspects of
the environment. Toolkits for co-design need to be conceptualized so that
flexible discourses about certain aspects of use-innovations and breakdowns
become possible.
1.2 Research Questions and Structure of the Thesis
Participatory design is a process that can be supported in different phases
of a software development project. PD methods can be distinguished in two
dimensions: user involvement (active and passive) and timing (early or late)
[124]. Other classification can be divided in ’design before use’ and ’design
fordesign’(meta-design)[51]. Inordertoincludealltheactivitieswhichare
relevant for design (understanding of culture, activities applied before use,
continuousimprovementoftheinformationsystems), amorecomprehensive
approach is the concept of infrastructuring [170]. Infrastructuring has been
described as:
”a methodological approach to develop methodological and tool
support for all stakeholders’ activities that contribute to the suc-
cessful establishment of an information system usage” [170]
The approach of infrastructuring refers to an integrated perspective on
the design of systems embedded in sociotechnical environments. In compar-
ison to a more traditional approach which can be defined as ’design before
use’, infrastructuring includes a continuous design process among different
stakeholders, also encompassing existing work, culture and learning activ-
ities. Infrastructuring can be separated into three phases: infrastructural
background work (e.g. culture of use, working standards); preparational
design (e.g. learning about technology, programming) and in-situ design
work (tailoring, appropriation). Points of infrastructure occur in cases of
breakdown or when technology- or practise-induced innovations arise.
In this work, the infrastructuring concept is used as a methodological
approach for investigating and reflecting about different case studies of soft-
ware co-design. Although originally considered for IT design in organiza-
tions, infrastructuring activities also support a continuous form of co-design
8