Extending Collaborative Design into Real-Life Experiments

The previously discussed approaches to involving users in product and service development have been criticized from two directions: firstly, building extensive knowledge about the users and use contexts into the design has not lead to significantly different or better products (Stewart and Williams, 2005; Williams, Stewart and Slack, 2005). Secondly, it is increasingly acknowledged that designed and launched products should initially be best seen as advanced prototypes that need to be exposed to the contingencies of everyday life in order to enable the exploration of evolving user needs and the potential of the system. This cannot be done without the extended interplay between users, artefact and context. In this development digital technologies have led the way through perpetual beta tests and web 2.0 business models. (Botero and Hyysalo, 2013; Voss, Hartswood, Procter, et al., 2009; Voss, Procter, et al., 2009; Johnson, 2013)

Williams, Stewart and Slack (2005) talk about design fallacy and argue that the linear and design-centred model of innovation – where artefacts are seen as largely fixed in their properties and where the solution to meeting user needs is to build ever greater amount of knowledge about particular users and contexts into technology design – should be replaced with an understanding of innovation that recognizes the active nature of appropriation phase. Voss, Procter, Slack et al. (2009) sketch out the problem area related to UCD practices – particularly the ethnographies of everyday work:

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No matter how well we design a system to match a set of requirements determined using conventional methods, there will always be a need for change. First, our understanding of the situation into which a system is to be introduced will inevitably be bounded by our limited experience and subject to certain assumptions we necessarily make. Second, the introduction of the system will give rise to new requirements being formulated as people learn more about its potential uses and opportunities to change practices around the new socio-material arrangements. Finally, the situation of use changes constantly as the world keeps turning. We might say that requirements are “moving targets” and that change is an inevitable part of IT systems development. (Voss, Procter, Slack et al., 2009: 32–33)

Extending co-design activities from concept design and ideation to design-in-use has been seen as a solution to the previously mentioned challenges (e.g. Hartswood, Procter, Slack et al., 2002; Hartswood, Procter, Slack, Voss et al., 2002; Hyysalo, 2010; Hillgren, Seravalli and Emilson, 2011; Botero and Hyysalo, 2013; Aanestad, Driveklepp, Sørli et al., 2017).

One such approach that seeks to extend the design activities into implementation and use is co-realisation, which emerged in the field of computer-supported cooperative work. Co-realisation is described as a synthesis of ethnomethodology and participatory design, and the approach aims at the co- evolution of IT systems and work practices. Co-realization emphasizes the importance of IT specialists “being there” at the workplace and becoming “members” of the user community (Hartswood, Procter, Rouncefield et al., 2000; Hartswood, Procter, Slack, Soutter et al., 2002; Hartswood, Procter, Slack, Voss et al., 2002).

Only when technologies get translated into systems, only when these get used “in anger” and encounter the contingencies of the workplace, can we effectively assess their “fit” with the work that gets done. This poses an important question given that “design” and “use” are often separated in time and space as well as being undertaken by different people with different skills, concerns, and under different sets of constraints. (Voss, Hartswood, Procter et al., 2009: 32)

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Co-realisation seeks to “move from intermittent and over- formalised participation to a situation where informal interaction between users and IT professionals becomes a part of everyday experience and the basis for the constitution of a shared practice” (Hartswood, Procter, Slack, Voss et al., 2002: 14), which includes among other things changing processes, developing and sometimes transforming relationships between existing stakeholders and introducing new actors (Voss, Hartswood, Procter et al., 2009).

Aanestad, Driveklepp, Sørdi et al. (2017) present the notion of participatory continuing design (PCD) to describe ongoing design-in-use processes which seek to integrate ICT into the work processes of an organization. PCD refers to design activities that take place after the system has entered “ordinary use”. Instead of requirements specifications and software functionality the approach aims at creating working sociotechnical configurations. PCD takes a longer temporal perspective and shifts the focus from system design to the design of services and work processes, and it concentrates on the possibilities of changing the ways systems are used and services are delivered. PCD presupposes a collective mindfulness, which allows the organization to reflect the use of technology as part of its work practices. Compared to participatory design, which traditionally takes place before use, PCD can be described as improvisational, which means that it relies on emergent insights and possibilities rather than planning and specification (Aanestad, Driveklepp, Sørdi et al., 2017).

In summary, in recent years there has been a growing number of voices calling for broadening our understanding of collaborative design and HCD from the concept design phase towards implementation, use and design-in-use and from short-term projects and workshops towards longer- term collaborations. Living labs can be seen as one of the key reactions to these calls, and indeed, along other extended collaborative design arrangements, they have become part of participatory design efforts. Indeed, the description of Malmö Living Lab by Björgvinsson, Ehn and Hillgren (2010) defines living lab as “an open innovation milieu where new constellations, issues and ideas evolve from bottom up long term collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders.” The following chapter will continue with the theme of real-life experiments by focusing on living lab research and practice more closely.