Volkmar Pipek - Böcker

The book is an exploration of the theoretical, conceptual and methodological foundations of human-centred design. Specifically, it critically examines the notion of 'practice' and argues for an understanding of the concept which emanates from engagement with design problems rather than simply from social scientific theory. The contributors to the book in their various ways all subscribe to a systematic account of how practice- oriented studies can inform design. Using the perspective of 'grounded design', it pursues a long term view of the design process, arguing for user engagement from the very earliest stages of design policy, including methods for understanding user practices to inform initial design policies up to and including processes of appropriation as technologies are embedded in contexts of use. Grounded design is a perspective which also deals with the vexed problem of appropriate generalization in design studies and the kinds of cross-comparison that can usefully be done. The book contains a number of case studies which exemplify these themes, some of which are rooted in the use of technology in organizational contexts, others of which deal with design in contexts such as care of the elderly, firefighting and multicultural education.

Socioinformatics is a new scientific approach to study the interactions between humans and IT. These proceedings are a collection of the contributions during a workshop of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). Researchers in this emerging field discuss the main aspects of interactions between IT and humans with respect to; social connections, social changes, acceptance of IT and the social conditions affecting this acceptance, effects of IT on humans and in response changes of IT, structures of the society and the influence of IT on these structures, changes of metaphysics influenced by IT and the social context of a knowledge society.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on End-User Development, IS-EUD 2015, held in Madrid, Spain, in May 2015. Additionally, the volume contains 2 keynote speeches, 3 doctoral consortia papers, 1 workshop paper and 6 EUD-playground papers.

Socioinformatics is a new scientific approach to study the interactions between humans and IT. These proceedings are a collection of the contributions during a workshop of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). Researchers in this emerging field discuss the main aspects of interactions between IT and humans with respect to; social connections, social changes, acceptance of IT and the social conditions affecting this acceptance, effects of IT on humans and in response changes of IT, structures of the society and the influence of IT on these structures, changes of metaphysics influenced by IT and the social context of a knowledge society.

Work practices and organizational processes vary widely and evolve constantly. The technological infrastructure has to follow, allowing or even supporting these changes. Traditional approaches to software engineering reach their limits whenever the full spectrum of user requirements cannot be anticipated or the frequency of changes makes software reengineering cycles too clumsy to address all the needs of a specific field of application. Moreover, the increasing importance of ‘infrastructural’ aspects, particularly the mutual dependencies between technologies, usages, and domain competencies, calls for a differentiation of roles beyond the classical user–designer dichotomy. End user development (EUD) addresses these issues by offering lightweight, use-time support which allows users to configure, adapt, and evolve their software by themselves. EUD is understood as a set of methods, techniques, and tools that allow users of software systems who are acting as non-professional software developers to 1 create, modify, or extend a software artifact. While programming activities by non-professional actors are an essential focus, EUD also investigates related activities such as collective understanding and sense-making of use problems and solutions, the interaction among end users with regard to the introduction and diffusion of new configurations, or delegation patterns that may also partly involve professional designers.