Fostering Continuous User Participation by Embedding a Communication Support Tool in User Interfaces
AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction
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Recommended Citation
0 Yetim , F., Draxler, S., Stevens, G., & Wulf, V. (2012). Fostering Continuous User Participation by Embedding
1 a Communication Support Tool in User Interfaces. AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction
4(2), 153-168. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/thci/vol4/iss2/7 This material is brought to you by the AIS Journals at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contact .
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Fostering Continuous User Participation by Embedding a Communication
Support Tool in User Interfaces
Fahri Yetim
University of Siegen
Gunnar Stevens
University of Siegen
Sebastian Draxler
University of Siegen
Volker Wulf
University of Siegen
This paper critically reviews previous IS literature on user participation and argues that the literature is mainly empirically or
normatively oriented and lacks design research on developing system prototypes in order to foster continuous user participation. It
then contributes to the current research by introducing a system prototype, a communication tool that enables users to participate
while using their application systems in their work contexts. The prototype provides different communication channels for
supporting user-designer communications and knowledge sharing among users with respect to application usage. When
integrated in the interface of an application system, the tool can help to adapt and redesign the application. The initial evaluation
of the communication tool within the context of an application system indicates its usefulness and usability.
Dennis Galletta was the accepting Senior Editor. This article was submitted on 10/30/2010 and accepted on 6/13/2011. It was with
the author 112 days for 1 revision.
Yetim, F., D. Draxler, G. Stevens, and V. Wulf (2012) “Fostering Continuous User Participation by Embedding a Communication
Support Tool in User Interfaces,” AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction (4) 2, pp. 153-168.
■ Issue 2
■
INTRODUCTION
User participation (and the related concept of user involvement) has received significant attention over the past
several decades, and extensive literature investigates a number of dimensions of participation in Information Systems
Development (ISD)
(see Markus and Mao, 2004 and He and King, 2008 for reviews)
. While the majority of research
focuses on phenomena of participation in the design process before use, issues related to post-deployment or
postimplementation participation have also gained significant attention
(e.g., Wagner and Newell, 2007)
. Yet a common
characteristic of this IS literature on user participation is that it is mainly empirically or normatively oriented and rarely
design focused. For example, a line of research investigates the communication between users and system
developers
(Hartwick and Barki, 2001; Gallivan and Keil, 2003)
, yet does not suggest how to design systems that
enable such communications. One strand of current research on user participation challenges empirical findings in
previous research and calls for new orientation that better addresses the new contexts and issues we face today,
including considering the diversity of users and contexts and the distributed nature of participation in system
development, and using different kinds of intermediaries to represent the users
(Markus and Mao, 2004; Barcellini et
al., 2008; Iivari et al., 2009)
. Another strand of current research takes a design research perspective
(Hevner et al.,
2004)
and calls for designing system artifacts for supporting user participation. In particular, approaches to tailorable
systems or End-User Development (EUD)
(Lieberman et al., 2006; Germonprez et al., 2007; Wulf et al., 2008;
Fischer, 2008)
aim not only to design systems that are flexible and easy to adapt, but also call for socio-technical
infrastructures to enable users to participate in their work contexts through the use of their application systems. For
example, it has been argued that integrating a meta-communication mechanism in an application system would allow
communication about the system’s communication and would foster continuous participation
(Yetim, 2010)
.
This paper is motivated by these calls for further design-oriented research for supporting user participation, and
makes two contributions to current research: First, we provide a critical review of previous participation research. The
critical review uses five general questions as an analytic framework, asking why, who, where, when, and how users
are (or should be) involved. In contrast to the most recent literature review
(He and King, 2008)
, which analyses
literature along several empirical constr (...truncated)