Although embodied AI systems are increasingly developed and tested in public environments, their influence on the design of products for older adults remains underexplored. We examine how different types of embodiment, or form factor, shape initial encounters between humans and AI when conversational abilities are comparable. Building on prior work, we conducted a two-day field study at a senior citizens’ fair in Germany (n = 25, age 24–90), where participants interacted with the screen-based avatar Ann-Sophie and the humanoid robot Ameca. Both used LLM-based dialogue systems, enabling a focus on embodied interaction rather than linguistic performance. Qualitative results show contrasting affective and social responses: Ameca’s physical presence and gaze dynamics were described as both fascinating and unsettling, while Ann-Sophie was perceived as warm but socially limited. These findings highlight the role of embodiment in shaping comfort, expectations, and ethical awareness in public human–AI interaction.

During the 2023–ongoing Gaza war, Palestinian advocacy on social media has faced rapid removals, downranking, and account sanctions. In this contribution, we offer a layered analysis of how people endure and counter this repression across affective, mechanistic, and material dimensions. Using patchwork ethnography over 295 first-person testimonies and 85 NGO/press documents, we identify a recursive Contest Loop: hostile mass-report brigades and automated enforcement that spur supporter “appeal brigades,” mirroring, and migration. Findings are organized as a three-layer ecology—Invisible Scars (whiplash, shadowbanning as probabilistic throttling, self-censorship), Dueling Brigades (frictions, coordinated reports, supporter procedures), and Feed-to-Street Ripples (fundraising, evidentiary preservation, livelihoods). Conceptually, we extend platform-assemblage thinking with a Resistance Assemblage: ad-hoc technical, emotional, and legal mutual-aid infrastructures that keep visibility alive under sanction. We contribute: (1) an event-centered, experience-near account of co-produced moderation in conflict; (2) two integrative lenses (Contest Loop, Resistance Assemblage); and (3) design/policy directions, including collective-appeal dashboards, and evidentiary safeguards that separate archiving from distribution.

Fairness is a recurring challenge in grassroots digital infrastructures, where collective action depends on volunteer contributions. This paper presents a study of Foodsharing.de, a grassroots FOSS platform with 185,000 members rescuing and redistributing surplus food. Drawing on 25 interviews and long-term activist involvement, we analyze two justice-oriented features: the Cherry-Picking Rule (distributional fairness) and Commitment Statistics (contributional fairness). We show how these fairness features become deeply entangled in practice and how they operate as policy-in-code, inscribing fairness logics into software and redistributing not only food and labor but also authority within the community. Rather than settling questions of justice, these interventions trigger renewed negotiation across deliberative spaces and everyday coordination, as encoded rules are interpreted, contested, and adapted. Building on these dynamics, we outline governance directions for justice-oriented grassroots infrastructures, highlighting the need for contestability and accountable autonomy to sustain negotiation and align technical change with community legitimacy.

States increasingly weaponize digital infrastructures through censorship and surveillance. Iran represents an acute case of this broader global pattern. We study how citizens sustain connectivity and agency during Iran’s Women–Life–Freedom (WLF) protests. Based on 21 interviews with citizens and digital activists in Kermanshah province, inside Iran and in the diaspora, we document a shift from dependence on commercial circumvention to grassroots infrastructuring: people created and shared VPNs, proxies, and ad hoc communication pipelines. Peer learning on platforms such as Telegram, X, and GitHub—via Persian tutorials, scripts, and troubleshooting—enabled rapid adaptation under repression. We identify four dynamics: (1) distrust and survival as primary motivations; (2) infrastructural solidarity as everyday care; (3) technical improvisation and peer teaching; and (4) persistent constraints from censorship and risk. We argue that grassroots infrastructuring reframes end-user development as survival work. The paper contributes empirical evidence and design implications for HCI/CSCW on civic technologies, digital activism, and infrastructures of participation under authoritarian control.

Since February 2022 the Ukrainian army has been resisting the Russian invasion; this defense would have been less effective without material and logistical support from civil society. While HCI and CSCW have examined ICT in crises, little addresses how civilian–military cooperation is enacted in interstate war and how civilians appropriate commercial technologies into military infrastructures. We report an interview study with observations (N=13) conducted in Lviv during the first five months of the full-scale invasion (Feb–Jul 2022). Our findings show how civilians performed largely invisible work to make soldiers’ work possible: they circumvented broken supply chains, fundraised through digital micro-donation tools, re-engineered commercial drones and software into command-and-control workflows, and joined early cyber and counter-information operations. We contribute to CSCW by theorizing this civilian engagement as wartime infrastructuring and appropriation under extreme risk, and by detailing methodological implications for conducting cooperative-work research in hybrid-war settings.

Abstract This study investigates issues of (KES) in conventional manufacturing processes concerning the use of welding. In view of the shortage of skilled workers and the advancing digitalisation processes in welding, it is essentially relevant to identify how KES takes place. Based on an in-depth study, the possibilities of digital assistance systems to support KES in welding are discussed. The novelty of our contribution lies in the use of a (CSCW) perspective to understand how welding practices can be supported and shared among co-workers. Such practices, as made evidence across the contribution, have particular aspects that make them unique in comparison with other practices in the metal-working industry. Technologies that are already available offer promising possibilities to the challenges faced by KES in welding and have the potential to shape a third generation of KES. While operational activities can benefit from visual digital support, administrative and managerial tasks primarily require better access to relevant information and a better understanding of the practice. Our contribution offers valuable insights for the further development of KES in industrial manufacturing processes and show potential for the targeted use of innovative technologies in welding. It also adds to the CSCW body of literature on KES, by contributing an empirical study on a domain not well explored in the field.

Abstract Over the past decade, a range of methodological approaches, user studies, and research results focused on technology for people with dementia has led to insights into the design of innovative solutions that can be embedded in the complex daily lives of people with dementia and their care-network. This paper recounts experiences and lessons learned over the course of a three-year participatory design project with and for people with dementia and their caregivers in domestic and institutional care settings. It contributes with long-term insights and reflections on the challenges confronting researchers in these sensitive care domains and discusses the need to 'know the users' and their care-networks so as to enable a deeper understanding of their unique difficulties. In particular, it examines the relationship between empathic understanding, experience-centered design, and the social appropriation of ICT, in our case exergames, in these various healthcare settings. What this might mean not only for future technology design, but also for the conduct of human-centered research is then discussed. We emphasize that designing appropriate assistive technologies for people with dementia requires sustained, empathetic engagement with both people with dementia and their caregivers, grounded in regular, trust-building interactions. Caregivers play a vital role in the appropriation and maintenance of these systems and researchers must be prepared for the emotional demands and relational commitments that such work entails. By embedding technology development within the rhythms of care and prioritizing mutual respect, researchers can create more meaningful, responsive, and sustainable support systems.

This paper presents a longitudinal case study of two volunteer-led computer clubs in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank. Combining participatory action research, autoethnography, and follow-up interviews conducted ten years later, we examine how socio-technical infrastructures of learning were built and sustained under intertwined constraints. While the clubs were designed to support children’s engagement with technology, the most meaningful outcomes were reported by the volunteers, whose roles required navigating logistical, interpersonal, and political challenges in resource-constrained settings. Our findings position volunteers as infrastructural actors: they stitched together tools, partnerships, and routines to stabilize the clubs and create a durable social infrastructure. We identify the breadth of work and social structures implicated in volunteering and show how technology mediates these interdependencies. Recognition and care practices (such as debriefs, reflection rituals, acknowledgments) emerge as design requirements for sustaining participation, reflecting a shift from questions of access to recognition observed in feminist hackerspaces. Gendered trajectories reveal how women volunteers negotiated leadership and gained professional capital in male‑dominated contexts. Our longitudinal findings provide an empirical account of an uneven temporality of impact: durable benefits accrue to those performing infrastructural labor (volunteers), whereas short‑term beneficiaries (child participants) recall little after a decade.

In our study, we practically evaluated a chatbot for normative knowledge in the context of welding.

Abstract Interconnected global crises have emphasized the need for alternative visions of the future, making transformative action urgent. Consequently, Sustainable Human–Computer Interaction (SHCI) has seen growing interest in exploring means to support radical and sustainable change, starting with grassroots, community-driven endeavors. This study explores the concept of Utopian Design Space (UDS) in the context of surplus redistribution in grassroots communities. The objective is to understand how practical concerns and transformative ambitions intersect, creating spaces that foster sharing and caring practices. Through action-oriented research, we examine six local projects, highlighting ICT’s role in these initiatives. Our findings highlight the challenges and opportunities in managing values, scalability, sustainability and inclusivity within UDSs. We discuss how aligning ICT with community practices can foster socio-technical innovation and support transformative change, introducing the notion of prefigurative technology. These insights can help us envisage design spaces that foster utopian ideas like equitable resource distribution and generalized reciprocity.

Social media platforms have become a double-edged sword for human rights activism, simultaneously offering a stage and facilitating wide-reaching communication and connection, while also imposing censorship through stringent and opaque content governance. This study focuses on the over enforcement of content moderation on social media platforms, affecting activists who tried to engage online publics with issues of forced evictions and displacements in Sheikh Jarrah (SJ) and Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021 --- a critical juncture in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. By analyzing responses from a survey of 201 users who reported experiencing censorship, and interviews with 14 political influencers and activists, we uncover how these individuals navigate the intricate landscape of social media censorship. The findings reveal a continuum of different ways of responding to censorship, from self-censorship to proactive advocacy of policy change, that highlight the ingenuity activists can employ to bypass content restrictions. This research not only contributes to our understanding of the interaction between social media's technical affordances and activist responses but also discusses broader implications for the design and governance of digital platforms in supporting democratic discourse and human rights activism in conflict zones. This study enriches the ongoing dialogue about social media's dual role as both a facilitator and a controller of public discourse, emphasizing the need for platforms to consider the profound impacts of their technical and policy decisions on global activism.

This paper presents the results of a long-term exploratory study that examined the social and emotional impact of using a social robot with a variety of applications to promote activities for people with advanced dementia and their caregivers. Qualitative data was collected over 10-months in a secured care environment in which we explored the appropriation of a social robot by 23 participants, including 13 PwAD, their family members, and professional caregivers. Our findings indicate that the use of the social robot demonstrated the potential to improve well-being, engagement, and social interaction of PwAD, even demonstrating the ability to create new memories and experiences. We discuss requirements and challenges in integrating social robots into secured care environments to provide a nuanced understanding for future research aiming for appropriate and inclusive care outcomes and socially embedded innovations that address the social actors involved and thus contribute to practical solutions for professional care.

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented shift from office-based to remote work, catching many organizations off guard. This paper examines a German video game development company's adaptation to enforced working from home during the first lockdown. Through remote interviews with 20 employees from various departments, we identify technological, physical, organizational, and socio-psychological challenges. To address these, we devised a Crisis-Responsive Infrastructuring framework, blending socio-technical perspectives with strategies to enhance organizational adaptability. Our research highlights the crucial and reassuring role of Information and Communication Technology in maintaining productivity and social connectivity and reshaping work dynamics and infrastructure. Further, we emphasize the importance of flexible work concepts, such as hybrid models and decentralized organizations, in fostering resilience. Finally, by advocating for adaptive infrastructures that support remote work during crises and beyond, we aim to enrich the discourse on modern work practices and offer a systematic approach to strengthening organizational resilience.

Technology plays a pivotal role in driving transformation through grassroots movements, which operate on a local scale while embracing a global perspective on sustainability. Consequently, research emerged within Sustainable HCI, aiming to derive design principles that can empower these movements to scale their impact. However, a notable gap exists in contributions when addressing scalability of large free and open-source software (FOSS) projects.

Social media technologies have been empowering to some human rights activists, providing a platform for exercising free speech and mobilization. However, many activists have voiced concerns and shared experiences they understand as considerable censorship on these platforms, under the guise of content governance. In an effort to increase the understanding and transparency of content moderation practices during conflicts, this study investigates the perceived reasons for censorship as understood by activists and the explanations made visible to activists by social media platforms, if any were given. Our case study to examine these platforms-activists relations is the events which occurred in May 2021 in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, which was a significant moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and garnered international attention. The over enforcement of content moderation faced by Palestinians and their allies during these events on social media raised concerns about freedom of speech and the role of technology in activism. Our study deepens understanding through findings from a survey of 201 social media users who reported potentially unfair moderation decisions, and from 12 interviews with political influencers to grasp the broader implications of content moderation on activism. The findings of this study indicate a substantial disparity between the official explanations made visible to the activists by the social media platforms, and the reasons as perceived by users. This has significant implications, both socially and for social media platforms -- as CSCW and Group work environments --- on activist groups and the potentialities of democratic discourse. This study serves as an important contribution to the debate on the role of social media content moderation in human rights activism, particularly in conflict zones.

HCI and CSCW have a long-standing interest in the consequences of digital transformation for work practices. A key part of this is its impact on labour relations. While prior HCI studies have examined labour relations in domains such as platform work, few have looked at industrial settings. This paper presents an ethnographic study of works councils in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Germany. Works councils exemplify the principle of Co-Determination, which is the right of employees to participate in the design and management of their workplace and play a vital role in vetting new technologies whenever they imply changes in work practices. A number of issues confront works councils when they attempt to accomplish this, namely a lack of time, knowledge, and external support. We discuss these issues and consider their implications for both design and the constitution of workplace democracy in future industrial settings.

Previous CSCW research has paid increasing attention to regional innovation systems providing the context for CSCW research and design. In this paper we provide insights into attempts to intervene in such a regional innovation system via practice-oriented activities. Our findings describe experiences of co-creating knowledge around digitization of SMEs on a regional level, beyond individual company contexts. We reflect on the benefits and challenges such an approach affords and highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships and similarities between practices in different contexts to enable intended but also initially unexpected knowledge spillovers. Our findings highlight how a praxeological approach to CSCW can be influential in regional development programs, and open this field to CSCW research and design. We draw out lessons for similar interventions and outline fruitful avenues for future research.

Sustainable HCI and Human-Food-Interaction research have developing interest in preventing food waste through food sharing. Sustainability requires attention to both the opportunities and challenges associated with the building of food sharing groups engaged in the redistribution of food but also in developing a wider agenda which includes, for instance, the local production of food resources. In this paper, we argue for a better understanding of the different conceptions of ‘fairness’ which inform volunteer and guest practice and in turn mediate community-building efforts. We examine the practices surrounding ‘SharingEvent’ and challenges faced to sustainability by the heterogenous, and sometimes contested, commitments of the people involved. We further consider how ICT provided opportunities for explicit examination of ideological differences concerning what ‘sharing’ might mean. Our findings show that community building is dependent on the negotiation of different values and purposes identified. We derive recommendations for action-oriented researchers ultimately concerned with systemic transformation.

Abstract Since almost the onset of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), the community has been concerned with how expertise sharing can be supported in different settings. Here, the complex handling of machines based on experience and knowledge is increasingly becoming a challenge. In our study, we investigated expertise sharing in a medium-sized manufacturing company in an effort to support the fostering of hardware-based expertise sharing by using augmented reality (AR) to ‘retrofit’ machines. We, therefore, conducted a preliminary empirical study to understand how expertise is shared in practice and what current support is available. Based on the findings, we derived design challenges and implications for the design of AR systems in manufacturing settings. The main challenges, we found, had to do with existing socio-technical infrastructure and the contextual nature of expertise. We implemented a HoloLens application called RetrofittAR that supports learning on the production machine during actual use. We evaluated the system during the company’s actual production process. The results show which data types are necessary to support expertise sharing and how our design supports the retrofitting of old machines. We contribute to the current state of research in two ways. First, we present the knowledge-intensive practice of operating older production machines through novel AR interfaces. Second, we outline how retrofitting measures with new visualisation technologies can support knowledge-intensive production processes.

The coordination of maintenance work in manufacturing poses a crucial productivity factor in small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) but often seems to be rather neglected in practice as well as in much of the literature on maintenance. We shed light upon maintenance coordination work by presenting a design case study conducted in an SME over approximately two years. We took a participatory design-oriented approach, involving all roles on the shopfloor affected by maintenance work. In three major iterations during the pre-study, a release-ready prototype was developed and implemented by the users over the course of one year. The evaluation of the tool showed how a new and mostly unintended practice of information flow, error reporting, and prioritization emerged such that, for instance, foremen becoming a central node of communication, formal prioritization shifting away from higher management, and actual prioritization being done by maintainers. This paper contributes to the body of CSCW work on maintenance practice in SMEs by presenting detailed empirical findings on the coordination work of maintainers, as well as the evaluation of socio-technical interventions into maintenance practices.

This work forms a part of a series of “on the ground” studies dealing with (post-)conflict situations, focusing on the iterative, participatory design of a tool, Cyberactivist, for protection for activists and the empirical research that led to it. Work on the development of privacy and security tools has not always recognized the fragile nature of the political processes in emerging democracies, frequent naivety about threat, nor the “occasioned” responses of activists because activism can be a “one time” endeavor, prompted by specific events. Researching political activism in Republika Srpska, we identified issues relating to the use of ICT and social media, leading to the redesign of our prototype which now raises awareness of privacy and security and supports activists by challenging ignorance, lowering exposure, and enabling remediation. We addressed “usable security” challenges to ensure simplicity of the tool and engaged with HCI researchers focused on international activism to assess the global applicability of the technical design.

Since the move away from integrated value chains in production in the 1980s, the outsourcing and offshoring of various aspects of manufacturing has become commonplace. This has led to global production and marketing relationships between enterprises in numerous different countries, a prominent axis being between Europe and Asia. This paper reports on a study of one such offshoring relationship between a German SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) and their Chinese subsidiary, the trials and tribulations of the collaboration between them, and the implications of this for our understanding of how articulation work might be best supported in the context of global production. We also look at how a separate entity, which we term an 'articulation hub', was established to support articulation between the sites. While a number of studies have looked at articulation work in Global Software Development (GSD), there are very few ethnographic studies of offshored manufacturing, despite the unique challenges it presents. We find here that issues arise not only because of differences in technology environments, infrastructures, and cultural expectations, but also because of differing development strategies and business philosophies. The core problem confronting articulation work in offshored production is the difficulty of arriving at a mutually-grounded intersubjectivity, where shared assumptions about working practices and their relative importance and value can be trusted to apply, leading to what we term 'intersubjectivity disjunctures'. These disjunctures have a number of important implications for accomplishing articulation work. This paper offers a number of contributions to CSCW. First, it adds to a very thin corpus of CSCW-relevant ethnographic studies of global manufacturing. Second, it finds that articulation work in offshored production is less closely-coupled than it is in other distributed settings, making conventionally promoted solutions, such as knowledge sharing and relationship building, less relevant. Third, it reveals how differences in moral reasoning can result in different sites assigning very different priorities to articulation work. Finally, while articulation work is typically seen to be invisible work in CSCW, we argue that, in this context, there are a number of ways in which using a separate hub to actively render articulation work visible may be the best solution.

This paper focuses on tools to approach the practices inherent to the formal and informal e-waste value-chains in Ghana. Our series of field trips and interviews with e-waste collectors and scrap workers, repairers and retailers at their respective workplaces, as well as with domestic electronics users captured a situation in flux, where local authorities had implemented their decision to demolish the Agbogbloshie scrapyard site in Accra in July 2021 and relocate the workplaces within the city. In this situation, our exploratory perspective on tools and practices serves as a lense to identify possibilities of socio-technical support for repairing and upcycling and related community building.

Food practices have become an important context for questions around sustainability. Within HCI, sustainable HCI and human-food-interaction have developed as a response. We argue, nevertheless, that food practices as a social activity remain relatively under-examined, and further that sustainable food practices hinge on communal activity. We present the results of action-oriented research with a grassroots movement committed to sustainable food practices at a local, communal level, thereby demonstrating the role of ICT in making food resource sharing a viable practice. We suggest that the current focus on food sharing might usefully be supplemented by attention to food resource sharing, an approach that aligns with a paradigm shift from surplus to abundance. We argue for a design that aims to encourage food resource sharing at a local level but that also has wider ramifications. These “glocal” endeavors recognize the complexity of prosumption practices and foster aspirations for “deep change” in food systems.

Research on social robots in care has often focused on either the care recipients or the technology itself, neglecting the care workers who, in and through their collaborative and coordinative practices, will need to work with the robots. To better understand these interactions with a social robot (Pepper), we undertook a 3 month long-term study within a care home to gain empirical insights into the way the robot was used. We observed how care workers learned to use the device, applied it to their daily work life, and encountered obstacles. Our findings show that the care workers used the robot regularly (1:07 hours/day) mostly in one-to-one interactions with residents. While the robot had a limited effect on reducing the workload of care workers, it had other positive effects, demonstrating the potential to enhance the quality of care.

Abstract Within CSCW and HCI, an increasing body of literature has been demonstrating the essential relevance of infrastructures and infrastructuring to the work of people engaging in technologically mediated nomadicity. Tech Nomads – or T-Nomads, as they are sometimes called – not only rely ontechnological, human, andenvironmentalinfrastructural components – such as Wi-Fi, technical support, space, and basic resources such as light and power outlets – but they also have to engage in infrastructuring to mobilise their workplaces and effectively accomplish work in and across different locations. In this article, we bring an infrastructuring perspective to understanding nomadic practices concerning the organisation of complex collaborative events. We introduce findings from a long-term investigation focusing on how infrastructures are re-instantiated with the help of digital technologies, according to emerging demands from T-Nomads. Our findings demonstrate the need for a ‘non-essentialist’ approach to nomadicity, one which recognises the character of nomadic work and its varied aspects in different contexts. We extend the infrastructuring literature by demonstrating how infrastructuring work is done in a complex collaborative initiative, as the organisation of the annual European Social Forum.

Abstract This paper describes the appropriation processes involved in establishing a socio-technical enabling infrastructure in a valley in the High Atlas of Morocco. We focus on the challenges of co-establishing such an intervention in a rural/mountainous region that is already undergoing a process of continuous development and profound transformation. We reflect upon the changes and unforeseen appropriation by our local partners and inhabitants in the valley of a computer club primarily used as an informal learning centre for school children. We followed an ethnographic approach and combined research perspectives from both socio-informatics and anthropology. This paper sheds light on what a successful cooperation and intervention in this kind of challenging environment can look like. It does this by taking seriously competing expectations, fragile infrastructural foundations and the socio-cultural context. Despite the challenges, the intervention managed to lead to the establishment of a socio-technical enabling infrastructure that plays a particularly valuable role in local educational endeavours and that is now moving towards supporting other members of the community. The paper thus provides insights regarding what has to be considered to create a mutually beneficial cooperation with all relevant stakeholders as well as a sustainable intervention.

Abstract Issues of trust, privacy and security at the intersection of state intervention and the use of the internet both by ‘publics’ and by individuals for—from the State’s point of view- dispreferred purposes have been of great recent interest to researchers. This has been accompanied by a slowly developing concern for the way in which these issues pan out for people in non-Western cultures. Based on a study of Iranians living in urban centers, we examine the way in which culture, State institutions, technological infrastructure and practices intersect. Iran is a republic with a theocratic constitution and relatively strict regulation of private life. It has one of the highest rates of internet appropriation and social media use in the MENA region, but use is heavily mediated by state interventions, for instance the filtering of sites such as Facebook and Twitter. We show how young Iranians, due to restrictions on their private lives, learn from early age on to deal with illegal access techniques such as proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs). These access technologies are often used for private purposes such as contacting and meeting other genders. However, these capabilities become even more important when preparing to leave the country or to articulate their political dissatisfaction, specifically at moments of political unrest. We discuss and develop the concept of ‘counter-appropriation’ and the ‘counter-public’ to describe the practices of urban dwellers in circumventing increasingly more sophisticated intervention by the state security apparatus.

CONTENTS1. INTRODUCTION2. RESEARCH BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORK2.1. Energy Management in Organizations: Drivers, Benefit and Research Directions2.2. The work to make digital networks work2.3. Challe...

Abstract Human–computer interaction (HCI) scholars and others have advocated treating design as inevitably implicating political and ethical sensitivities. A subset of those considerations has been the attempt to deal with the often conflicting interests of stakeholders through ‘value sensitivity’. Drawing on value-sensitive design (VSD) as an inspiration, we emphasize the necessary way in which the evolving contextuality of the values in question shaped our research collaborations. This paper presents a retrospective analysis of two case studies from long-term user-centered design projects in fields with explicit ambitions for value-driven HCI research and concerned with emancipation and empowerment. The first, a 3-year project, entailed an explicit commitment to feminist policy initiatives with female participants that aimed at fostering values of gender equality. The second, a 4-year project, dealt with HCI research with and for older adults, where a multimodal mobility platform for ridesharing and public transportation was developed. We show how we translated general commitment into pragmatic, co-design research goals and infrastructures. The long-term ambition of our endeavors and integration of a broad stakeholder base were vital to support this. We additionally provide insights into how our approach offered safe spaces for trustful collaboration and flexibility when adapting methods to specific contexts.

To deal with a spontaneous civil uprising following a substantial rise in gas prices, the Iranian security apparatus imposed in late 2019 techno-political measures and blocked access to international websites and services. To analyze these measures, we conducted 19 interviews with Iranians living inside and outside the country. We argue that the concept of the shutdown, as portrayed in Western media, is not perfectly suitable to describe the infrastructural restrictions and propose the concept of an internet nationalization. This paper offers an in-depth analysis of what the nationalization meant and how it affected the lives of Iranians participating or not participating in the protests. We also report on a variety of creative measures, both technical and non-technical, Iranians took to counter-appropriate the government-imposed shutdown of international connectivity. Based on these data, we elaborate on the concept of counter-appropriation.

Fast-paced knowledge and expertise sharing (KES) is a typical demand in contemporary workplaces due to dynamic markets and ever-changing work practices. Past and current computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) research has long been investigating how computer technologies can support people with KES. Recent claims have asserted that augmented reality- (AR-)based cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) are poised to bring significant changes in the ways that KES unfolds in manufacturing contexts. This paper scrutinises such claims by implementing a short-term evaluation of an AR-based CPPS and assessing how it can potentially support (1) the generation of AR content by experienced production workers and (2) the visualisation and processing of such content by novice workers. We, therefore, contribute a user study to the CSCW community that sheds light on the use of a particular type of AR-based CPPS for KES in industrial contexts.?

This article and the design fictions it presents are bound up with an ongoing qualitative-ethnographic study with Imazighen, the native people in remote Morocco. This group of people is marked by textual and digital illiteracy. We are in the process of developing multi-modal design fictions that can be used in workshops as a starting point for the co-development of further design fictions that envision the local population's desired digital futures. The design fictions take the form of storyboards, allowing for a non-textual engagement. The current content seeks to explore challenges, potentials, margins, and limitations for the future design of haptic and touch-sensitive technology as a means for interpersonal communication and information procurement. Design fictions provide a way of exposing the locals to possible digital futures so that they can actively engage with them and explore the bounds and confines of their literacy and the extent to which it matters.

Voice assistants (VA) collect data about users’ daily life including interactions with other connected devices, musical preferences, and unintended interactions. While users appreciate the convenience of VAs, their understanding and expectations of data collection by vendors are often vague and incomplete. By making the collected data explorable for consumers, our research-through-design approach seeks to unveil design resources for fostering data literacy and help users in making better informed decisions regarding their use of VAs. In this paper, we present the design of an interactive prototype that visualizes the conversations with VAs on a timeline and provides end users with basic means to engage with data, for instance allowing for filtering and categorization. Based on an evaluation with eleven households, our paper provides insights on how users reflect upon their data trails and presents design guidelines for supporting data literacy of consumers in the context of VAs.

Within Participatory- and Co-Design projects, the issue of sustainability and maintenance of the co-designed artefacts is a crucial yet largely unresolved issue. In this paper, we look back on four years of work on co-designing tools that assist refugees and migrants in their efforts to settle in Germany, the last of which the project has been independently maintained by our community collaborators. We reflect on the role of pre-existing care practices amongst our community collaborators, and a continued openness throughout the project, that allowed a complex constellation of actors to be involved in its ongoing maintenance and our own, often mundane activities which have contributed to the sustainability of the results. Situating our account within an HCI for Social Justice agenda, we thereby contribute to an ongoing discussion about the sustainability of such activities.

Augmented Reality (AR) is increasingly being used for providing guidance and supporting troubleshooting in industrial settings. While the general application of AR has been shown to provide clear benefits regarding physical tasks, it is important to understand how different visualization types influence user’s performance during the execution of the tasks. Previous studies evaluating AR and user’s performance compared different media types or types of AR hardware as opposed to different types of visualization for the same hardware type. This paper provides details of our comparative study in which we identified the influence of visualization types on the performance of complex machine set-up processes. Although our results show clear advantages to using concrete rather than abstract visualizations, we also find abstract visualizations coupled with videos leads to similar user performance as with concrete visualizations.

There is a developing recognition of the social and economic costs entailed in global supply chains. In this paper, we report on efforts to provide alternative, more sustainable and resilient models of production. Community Supported Agricultures (CSAs) address this problem but require new means of exchange which, we suggest, offer a design opportunity for sustainable HCI research. This paper presents a two months participatory observation in a food movement, a German CSA which developed a distribution system involving their own currency. Based on our ethnographic observations, we focus our discussion on (1) the solidaristic principles upon which the movement is based and (2) techniques of mediating between consumers’ wishes and the constraints of local agricultural production. By relating to the continued development of CSAs, we identify three interrelated innovation gaps and discuss new software architectures aimed at resolving the problems which arise as the movement grows.

This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory study focused on the evaluation of an interactive music exergame for People with Dementia (PwD) and their caregivers. PwD tend to isolate themselves from the outside world, therefore carers need to develop strategies to maintain communication with them. Studies indicate that music–based activities provide an effective way to achieve social interaction with PwD. At the same time, physical activity plays a major role in dementia-related interventions because it can slow down progression and provide meaningful stimulation. Our developed interactive music game bounds these two concerns together; we evaluated the system afterwards regarding its individual and social impact and its integration into the daily routines of both PwD and their caregivers, focusing on its capacity to provide both enjoyment and relief from some of the effects of dementia. Qualitative data collected over 4 months confirmed the valuable impact of music-based interventions of PwD. Of particular note was how PwD used the game to improve or maintain their physical condition while recovering past memories and an interest in social interaction.

An increasing number of people around the world are forced to leave their homes due to the climate catastrophe, regional conflict or poverty. In their new host countries however, refugees and migrants are frequently met by a wide range of challenges, including wider societal participation. The difficulties migrants and refugees face have also increasingly become the topic of HCI and CSCW work. In this paper we report on a three year-long project, involving refugees, migrants and activist supporters in a co-design project to develop tools that aid the process of resettling. Several aspects have challenged equal participation in the project, including divergent motives, unequal power distribution and cultural heterogeneity. Despite these challenges the project outcomes are in use and maintained beyond the project runtime through voluntary actors. We reflect on this discrepancy between process and outcome drawing on the concept of care.

In this paper, we present an account of how FARC-EP ex-combatants are using digital technology in the process of reincorporating into Colombian society. We report findings showing how this technology mediates the difficult task of transitioning from a culture of opposition to civilian members and active political actors. Using the concept of social capital as a framework, we investigate the intersection between the use of digital tools and developing cultural and economic practices among these groups during this transitional period. Reflecting on the bonding and bridging aspects of social capital, we describe how ex-combatants draw on substantial social capital from their former lives as a guerrilla army in order to strengthen their position in these new circumstances, and their cautious and difficult creation of new social ties with wider Colombian society. We contribute to the CSCW discourse by discussing the crucial role digital tools, previously not available to these groups, play in sustaining, re-growing and building social capital of communities in post-conflict periods.

It is sometimes argued that there is hardly a place in the world in the 21st century left untouched by global capitalism [111, 112]. Even so, some places remain at the periphery, participating in this system without being fully absorbed by it. In this article, we take a detailed look at the economic life of such a “pericapitalist” [161] community in the Brazilian Amazon region. We detail how the community increasingly participates in global systems and supply chains, yet also organizes economic life around local and traditional values. We pay special attention to the role of digital technologies in the community, including mobile phones and internet. The contribution of the article is as follows: firstly, it provides a detailed analysis of the material practices of a community at the edge . Secondly, it draws attention to the heterogeneous nature of responses to global capitalism, formed from the relationship between specific material practices, new technology, and elements of cultural identity. Thirdly, it argues for an increased sensibility towards these different relations to capitalism when considering design implications. We argue that close attention to material practice goes some way towards resolving those tensions and, further, provides for an appeal to a more pluralistic views of culture and development [61].

Autonomous driving enables new mobility concepts such as shared-autonomous services. Although significant re-search has been done on passenger-car interaction, work on passenger interaction with robo-taxis is still rare. In this paper, we tackle the question of how passengers experience robo-taxis as a service in real-life settings to inform the interaction design. We conducted a Wizard of Oz study with an electric vehicle where the driver was hidden from the passenger to simulate the service experience of a robo-taxi. 10 participants had the opportunity to use the simulated shared-autonomous service in real-life situations for one week. By the week's end, 33 rides were completed and recorded on video. Also, we flanked the study conducting interviews before and after with all participants. The findings provided insights into four design themes that could inform the service design of robo-taxis along the different stages including hailing, pick-up, travel, and drop-off.

The number of women in IT is still low and companies struggle to integrate female professionals. The aim of our research is to provide methodological support for understanding and sharing experiences of gendered practices in the IT industry and encouraging sustained reflection about these matters over time. We established a Living Lab with that end in view, aiming to enhance female participation in the IT workforce and committing ourselves to a participatory approach to the sharing of women's experiences. Here, using the case of a German video game company which participated in our Lab, we detail our lessons learned. We show that this kind of long-term participation involves challenges over the lifetime of the project but can lead to substantial benefits for organizations. Our findings demonstrate that Living Labs are suitable for giving voice to marginalized groups, addressing their concerns and evoking change possibilities. Nevertheless, uncertainties about long-term sustainability remain.

Ageing societies and the associated pressure on the care systems are major drivers for new developments in socially assistive robotics. To understand better the real-world potential of robot-based assistance, we undertook a 10-week case study in a care home involving groups of residents, caregivers and managers as stakeholders. We identified both, enablers and barriers to the potential implementation of robot systems. The study employed the robot platform Pepper, which was deployed with a view to understanding better multi-domain interventions with a robot supporting physical activation, cognitive training and social facilitation. We employed the robot in a group setting in a care facility over the course of 10 weeks and 20 sessions, observing how stakeholders, including residents and caregivers, appropriated, adapted to, and perceived the robot. We also conducted interviews with 11 residents and caregivers. Our results indicate that the residents were positively engaged in the training sessions that were moderated by the robot. The study revealed that such humanoid robots can work in a care home but that there is a moderating person needed, that is in control of the robot.

There has been increasing interest in designing for dementia in recent years. Empirical investigation is now needed of the long-term role of caregivers in appropriating ICTs into the complex daily life of people with dementia (PwD). We present here the outcomes of a 4-month evaluation of the individual, social and institutional impact of a videogame-based training system. The everyday behavior and interactions of 52 PwD and 25 caregivers was studied qualitatively, focusing on the role played by caregivers in integrating the system into daily routines. Our results indicate that the successful appropriation of ICT for PwD depends partly on the physical, cognitive and social benefits for PwD, but especially on the added value perceived by their social care-network. We discuss the need for design in dementia to develop more socially embedded innovations that can address the social actors involved and thus contribute to practical solutions for professional and private care.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has penetrated almost all areas of life today and has the potential to create positive change. This paper addresses the opportunities offered by ICT for improving the resilience and psychosocial well-being of refugees who have experienced mentally stressful events when forced to leave their home country and seek shelter in a different host country. We want to distinguish between perceived stress and clinically-defined trauma, for which therapeutic interventions require direct personal contact with psychological experts. However, we also want to focus on the digital possibilities that currently exist to support establishing this kind of personal connection. Many refugees need to seek psychological help, but social, economic and cultural barriers hold them back. Our qualitative study with refugees, psychologists and volunteers provides insights into how refugees deal with their mental issues and the challenges they face in everyday life. We aim to show that ICT can play a major role in terms of addressing awareness and self-empowerment as an entry point for this vulnerable group. We also discuss the potential challenges and benefits of ICT for refugees seeking to recover their mental stability.

Aim of this study is to investigate the influence of technological and social cognitive factors for the use of sensor-based technologies for active and healthy ageing (AHA) support by older adults. In a mixed methods approach, data was initially obtained from an online questionnaire completed by older health technology users and used in a regression analysis, where factors from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) served as predictors for health technology use (HTU). Further, in-depth interviews were conducted with older adults to gain insights into technology use and physical activity behaviour of older adults. The regression analysis showed that the TAM and SCT factors accounted for a significant proportion of variance (39.5%) in HTU. Significant predictors of HTU were physical activity (.399**), social support (.287*), and expectations regarding individual health (.440*) and physical appearance (−.470**), indicating physical activity as mediator for HTU. The qualitative analysis indicated the conflation of technology support with social environments as key for physical activity behaviour in older adults. The findings indicate physical activity as a mediator in HTU by older adults and suggest that the consideration of social factors in health technology design may facilitate the uptake of AHA technologies.

Participation of women in IT is still low and companies wonder which external communication measures are necessary to attract more female personnel. To gain a richer understanding of adequate gender sensitive ways of communicating towards girls and women, one needs to take into account contextual challenges. Following a Participatory Action Research approach, we conducted a qualitative field study in a video game company in a large city in Germany, identified areas of concern, and sketched out implications for gender-sensitive communication measures together with our participants. Findings show that addressing gender stereotypes, making role models visible, and using adequate channels is relevant. Some problems might be solved via short-term solutions, but the majority require a long-term perspective. Our lessons learned leave implications for companies in the IT sector who want to foster gender sensitive external communication measures and can contribute to the realization of more gender balanced working environments.

Currently, there is a broad range of studies dealing with the design and visualization of energy consumption data for the domestic and increasingly for the office context. However, studies addressing the industrial context are quite rare, and due to the diversity of machines, processes, tasks, personal motivations, teams and the specific organizational culture of companies, it is not sufficient to provide only consumption data. For an adequate consideration of these factors, detailed design guidelines and system concepts are currently missing. However, this study shows the potential that a common understanding of consumption data can emerge through suitable visualization to support everyday work and possibilities of data sharing. Therefore, we show exemplarily how a design can be derived from empirically collected requirements and how a system concept can look like that enrich current eco-feedback design research for the industrial context.

Studying armed political struggles from a CSCW perspective can throw the complex interactions between culture, technology, materiality and political conflict into sharp relief. Such studies highlight interrelations that otherwise remain under-remarked upon, despite their severe consequences. The present paper provides an account of the armed struggle of one of the Colombian guerrillas, FARC-EP, with the Colombian army. We document how radio-based communication became a crucial, but ambiguous infrastructure of war. The sudden introduction of localization technologies by the Colombian army presented a lethal threat to the guerrilla group. Our interviewees report a severe learning process to diminish this new risk, relying on a combination of informed beliefs and significant technical understanding. We end with a discussion of the role of HCI in considerations of ICT use in armed conflicts and introduce the concept of counter-appropriation as process of adapting one's practices to other's appropriation of technology in conflict.

There is currently uncertainty in the research community as to how ICT can and should be designed in such a way that it can be convincingly integrated into the everyday lives of prison inmates. In this paper, we discuss a design fiction that closes this research gap. The descriptions and results of the study are purely fictitious. Excluded is the State of the Art as well as the description of the legal situation of prisons in Germany. The analysis of the fictional study data designed here thus refers to the real world in order to derive ethical guidelines and draw practical conclusions. It is our intention to use these results as a possible basis for further research. The paper presents results of an explorative study dealing with the design, development and evaluation of an AI-based Smart Mirror System, Prison AI 2.0, in a German prison. Prison AI 2.0 was developed for daily use and voluntarily tested by eight prisoners over a period of 12 months to gain insight into their individual and social impact, with an emphasis on its ability to actively support rehabilitation. Based on qualitative data, our findings suggest that intelligent AI-based devices can actually help promote such an outcome. Our results also confirm the valuable impact of (Psychosocial) ICT on the psychological, social and individual aspects of prison life, and in particular how prisoners used the Smart Mirror system to improve and maintain their cognitive, mental and physical state and to restore social interactions with the outside world. With the presentation of these results we want to initiate discussions about the use of ICT by prisoners in closed prisons in order to identify opportunities and risks.

Digital participation has become an important issue in modern societies, typically focusing on groups prone to marginalization. From this perspective, less attention has yet been paid to imprisoned persons. Many penitentiary systems are formally characterized by the basic requirement of resocialization. Accordingly, life in prison should be largely adapted to conditions outside and to fundamental social changes, which must be considered in designing the framework for prison systems. Still, the digital opening of the prison is debated controversially, not least due to anticipated security issues. Hence, to raise awareness about challenges for digital participation of prisoners, we conducted a knowledge-sociological analysis (SKAD) of the public discourse on the use of ICT by prison inmates in Germany. We thereby seek to advance knowledge and insights from social and organizational practice arising from the use of ICT in context of total institutions and create the basis for action from a socio-informatics perspective.

For migrants and refugees, settling in a host country often proves hugely problematic. The ability to communicate marks a significant step in the process of resettlement. The current high number of migrants coming to Europe has therefore meant that the need to improve and increase the availability of language provision has become more pressing. Nevertheless, due to the complexity of financial and legal regulations and of policy restrictions, access to and information about available courses are in practice hard to find, and non-funded volunteer initiatives are scarcely visible at all. To address this problem, a newly developed language-course wizard provides orientation for refugees and migrants. Findings indicate that its visual representation is apt to span a broad range of cultural as well as educational backgrounds. Our work demonstrates the need for a detailed approach to understanding the challenges that refugees and other migrants face in practice. Failing this, services frequently do not reach those they are intended for.

Smart Meters are a key component of increasing the power efficiency of the Smart Grid. To help manage the grid effectively, these meters are designed to collect information on power consumption and send it to third parties. With Smart Metering, for the first time, these cloud-connected sensing devices are legally mandated to be installed in the homes of millions of people worldwide. Via a multi-staged empirical study that utilized an open-ended questionnaire, focus groups, and a design probe, we examined how people characterize the tension between the utility of Smart Metering and its impact on privacy. Our findings show that people seek to make abstract Smart Metering data accountable by connecting it to their everyday practices. Our insight can inform the design of usable privacy configuration tools that help Smart Metering consumers relate abstract data with the real-world implications of its disclosure.

Studying technology use in unstable and life-threatening conditions can help highlight assumptions of use built into technologies and foreground contradictions in the design of devices and services. This paper provides an account of how soldiers, volunteers, and civilians use mobile technologies in wartime, reporting on fieldwork conducted in Western Russia and Eastern Ukraine with people close to or participating directly in the armed conflict in the Donbas region. We document how private mobile phones and computers became a crucial but ambiguous infrastructure despite their lack of durability in extreme conditions of a military conflict, and their government and military surveillance potential. Our participants rely on a combination of myths and significant technical knowledge to negotiate the possibilities mobile technologies offer and the life-threatening reality of enemy surveillance they engender. We consider the problems of always-on always-connected devices under conditions of war and surveillance and our responsibilities as HCI practitioners in the design of social technologies.

This paper presents the outcomes of an exploratory field study that examined the social impact of an ICT-based suite of exergames for people with dementia and their caregivers. Qualitative data was collected over a period of 8 months, during which time we studied the daily life of 14 people with dementia and their informal and professional caregivers. We focus on the experiential aspects of the system and examine its social impact when integrated into the daily routines of both people with dementia themselves and their professional and family caregivers. Our findings indicate that relatives were able to regain leisure time, whilst people with dementia were able to recapture certain aspects of their social and daily activities that might otherwise have been lost to them. Results suggest that the system enhanced social-interaction, invigorated relationships, and improved the empowerment of people with dementia and their caregivers to face daily challenges.

Currently, over 22 million people are considered to be refugees. Many of them are looking for shelter in the surrounding countries of their home country. Technology can be a helpful tool in addressing the challenges of the so-called "refugee crisis", facilitating initial orientation, information, as well as communication and networking support. This one-day workshop aims to (1) finalize the elaborated guidelines of the previous workshop and SIG meeting and to (2) formulate a manifesto for researchers who work with the vulnerable target group of refugees.

As a result of ageing societies, the prevalence of dementia, and accordingly the need of care is increasing rapidly. Here, the use of ICT-based technologies may facilitate and promote a self-sustaining life-style for people with dementia and their caregivers. The presented poster describes early findings from the project MobiAssist and outlines the ICT-based training system. The system aims to increase the physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia, relief the caregivers and improve wellbeing of involved parties.

Dementia not only affects the cognitive capabilities, especially memory and orientation, but also physical capabilities, which are associated with a decrease of physical activities. Here, ICT can play a major role to improve health, quality of life and wellbeing in older adults suffering from dementia and related stakeholders, such as relatives, professional and informal caregivers. The aim of the presented system is to increase physical and cognitive capabilities of people with dementia and their caregivers to support them in daily life activities, reduce the strain of the caregivers and improve both their wellbeing.

Need for care and accordingly the prevalence of dementia is increasing rapidly. Information and communication technologies (ICT) may have the potential to support collaboration and cooperation between people with dementia and their caregivers and thus promote independency, wellbeing and quality of life of involved parties. In this context, the authors investigated the potential of an ICT-based videogame system to generate and facilitate social experiences of people with dementia and their caregivers. 26 people with dementia and their caregivers participated in a 16 month participatory design study. Results suggest that collaboration and cooperation among involved parties increased by using the system. Further, the study revealed positive and negative social experiences triggered by the videogame based system. This article will report on these results and provide implications that may support researchers to design similar systems with the potential to increase collaboration and cooperation among people with dementia and their caregivers.

This study explores the development of environmental awareness and computational literacy among children by means of upcycling making activities in Germany and Palestine. Our research supports the idea that the combination of handcraft and digital work, documentation and social interaction in the upcycling can foster the development of a maker identity in children. Findings indicate that upcycling can sensitize children for environmental issues of global relevance, foster their environmental learning and encourage them in the exploration of creative answers.

Smart home systems change the way we experience the home. While there are established research fields within HCI for visualizing specific use cases of a smart home, studies targeting user demands on visualizations spanning across multiple use cases are rare. Especially, individual data-related demands pose a challenge for usable visualizations. To investigate potentials of an end-user development (EUD) approach for flexibly supporting such demands, we developed a smart home system featuring both pre-defined visualizations and a visualization creation tool. To evaluate our concept, we installed our prototype in 12 households as part of a Living Lab study. Results are based on three interview studies, a design workshop and system log data. We identified eight overarching interests in home data and show how participants used pre-defined visualizations to get an overview and the creation tool to not only address specific use cases but also to answer questions by creating temporary visualizations.

Despite a proliferation of research in the use of ICTs to support active and healthy ageing, few have considered the privacy and security concerns particular to the elderly. We investigated the appropriation of tablet devices and a neighborhood portal as well as emerging privacy and security issues through ethnographic and action research in a long-term participatory design (PD) project with elderly participants. We discuss two major themes: a) the tensions related to perceived digital threats and the social pressures of online disclosure to the social environment; and b) the relation of these issues to the ICT appropriation process and the referring challenges we encountered. We argue that there is a need to understand the interleaving of physical and virtual habitats, the various ways resulting in discomfort and the senior citizens' actions -- which at first glance appear contradictory. We consider the implications of the issues observed for examining privacy and security concerns more broadly as well as discussing implications for the design of the portal and the shaping of social measures for appropriation support.

Smart home systems are becoming an integral feature of the emerging home IT market. Under this general term, products mainly address issues of security, energy savings and comfort. Comprehensive systems that cover several use cases are typically operated and managed via a unified dashboard. Unfortunately, research targeting user experience (UX) design for smart home interaction that spans several use cases or covering the entire system is scarce. Furthermore, existing comprehensive and user-centered longterm studies on challenges and needs throughout phases of information collection, installation and operation of smart home systems are technologically outdated. Our 18-month Living Lab study covering 14 households equipped with smart home technology provides insights on how to design for improving smart home appropriation. This includes a stronger sensibility for household practices during setup and configuration, flexible visualizations for evolving demands and an extension of smart home beyond the location.

We present the results of a design case study focusing on supporting the daily transportation of elderly in Germany. We conceptualized, developed and studied the appropriation of a transportation information system intended to ease switching between different transportation modes. Based on a literature review and a context study with 21 interviews we explored routinized transport mode usage and barriers when switching between modes. Iteratively, we co-designed a transport platform accessible via a website, a mobile app, and an iTV app. We further looked at the appropriation of the platform into the daily lives of 19 persons. Studying the appropriation highlighted different factors that facilitate the adoption of alternative transport options. The factors included reducing uncertainty, complementing transport information with context information (e.g. weather) and providing informational access based on the user's preferences as well as fitting in with the situational needs (activity related).

Studying the setup and development of an initiative of computer clubs in intercultural neighborhoods, this paper builds on the theory and method associated with value sensitive design to account for the use of off-the-shelf technology in a diverse cultural context, and over an extended period of time. We present three cases from one of these computer clubs, each at a different point in time in the club's development. Central factors are identified that impact the course of a socio-technical initiative. We highlight the challenges inherent in matching existing ICT with the values both explicitly identified in the initiative and which evolve over time. Our study highlights the relevance of open communication structures among researchers and local practitioners, as well as methodological support that is needed to span a wide range of user experiences. Both aspects are key to making value sensitive design a lived experience on the diverse community level.

Bosnia-Herzegovina and its administrative unit or "entity", Republika Srpska are divided, transitional post-war societies. The aim of this paper is to present a preliminary analysis of regional activists' use of information and communication technology (ICT) and to identify improvement potential. Empirical investigations of social media use and qualitative interviews with the country's activists indicate strong interest in ICT. Benefits for the use of ICT by activists include more efficient access to their target group, easier information sharing with the general population, and quicker reaction to spontaneous "offline" activities. Simultaneously, data points to problems such as limited budgets and know-how, intensive outsourcing practices, and a significant lack of awareness regarding data security. Activists see improvement potential in areas of training on content optimization, campaign management, ICT use and maintenance, security, and privacy. Additionally, there is potential to improve upon the sustainability of activist's work and patterns related to their ICT outsourcing.

This paper focuses on the complex and intimate setting of domestic home care. The majority of care for chronically ill people is realized by non-professionals, the relatives, who are often overlooked. Many of these informal caregivers are also elderly and face multiple, seriously demanding challenges in the context of informal care 24/7. In order to support this increasing user group, their cooperative work and coordination adequately, it is essential to gain a better understanding of their care practices and needs. This paper is based on ethnography in ten households in Germany. It combines data from the analysis of participant observations over eight months, interviews and cultural probes. Besides detailed descriptions of two cases, the central features of informal care experience and implications for design are discussed: the self-concept of the caregivers as being care experts, the need for social support, timing issues and coordination with other actors in this field.

This poster describes the research around computer clubs in Palestinian refugee camps and the various lessons learned during the establishment of this intervention such the importance of the physical infrastructure (e.g. clean room, working hardware), soft technologies (e.g. knowledge transfer through workshops), social infrastructure (e.g. reliable partners in the refugee camp, partner from the university) and social capital (e.g. shared vision and values of all stakeholders). These important insights can be transferred on other interventions in similar unstable environments.

This long-term study analyzes the structure of a technology-mediated local initiative fostering cross-cultural understanding and respect: come_IN intercultural computer clubs provide open yet guided access to modern information and computer technology and offer a space for computer-related collaborative practices of children and adults in intercultural German neighborhoods. Our study addresses problems associated with 'cultural integration' and attempts to solve them through this provision. It reveals rhythms, lifecycles and breakdown situations which, transferred to a general level, form the basic structure for a sustainable implementation of a technology-related local initiative fostering cross-cultural understanding and respect. The study is based on field notes taken in three of these clubs.

Social media usage during the recent uprisings in Arab countries has gained increasing attention in human–computer interaction research. This study adds to these insights by providing some findings on the use of information and communications technology (ICT), specifically mobile media, by opposition forces and political activists during the Syrian civil war. The presented study is based on 17 interviews with Syrian FSA fighters, activists, and refugees. A first analysis showed evidence for some very specific use patterns during wartime (compared to media usage of political activists under less anomic conditions). The study also describes a fragmented telecom infrastructure in Syria: government-controlled regions offer fairly intact infrastructures while rebel-controlled regions have been cut off from telephone and Internet. Moreover, the central and very critical role of mobile video for documenting, mobilization, and propaganda is discussed.

The availability of ICT services can be severely disrupted in the aftermath of disasters. Ad-hoc assemblages of communication technology have the potential to bridge such breakdowns. This article investigates the use of an ad-hoc system for sending SOS signals in a large-scale exercise that simulated a terrorist attack. In this context, we found that the sensitivity that was introduced by the adversarial nature of the situation posed unexpected challenges for our approach, as giving away one's location in the immediate danger of a terrorist attack became an issue both for first responders and the affected people in the area. We show how practices of calling for help and reacting to help calls can be affected by such a system and affect the management of the visibility and validity of SOS calls, implying a need for further negotiation in situations where communication is sensitive and technically restrained.

This paper contributes to the current discourse on practice-based research in HCI paying particular attention to the overall temporal and situational conditions which frame an R&D project. We present a Living Lab study situated in an arbitrary neighborhood of a German city which develops ICT support to foster informal help and social interaction with a special, but not exclusive, focus on elderly tenants. We demonstrate that practice-based, long-term research in a city quarter goes beyond those challenges already described in the current Living Lab and PD literature. The long-term study's positioning in a real-world context is contoured not only by a high diversity of stakeholders and their individual interests and motivation for participation but also by their individual skill sets and learning needs. These distinct and often contradictive perspectives have to be permanently counterbalanced. Thus attention has to be focused on how related strategies and decisions impact on the design of the project as well as on the final ICT product. To enable all tenants, irrespective of age and technical skill, to participate in a long-term ICT-based community development project, we applied the format of 'experience-based PD workshops' to foster confidence in ICT usage and encourage the competency of the elderly and non-tech-savvy tenants.

Come_IN computer clubs are an established approach to support inter-cultural and inter-generational learning in German neighborhoods. We explore the adaptation of the come_IN concept to the Palestinian context as a means to bridge the social and economic divide that has plagued West Bank society for a period of more than six decades. Social exclusion, political conflicts and prolonged military occupation have kept the refugee camps in a perpetual state of marginalization. In this paper we report on our work in Al Amari-- a Palestinian refugee camp adjacent to the city of Ramallah. We examine how the computer club enables the emergence of social ties among residents of the camp and university students acting as tutors. Even though the ties are small-scale and informal, they have the potential to generate new and wider opportunities for exchange that may eventually support more social integration between the camp's marginalized population and the wider Palestinian population.

Living Labs provide a 'human-centric' research approach for the design of new ICT artefacts.In Living Labs users participate over several design stages, providing insights into unexpected ICT use, co-creation and evaluation of new IT solutions.Although this approach is becoming more popular, there is little comparative and reflective work on its practical dynamics, problems and possibilities.In this study, we analyse two 4-year Living Lab projects in Lancaster, UK and Siegen, Germany within the domain of Social TV, and compare experiences.We focus on documenting the purposes, methods and user dynamics that affect the trajectory of such long-term research initiatives, focusing inter alia on the dynamics of researcher/user interaction and the developing issues of trust and managing expectations; emphasizing some often neglected ethical issues and the impact of users' individual characteristics and their role in the community dynamics of Living Labs. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS• Comparison and reflection of two 4-year Living Lab studies in domestic environments.• Investigation of dynamics of researcher-user interaction.• Emphasizing ethical issues of long-term Living Lab research projects.

One of the great societal challenges that we face today concerns the move to more sustainable patterns of energy consumption, reflecting the need to balance both individual consumer choice and societal demands. In order for this ‘energy turnaround’ to take place, however, reducing residential energy consumption must go beyond using energy-efficient devices: More sustainable behaviour and lifestyles are essential parts of future ‘energy aware’ living. Addressing this issue from an HCI perspective, this paper presents the results of a 3-year research project dealing with the co-design and appropriation of a Home Energy Management System (HEMS) that has been rolled out in a living lab setting with seven households for a period of 18 months. Our HEMS is inspired by feedback systems in Sustainable Interaction Design and allows the monitoring of energy consumption in real-time. In contrast to existing research mainly focusing on how technology can persuade people to consume less energy (‘what technology does to people’), our study focuses on the appropriation of energy feedback systems (‘what people do with technology’) and how newly developed practices can become a resource for future technology design. Therefore, we deliberately followed an open research design. In keeping with this approach, our study uncovers various responses, practices and obstacles of HEMS use. We show that HEMS use is characterized by a number of different features. Recognizing the distinctive patterns of technology use in the different households and the evolutionary character of that use within the households, we conclude with a discussion of these patterns in relation to existing research and their meaning for the design of future HEMSs.

Finding and rescuing missing or injured people or fighting fire inside burning buildings is a central challenge for fire brigades. To ensure the safety of indoor work, monitoring the operations of firefighting units is crucial. As in most countries, firefighters in Germany utilize radio sets to establish voice communication between indoor operating units and the supervisory structure outside. Based on findings from a long term ethnographic study in cooperation with different German fire brigades over a time span of more than 5 years we analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the current voice over radio communication tactics and techniques. We designed and evaluated a complementary text based communication device the EMERGENCY-MESSENGER to support the time critical work of indoor units working under harsh conditions, wearing Self-Contained-Breathing-Apparatus (SCBA). We conducted 13 full scale training missions including extensive debriefings to design and evaluate the communication concept and the corresponding device.

Design research processes often take place in publicly funded projects. Besides designers and users, public funding increasingly requires industry partners to participate in such projects. We present empirical insights from a joint research project in order to assess the claims connected with such funding structures and to report on challenges for design research within them. We identify three themes of conflict between academic and industry partners and elaborate on the sources of them. The presentation of our results builds on the distinction between 'academia' and 'industry', which is frequently applied by political funding agencies. The analysis of the respective stakeholders' actual interests, however, will prove such a dichotomy to be misleading and simplistic.

Alternative mobility modes for older adults are increasingly important for economic, ecological and social reasons. A promising option is ridesharing, defined as use of the same vehicle by two or more people traveling to a common destination. In particular, mobile computer supported ridesharing provides a promising way to enlarge older adults' mobility choices in addition to private driving and public transportation options. In order to understand the opportunities and obstacles of ridesharing from the point of view of elderly people, we conducted an interview study in order to examining ridesharing experiences. It turns out that "mobile independence" and "decisional autonomy" are key issues for mobile wellbeing. This partially conflicts with common ridesharing concepts. Hence, we further analyze older adults' strategies dealing with these conflicts and show that these strategies offer departure points for the design ridesharing solutions, which are better suited to the demands of older adults.

In this work we present a user-centered development process for a GPS-based monitoring system to be used in dementia care. Our research covers a full design process including a qualitative-empirical pre-study, the prototyping process and the investigation of long-term appropriation processes of the stable prototypes in three different practice environments. Specifically, we deal with the problem of 'wandering' by persons suffering from late-phase dementia. Although GPS tracking is not a novel technological objective, the usage of those systems in dementia care remains very low. The paper therefore takes a socio-technical stance on development and appropriation of GPS technology in dementia care and assesses the practical and ideological issues surrounding care to understand why. We additionally provide design research in two different settings, familial and institutional care, and report on the design of a GPS-based tracking system reflecting these considerations. What comes to the fore is the need for ICT to reflect complex organizational, ideological and practical issues that form part of a moral universe where sensitivity is crucial.

The high complexity of knowledge-intensive work such as software development makes it beneficial to have spaces for formal and informal articulation work. Existing information systems (IS) tend to treat these different aspects of coordination separately, resulting in problems of awareness and coordination. To bridge this gap, we present the concept of Articulation Spaces which combines aspects of Coordination Mechanisms and Common Information Spaces (CIS) in order to provide a room for mediating between the formal and informal aspects of coordination. Based on a design study in the form of a lightweight public display that has been tested in a medium-sized German software company, we show how Articulation Spaces provide information for meta-coordination, encourage ad-hoc coordination and support decision-making processes. Our findings provide insights into the design of support systems for flexible and coordination-intensive contexts such as software development work.

Based on a field study in Guangdong Province, this paper describes the social media use of Chinese migrant workers in the manufacturing sector. It was found that social media plays a significant role in the lives of young workers who have left their rural hometowns in early adulthood and struggle to survive in the urban centers. They buy expensive IT devices to gain a social reputation, as social media provides opportunities for self-expression; strengthens their self-consciousness; and to a certain extent, influences their world view. For most of the workers in our study, social media has become a very important part of leisure time and entertainment. Moreover, the life in virtual worlds provides them a psychological compensation mechanism to temporarily avoid the pressure of their daily lives.

Nowadays television means more than the passive consumption of broadcast content. Television sets are equipped with modern computer technologies and provide manifold opportunities for accessing con...

Technological infrastructure at home is changing continuously and is becoming increasingly interconnected. Media devices, including the TV set, provide access to the Internet and offer manifold opportunities to consume media on demand. Additionally, personal devices, such as smartphones, also enable flexible consumption and sharing of media. Questions about how these technologies change the user's media usage and how these changes affect the social structure of a household, however, remain largely unanswered. In order to gain insight into the adoption of new technologies into daily routines, we explored these changes in respect of people's media usage in a qualitative long-term Living Lab study. We will present findings regarding personal routines, flexible integration of new devices into existing practices, influences on households as social systems and related issues in device access and collective use. We will highlight potentials and conflicts regarding device shifts and roles; restrictions in device access; social influences in the living room; and individual changes in media consumption.

Living Labs provide a research infrastructure for long-term user involvement in Participatory Design processes. Users take part in software co-creation during context analysis, for concept development, reflecting on early-stage prototypes and evaluations in the field. In this paper we describe lessons learned from our Living Lab in the area of home entertainment, with 27 participants from 16 households, over a 2.5 year period. We show that this kind of long-term participation of users involves various challenges over the lifetime of the project. We highlight several aspects that need to be considered carefully when setting up such a Living Lab, concerning the selection of participants, maintenance of participants' motivation, establishment of a trust relationship, and the coordination of collaboration.

This paper presents results of a three-year research project focused on the emplacement of Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) in a living lab setting with seven households. The HEMS used in this study allowed householders to monitor energy consumption both in real-time and in retrospective on the TV and on mobile devices. Contrasting with existing research focused on how technology persuades people to consume less energy, our study uses a grounded approach to analyze HEMS emplacement. As an important result, we present here the issue of 'energy literacy'. Our study reveals that, by using HEMS, participants became increasingly literate in understanding domestic electricity consumption. We discuss the role HEMS played in that process and how the acquired literacy changed energy consumption patterns. We conclude that literacy in energy consumption has value on its own and explain how eco feedback system designs can benefit from this understanding.

We analyze practices of political activists in a Palestinian village located in the West Bank. Activists organize weekly demonstrations against Israel's settlement policy and the separation wall. Over a period of 28 months, we conducted a field study consisting of eight days 'on the ground' observation and interviewing, and extensive monitoring of Internet communication. We describe the activists' background and their efforts to organize these demonstrations under conditions of military occupation. Over time, we observe the role both digital and material factors play in the organization of protest. Specifically, we analyze how Email and Facebook were appropriated to facilitate interaction 'on the ground'.

We present a study conducted in Sidi Bouzid, the Tunisian town where the Arab Revolution, also known as 'Arab Spring', started, and where the role of Web 2.0 and social media applications in the people's uprising have been much discussed. We identify four relevant phenomena: (1) the publication of classified materials via WikiLeaks challenged the regime's legitimacy, (2) Web 2.0 connected local activists with Arab satellite TV, (3) social media linked the young activists with actors in other cities in Tunisia, (4) social media allowed organizing resistance inside Sidi Bouzid. Methodologically, we question a too deterministic view of the role of the new media and the representativeness of investigative techniques that uniquely use the new media in order to assess their impact. At the same time, rigorous investigations 'on the ground' are extremely difficult. We present a modest and initial attempt to provide such an 'on the ground' approach, cognizant of necessary limitations. We compare our findings with studies which analyze data downloaded out of social media applications and suggest that studies of the kind we describe offer additional insight and play an essential role in better understanding political uses of social media.

The organization, technology and operation of microfinance have undergone much change and differentiation. Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel-prize winner first demonstrated the possible empowerment of poor people by means of microfinance. Even so, certain cases have indicated that this empowerment does not necessarily occur and that microfinance can even be damaging. In this paper, we describe a case study which describes some of the value clients do receive from an initiative of this kind but notes that this value sometimes lies in unofficial, ‘private’, advice and help. To this end, we conducted an ethnographic study in a microfinance institution (MFI) in Azerbaijan. We found a special pattern of interaction between MFI-staff members and customers, which both regarded as beneficial. Since, from the point of the organization, it was not recognizably part of their work, we call it a “private service”. We think that the identification of similar private initiatives may help to identify new possible synergies between the operation, organization and technology in the microfinance sector. All of them are decisive for the identification of promising human–computer interaction patterns and the design of supportive computer applications. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Reacting to the discussion on global warming, the HCI community has started to explore the design of tools to support responsible energy consumption. An important part of this research focuses on motivating energy savings by providing feedback tools which present consumption metrics interactively. In this line of work, the configuration of feedback has been mainly discussed using cognitive or behavioral factors. This narrow focus, however, misses a highly relevant perspective for the design of technology that supports sustainable lifestyles: to investigate the multiplicity of forms in which individuals or collectives actually consume energy. In this article, we broaden this focus, by taking a phenomenological lens to study how people use off-the-shelf eco-feedback systems in private households to make energy consumption accountable and explainable. By reconstructing accounting practices, we delineate several constitutive elements of the phenomenon of energy usage in daily life. We complement these elements with a description of the sophisticated methods used by people to organize their energy practices and to give a meaning to their energy consumption. We describe these elements and methods, providing examples coming from the fieldwork and uncovering observed strategies to account for consumption. Based on our results, we provide a critical perspective on existing eco-feedback mechanisms and describe several elements for a design rationale for designing support for responsible energy consumption. We argue that interactive feedback systems should not simply be an end, but rather a resource for the construction of the artful practice of making energy consumption accountable.

In this paper we wish to contribute to the recent ICT-design for and reflection of the application field of residential care homes. In doing so, the contribution of the paper is twofold: we wish to highlight some aspects of the every-day life of institutionalized elderly people - trust, sociality, and memory - which not only provoke reflection on design ideas but also on the socio-technical nexus in which design for the elderly has to take place. This domain, we suggest, is one where the 'parachuting in' of technology is unlikely to prove successful, for reasons we examine below. Further, we suggest that design for and with the elderly carries with it some specific problems. We illustrate our methodological reflections by means of an ongoing empirical research project which aims at the development of a large-screen display for a residential care home.

We propose an interdisciplinary workshop to explore key design principles of collaborative learning in the workplace. The workshop's theme is, simply "CSCL at the workplace". Our first workshop at ACM Group 2010, and the resulting book, raise an important set of issues and potentials for research, but does not solve the thorny and controversial issues. This workshop will be focused on for making progress on the identified issues. The ACM Group conference remains an ideal venue for a workshop on this topic because the North American and European communities who participate in Group include leading members of the international CSCL and CSCW communities. The proposed workshop will be a full day. It will open with a situating presentation by the organizers and, participant questions and proposed solutions aimed at the issues we have raised and begun to recognize, and focus working groups on the resolution of those issues in work to follow the conference. To participate in the workshop, discussants will be asked for a position paper of up to 2 pages in standard ACM format. Our edited book will be made available to participants in advance, and selected authors who will be present will provide overviews of their work and perspective in an interleaved way with the more action oriented working sessions.

Adaptations of business processes are important in work environments, specifically when process-support needs to be tailored according to changing needs. The creation, management, and adaptation of the process models require typically modeling-experts. While these actors are knowledgeable in formalizing and operationalizing processes end-users who do not necessarily possess sophisticated modeling skills know typically local practices and framing conditions best. In this paper, we present an approach to support users in articulating their needs and to involve them into the (re-)design of process specifications. We explore how end-users reflect upon and articulate about business processes. Based on results of a qualitative study, we present a new, paper-based interaction technique, which enables users with little skills to model processes. The resulting process specifications can be transferred either in paper or in digital form into traditional modeling systems for further elaboration.

SUMMARY The impact of culture on knowledge management in international teams is an important topic which is still not well understood. We contribute to the discussion by presenting two case studies of small software teams involved in distributed software development. In doing so, we illustrate how cultural and social issues influence the way knowledge exchange is performed by analyzing four knowledge sharing practices: status meetings and maintaining awareness, the collaborative use of shared artifacts and repositories, spending time at the other site and human ‘bridges’ that mediate between people and cultures. Our findings suggest that organizational culture is permanently re‐negotiated and adjusted to fit the distributed collaboration, as the teams learn how to deal with each other. Socialization plays a significant role in this learning process, and people are more likely to draw on national stereotypes when breakdowns occur. The influences of national culture and site‐specific organizational culture are subtle and not easy to separate from other factors. Based on our experience, we argue that in order to achieve an accurate understanding of knowledge sharing practices in globally distributed software teams, these need to be studied in context, longitudinally, and from both the onshore and offshore perspectives. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Information and communications technology (ICT) pervades most aspects of our lives and changes everyday's practices in work and leisure time. When designing innovative ICTs, we need to engage with given practices, institutional arrangements, and technological infrastructures. We describe the research framework used at the University of Siegen. It is based on a collection of design case studies in particular fields of practice and identifies cross-cutting issues to compare and aggregate insights between these cases. To illustrate this framework, we describe our research activities and discuss three themes which became important in different design case studies.

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In this paper we portray a specific type of knowledge which we term 'nomadic knowledge'. It is required periodically by different actors and travels along foreseeable paths between groups or communities of actors. This type of knowledge lets us question generally held assumptions about the way knowledge is enacted. We illustrate our point with an ethnographical field study analyzing the European Social Forum (ESF), a network of political activist organizations. In this network different actors organize a periodic (biannual) event in which some 13,000 activists participated in 2008. We investigate how knowledge about organizing and managing the ESF is transferred between two events respectively, the actors and communities involved. Our study highlights the specific challenges in sharing nomadic knowledge and the consequences of deficiencies on the organizing process. The paper contributes to a better understanding of knowledge sharing practices and opens new directions for technical support.

Microfinance Institutions (MFI) are sought to combine transparent sustainability with poverty reduction. Apart from this commonality, they can be as different as their markets, cultures and technologies. While much design for MFIs, nevertheless, concentrates on standardized processes around the head quarters we started with studying an individual case from a bottom-up perspective, including its customer relationship. We focused our ethnographic study at the Khushhali Bank, Pakistan, on work practices and how they are influenced by technology. In our case, too, lacking awareness about non-monetary performance is a hurdle for sound innovation. Technological innovation can be attractive when it is combined with measures to support community building and learning.

Expert recommender systems (ERS) are considered a promising technology in knowledge management. However, there are very few studies which evaluated their appropriation in practice. In this paper, we present results of a case study of expert recommender technology in a large European industrial association. Unlike existing expert recommender approaches, the system involves users in selecting textual documents for semi-automatic profile generation. Our study focuses on the appropriation of this functionality and discusses impacts from an organizational perspective.

Software development requires complex context specific knowledge regarding the particularities of different technologies, the potential of existing software and the needs and expectations of the users. Hence, efficient knowledge management counts amongst the most important challenges for software teams. In international teams, one of the most important issues regarding knowledge sharing is the impact of culture under different aspects: national, organizational and professional. There seem to be very few studies dealing with the issue of culture in regard to knowledge management practices in GSE. We want to contribute to the discussion by presenting case studies of small size software teams dealing with international software development in the context of offshoring. In doing so, we illustrate how cultural and social issues influence the way knowledge exchange is performed by analyzing several knowledge management practices, considering the role of meetings, artifacts and tools, knowledge brokers and mutual visits between sites.

Traditionally, access control is understood as a purely technical mechanism which rejects or accepts access attempts automatically according to a specific preconfiguration. However, such a perspective neglects the practices of access control and the embeddedness of technical mechanisms within situated action. In this article, we reconceptualize the issue of access control on a theoretical, methodological, and practical level. On a theoretical level, we develop a terminology to distinguish between access control practices and the technical support mechanisms. We coin the term Computer Supported Access Control (CSAC) to emphasize this perspective. On a methodological level, we discuss empirical investigations of access control behavior from a situated action perspective. We discovered a differentiated set of social practices around traditional access control systems. By applying these findings to a practical level, we enhance the design space of computer supported access control mechanisms by suggesting a matrix of technical mechanisms which go beyond an ex-ante configuration.

Global software development has become an important issue for small and medium enterprises. However, the distinct requirements of SME are still not so well understood. In order to contribute to the discussion we present case studies in two small German software companies that engage in offshoring of software development to Eastern Europe. By applying Strauss' articulation work framework we show to what extent SME rely upon situated coordination practices in order to warrant their agility. These practices are applied during discussions in which the actors reflexively evolve problems and solutions from their distinct perspectives and work practices. Thereby they are closely related to formal and informal communication, which takes place both locally and between the different teams. Our findings further suggest that specialized tools for the support of situated coordination practices in terms of articulation work are not so common in practice.

The present paper presents a longitudinal study of the course ‘High-tech Entrepreneurship and New Media’. The course design is based on socio-cultural theories of learning and considers the role of social capital in entrepreneurial networks. By integrating student teams into the communities of practice of local start-ups, we offer learning opportunities to students, companies and academia. The student teams are connected to each other and to their supervisors in academia and practice through a community-system. Moreover, the course is accompanied by a series of lectures and group discussions. In this paper we want to present our experiences and to reflect upon the design changes between the first and the second instance of the course. The evaluation of the course showed that the work on real-world problems and the collaboration in teams together with partners from start-up companies were evaluated as very positive, although design flaws, and cultural and professional diversities limited the success of the first instance in 2001. For the second course in 2002, the didactical design was improved significantly according to evaluation results, which brought evidence that the design changes resulted in better collaborative practices and more stable relationships between start-up companies and students. Furthermore, it was found that especially the differences in cultural background and different historical experiences between the two distinct groups of ‘students’ and ‘entrepreneurs’ might make processes of social identification more difficult and, therefore, successful community-building less likely’.

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In this paper we describe the evolutionary design and implementation of a search tool for files in shared workspaces used within an off-the-shelf groupware product. The design is based on the assumption that a useful generic search tool must be highly tailorable, which is achieved by applying an innovative software architecture allowing the assembly of components during runtime. In order to understand people's searching methods in shared workspaces and to support the design, we employed interviews and workshops with users as well as a field test to understand the users' needs. During the design process we developed a series of prototypes that were then evaluated by office workers. Consequently, the process described and the lessons learned extend from searching in files as a case via tailorability of software as an answer to the resulting requirements to component architecture as a way to implement this tailorability. The results derived from the treatment of these interrelated aspects constitute the core and value of this paper.

Communities are social entities whose actors share common needs, interests, or practices: they constitute the basic units of social experience. With regard to communities, social capital captures the structural, relational and cognitive aspects of the relationships among their members. Social capital is defined as a set of properties of a social entity (e.g. norms, level of trust, and intensive social networking) which enables joint activities and cooperation for mutual benefit. It can be understood as the glue which holds communities together. On this panel we will discuss whether and how information technology can strengthen communities by fostering social capital.

We present experiences made with a course in applied computer science which was based on the concept of communities of practice. Within the scope of the course "entrepreneurship and new media" we offered a project lab which was accompanied by a set of lectures given by internal and external lecturers. In the project groups, the students worked in close cooperation with start-up companies. The students were connected through a community system to each other and to their supervisors in academia and practice. As the communities of practice emerged we discuss the role they may play in teaching.

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The design of the user interface plays a major role in encouraging users to tailor an application. This paper focuses on a particular design issue. The question is how to support users in finding those functions which allow tailoring of an application. An empirical investigation shows that this is a major problem when users try to tailor applications. In order to tackle this problem the concept of direct activation is developed, which simplifies the finding of a tailoring function at the moment a tailorable function needs to be modified. To evaluate the effectiveness of the concept of direct activation in supporting tailoring activities, the concept has been implemented and an evaluation study carried out. The results of this study support the assumption that direct activation eases tailoring activities. Finally, the potentials and limitations of this concept are discussed.

Explorative learning plays a major role when users face new functionality. Nevertheless, the multi-user character of groupware makes explorative learning more difficult. Users are often unable to understand the way certain functions work because they cannot perceive the effects of the functions’ execution. This problem gets more severe with tailorable groupware. Therefore, we propose exploration environments as an additional feature to support users in self-directed learning. Looking at three tailorable groupware tools, we show how exploration environments can be realized. To generalize our findings, we develop a model which describes the user interface of tailorable groupware. Based on this model, we compare the design of the three tools and present general guidelines for the implementation of exploration environments. Finally, we report about the results of a workshop in which a groupware tool containing exploration environments has been evaluated.

Groupware applications should be tailorable to fit the requirements of dynamically evolving and differentiated fields of application. To encourage individual and collaborative tailoring activities, applications should be tailorable on different levels of complexity. A search tool has been developed which offers different levels of tailoring complexity by means of hierarchically organized component languages. Users can create alternative search tools and compound components by themselves. Search tool alternatives and compound components can also be shared among the users. When introducing this tool into an organization of the political administration, it turned out that the users had considerable problems in understanding the functioning of artifacts created by someone else. To ease cooperative tailoring activities, we have implemented features, which allow users to structure, describe, and explore shared components and search tool alternatives. Also we provided means to store and exchange examples for components' use.

Interpersonal communication is the basis for almost any type of cooperation. Changing patterns of communication may have an impact on the quality of cooperative work. In this paper, user experiences are described in a long-term groupware project. Communication changes, both planned and unplanned, were examined as a result of the system introduction. Reduced face-to-face communication, task-related and taskunrelated, were found, as well as a changing dissemination of information. Certain losses in interpersonal communication were compensated for by user advocacy and design team-user workshops. It is proposed that with groupware introduction, organizations should consider support for both planned and informal means as compensation for reduced communication.

Tailorability is generally regarded as a key requirement for groupware applications. In this paper, we focus on a specific class of tailoring activities: the definition of different system behaviour for specific scopes of validity. Since the state of the art in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) does not yet offer any satisfactory solutions to support users in performing this class of tailoring activities, we develop an approach based on tailoring statements, which are similar to production rules. We show how inconsistencies resulting from contradictory statements can be handled either automatically or by involving the affected users. We present a prototype which implements our approach to tailorability in a commercial groupware system, using access control as an example for the proposed class of tailoring activities. Finally, we present the results of a usability test carried out which employs the thinking aloud method.

No abstract available.

This full-day workshop is intended for designers, researchers, and decision-makers to discuss and compare their experiences with designing and introducing groupware in an organizational context. Considering the impact that groupware has had on collaboration in recent years, there are relatively few published studies on experiences with introducing groupware. With so few comparisons, it is difficult to develop and appropriate framework which could guide its introduction. Yet it is important not only to understand successes and failiures with methods, but also design and methodology compromises that groupware implementers must live with.

Certain functions in groupware affect more than one user who might have conflicting interests. To describe conflicts arising from the use of groupware functions, we distinguish the roles of the activator and the user affected. As technical means to lessen these conflicts, we develop two metafunctions: visibility of use and negotiability. We expect that these metafunctions reduce role-based conflicts and lead to higher acceptance of groupwaresystems among users. To examine these hypotheses we performed an empirical study in six different organizations. Using scenarios to present different design options to users, we confirmed most of our assumptions. Implications of these findings for the design of groupware are discussed.

Functions which control access to data in groupware should be designed flexibly by offering different options to end users. However, conflicts might arise among different end users in the process of selecting one of these options. To support users in finding a consensual solution for these conflicts, we propose a metafunction called ‘negotiability’. We propose to define and explore the concept of ‘negotiability’, and discuss its application to access control, concurrency control, and consistency control. We assume that negotiability can play an important role in tailoring these mechanisms and supporting a co-operative use of system's flexibility.