End users as co-designers of their own tools and products

Abstract

In our Age of exponential technological advance, recent developments are determining an evolution of end users from passive information consumers into information producers. Users are increasingly willing and, indeed, determined to shape the software they use to tailor it to their own needs. Based on a brief review of research activities we performed in the last decade, this paper analyzes some challenges that software designers face to comply with the new roles of end users in the software life cycle, and discusses how to provide end users with software environments that empower them to become co-designers of their own tools and products. The examples reported in the paper show why and how end users are involved in design activities in various application domains.

Specification of Complex Logical Expressions for Task Automation: An EUD Approach

“…In other words, adequate End-User Development (EUD) paradigms are needed. Indeed, as largely recognized in the literature [3,8,15,22], EUD methodologies fit very well the requirement of letting users customize their systems to support personal, situational needs.…”

“…The second one permits the creation of sub-blocks grouping set of conjunctive events and is titled "Match ALL of the following conditions" (this label expresses in natural language the semantics of the AND operator). The rule actions are activated when at least one of the events or one of the sub-blocks inside the root are evaluated as true 3 . Inside each sub-block the users can recursively define events or block of events.…”

Co-design for Government Service Stakeholders

“…User Feedback Design Design Prototype willing and interested to shape their services by tailoring them to their own individualistic needs [37]. Therefore, approaches are required to responds to this willingness, and explore the use of a meta-design approach of e-Government services.…”

“…The second phase applies a meta-model -derived from a meta-design framework and based on the different stakeholders' perspectives -for a suitable digital service design and development environment. Such an environment is able to help the designer to collaborate with users [37]. Both phases are concerned with the design process.…”

“…Examples being 'the capacity' and 'the capability' models [39,40,37], each allowing stakeholders to participate in only the evaluation process as opposed to the fuller design. Importantly, these frameworks made significant contributions to the evaluation of policy toward participatory design.…”