Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Rethinking software design in participation cultures

  • Published:
Automated Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The research activities in software engineering at the Center for LifeLong Learning & Design (L3D) in the past have been grounded in the basic assumption that important aspects of software engineering are best understood as human-centered design activities. Some of the major objectives were to support designers with domain-oriented design environments, allowing them to interact at the problem domain level and to frame activities and artifacts based on an evolutionary approach.

A fundamental shift occurring over the last few years is the formation of participation cultures enhanced and supported by a change from an industrialized information economy (specialized in producing finished goods to be consumed passively) to a cyber-enabled networked information economy (in which all people are provided with the means to participate actively in personally meaningful problems). Some of the implications of this fundamental shift for software engineering, including meta-design, lessons learned from open source software, and distribution and diversity in communities, are explored, and their implications for the “automate/informate” perspectives are briefly discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., Jacobson, M., Fiksdahl-King, I., Angel, S.: A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, New York (1977)

    Google Scholar 

  • Belady, L., Lehman, M.: Program Evolution Processes of Software Change. Academic Press, London (1985)

    Google Scholar 

  • Benkler, Y.: The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Billings, C.E.: Human-centered aircraft automation: a concept and guidelines. NASA Technical Memorandum, Report No. 103885, NASA Ames Research Center (1991)

  • Brown, J.S., Duguid, P.: The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business School Press, Boston (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  • Burnett, M., Cook, C., Rothermel, G.: End-user software engineering. Commun. ACM 47(9), 53–58 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CSTB: Scaling up: a research agenda for software engineering (Computer Science and Technology Board). Commun. ACM 33(3), 281–293 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dawkins, R.: The Blind Watchmaker. W.W. Norton, New York–London (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G.: Domain-oriented design environments. Autom. Softw. Eng. 1(2), 177–203 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G.: Seeding, evolutionary growth and reseeding: constructing, capturing and evolving knowledge in domain-oriented design environments. Autom. Softw. Eng. 5(4), 447–464 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G.: Communities of interest: learning through the interaction of multiple knowledge systems. In: 24th Annual Information Systems Research Seminar In Scandinavia (IRIS’24), Ulvik, Norway, pp. 1–14 (2001)

  • Fischer, G.: Desert island: software engineering—a human activity. Int. J. Autom. Softw. Eng. 10(2), 233–237 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G.: Distances and diversity: sources for social creativity. In: Proceedings of Creativity & Cognition, London, April, pp. 128–136 (2005)

  • Fischer, G., Giaccardi, E.: Meta-design: a framework for the future of end user development. In: Lieberman, H., Paternò, F., Wulf, V. (eds.) End User Development: Empowering People to Flexibly Employ Advanced Information and Communication Technology, pp. 427–457. Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G., Lemke, A.C.: Construction kits and design environments: steps toward human problem-domain communication. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3(3), 179–222 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, G., Scharff, E., Ye, Y.: Fostering social creativity by increasing social capital. In: Huysman, M., Wulf, V. (eds.) Social Capital and Information Technology, pp. 355–399. MIT Press, Cambridge (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenbaum, J., Kyng, M. (eds): Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, A., Kyng, M.: There’s no place like home: continuing design in use. In: Greenbaum, J., Kyng, M. (eds.) Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems, pp. 219–240. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  • Illich, I.: Tools for Conviviality. Harper and Row, New York (1973)

    Google Scholar 

  • Janis, I.: Victims of Groupthink. Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1972)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, L.: The Day the Phones Stopped. Donald I. Fine, New York (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, F., Murnane, R.J.: The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, H., Paterno, F., Wulf, V. (eds): End User Development—Empowering People to Flexibly Employ Advanced Information and Communication Technology. Kluwer, Dordrecht (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Mumford, E.: Sociotechnical systems design: evolving theory and practice. In: Bjerknes, G., Ehn, P., Kyng, M. (eds.) Computers and Democracy, Avebury, Aldershot, UK, pp. 59–76 (1987)

  • Myers, B.A., Ko, A.J., Burnett, M.M.: Invited research overview: end-user programming. In: Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI’2006, Montreal, pp. 75–80 (2006)

  • National Research Council: Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity. National Academy Press, Washington (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, T.: What Is Web 2.0—Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software (2006). Available at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

  • Olson, G.M., Olson, J.S.: Distance matters. In: Carroll, J.M. (ed.) Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium, pp. 397–417. ACM Press, New York (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  • Perlis, A.J.: Epigrams on programming. In: SIGPLAN Notices, pp. 7–13 (1982)

  • Raymond, E.S., Young, B.: The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. O’Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D.A.: The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, New York (1983)

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, M.: Maybe your next programming language shouldn’t be a programming language. In: Computer Science Technology Board (ed.) Scaling Up: A Research Agenda for Software Engineering, pp. 75–82. National Academy Press, Washington (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, H.A.: The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  • Tapscott, D., Williams, A.D.: Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Portofolio, Penguin Group, New York (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • von Hippel, E.: Democratizing Innovation. MIT Press, Cambridge (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger, E.: Communities of Practice----Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  • Winograd, T. (ed): Bringing Design to Software. ACM Press and Addison-Wesley, New York (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ye, Y., Fischer, G.: Reuse-conducive development environments. Int. J. Autom. Softw. Eng. 12(2), 199–235 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ye, Y., Fischer, G.: Designing for Participation in Socio-Technical Software Systems. In: Stephanidis, C. (ed.) Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction, Beijing, China, pp. 312–321. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuboff, S.: In the Age of the Smart Machine. Basic Books, New York (1988)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerhard Fischer.

Additional information

Contribution to the Special Issue of the Automated Software Engineering Journal on “Reflections on Automated Software Engineering”.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Fischer, G. Rethinking software design in participation cultures. Autom Softw Eng 15, 365–377 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-008-0030-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-008-0030-z

Keywords

Navigation