Personal Information Infrastructures for Everyday Lived Experience: A Challenge for the Future

This paper presents one possibility for the future of technology-supported mobility. It draws upon findings of a series of field studies of mobile technology use undertaken since 2001 to construct the concept of ‘personal information infrastructures’ that support people’s everyday lived experience. Underpinning the concept is the belief that we should shift our focus from studying individual technologies and their application to narrow sets of activities or purposes. Rather, it suggests that we should study everyday experience and generate ways that combinations of technology can support the breadth of needs, purposes and contexts that characterise our lives. Some of the implications of this vision are discussed and future research areas are outlined

Completing Design in Use: Closing the Appropriation Cycle

Users appropriate a technology innovation as they adapt and adapt to its capabilities. This paper argues that the appropriation of technology innovations – information and communication technologies such as devices and systems – is actually part of the design process. The design of a technology innovation is completed by users as they appropriate it. The contributions of the paper are to draw attention to the crucial role played by users’ actions in completing the design process and to examine the implications for the design and implementation of technology innovations. The challenge for designers is to design malleable technologies that can be adapted to users’ organisational, social and personal practices, and then to harvest users’ needs from the appropriated innovation in order to improve its design. For managers, trainers and IS staff involved in the implementation of innovations, the challenge is to encourage and support users’ appropriation activities

‘What’s in It for Me?’: Taking M-Government to the People

M-government involves the use of mobile technologies in the provision of public sector services. Currently, there are powerful political, economic and technical drivers for the development of m-government. Less attention, however, has been paid to the users of mobile technologies and their likely uptake of m-government services. This paper makes two contributions to our growing understanding of m-government. The paper presents a framework that facilitates analysis of the influences on the implementation and likely uptake of m-government. The framework provides the context for investigating one influence on the success of m-government programs: citizens’ needs and desires to access public sector services through mobile technologies. The findings of empirical studies of mobile technology use provide the basis for drawing lessons for the development of mgovernment services that satisfy citizens’ needs

Technology Portfolios: A Metaphor For Usersʼ Technology Selections While Mobile?

Humans employ metaphors to understand, communicate and appropriate new, complex or perplexing aspects of their lives. This paper suggests that the rapid diffusion and widespread acceptance of mobile technologies have not been accompanied by a rich set of metaphors. Apt metaphors might help us to make sense of these technologies and the new practices that are emerging around them. The metaphor of a technology portfolio is proposed for users\u27 selections and deployment of technologies while mobile. Three case studies examining users’ technology selections while mobile are described. Observed practices can be understood and explained using the technology portfolio metaphor. The metaphor is particularly valuable given the changing nature of mobile technologies and the resulting difficulties in envisioning likely future needs and practice

The Process of ISD Methodology Selection and Use: A Case Study

This paper provides empirically-based explanations for the observed low, and partial, use of information systems development (ISD) methodologies. The research reported in this paper examines the process of methodology selection and use in an intensive field study of the early stages of systems development and notes ongoing adaptation of methodologies in response to changing contingencies. The paper concludes that, in many circumstances, methodology adaptation is a necessary part of successful systems development. It also suggests that deeper understanding of the attitudes of different stakeholders to selecting and using ISD methodologies may help to explain this adaptation

The social role of design representation

Design representation is a crucial part of all design activity. Representations provide a vehicle through which design ideas and decisions are explored, communicated and recorded. Since representation is so fundamental to design, it follows that a deep understanding of the nature and use of representation has the potential to improve current design practice. While there is recognition in the IS literature of the importance of representation, previous IS research has focused almost entirely on the functional aspects of representation, in particular modelling to support various methodologies or particular aspects of design such as database, object-oriented or process modelling. Since the development of an information system is a socio-technical process, this paper argues that we need to understand how representations can facilitate both the specification of the artefact, and the social aspects of design. This paper explores the use of design representation by real-world practitioners. It identifies two hitherto neglected social purposes of representation employed by designers when interacting with clients or users: selective focus, and promotion. The paper concludes by noting that as IS faces increasingly complex design challenges it is timely to examine our understanding of all aspects of design representation including its role in facilitating the social aspects of design.<br /

Re-composing the elephant\u27 : bringing the big picture back into IS research

Information Systems is a practice-based discipline. It experiences periodic debates about the rigour and relevance of its research. The tensions between pretensions to be a &lsquo;real&rsquo; science (rigour) and the need to contribute to practice (relevance) are intensified at a time of low student enrolment, lack of a clear identity, and uncertainties about the viability of our discipline. This essay argues that decomposing phenomena into narrow topics of research to achieve rigour is damaging to our discipline if we fail to then &lsquo;recompose&rsquo; or integrate these back into understanding, lessons and guidelines for application to real-world practices. This argument is illustrated through recent work on the motors that drive changes in technology appropriation. It highlights the importance of plurality of theories and methods in understanding complex real-world phenomena in order to achieve both rigour and relevance.<br /

Towards Anticipating IS Consequences: An Anatomy of Sociotechnical Interaction Networks (STINs)

In this paper we examine questions of how the unintended impacts of information and communications technology can be examined in order to anticipate and safeguard against negative consequences. Using the domain of the eGovernment impacts on marginalized members of the community, we examine the theoretical basis of the sociotechnical interaction network (STIN) approach and its applicability to identifying and ameliorating negative impacts of ICT-based systems. We illustrate the STIN modelling approach with reference to a case study of an integrated eGovernment system and based on our evaluation of the approach, make recommendations regarding future developments with respect to the STIN framework

Modelling the Requirements Process: where are the people?

This paper reports the outcomes of a three year study into the requirements process, an important but poorly understood part of systems development. Humans play an essential role in determining requirements yet few models of the requirements process include human actors. This paper presents an understanding of the requirements process expressed in a descriptive model that integrates the social and technical aspects of the requirements process. The model comprises five key areas: the problem domain, analysts’ domain, requirements sub-processes, problem space and management of the requirements process. The model may be used to support, manage and improve the requirements process in practice