Designing technology for community appropriation

INTRODUCTION Computation is weaving itself into our daily fabric. All around us new devices, environments, and systems are opening themselves up for user adoption and in many cases adaptation, such as SMS messaging on cell phones. New and unexpected interactions with the immaterial have expanded the design territory to include people as designers, and Moran described design as a “negotiated social process”.[7] The design process now extends beyond the formulation of a computational artifact and onto how the user experiences an artifact. This mutual relationship has heightened the understanding of what we, as designers, should be designing for, but does not necessarily provide us with the tools and practices to design technology that is truly open for later appropriation. This seems even more challenging in the case of technology, which is specifically aimed at a whole community of users rather than an individual [5].