Thursday, October 4, 2007

IT C515 CSCW - Reading for Week 4

Groupware and Social Dynamics:
Eight Challenges for Developers

Groupware is introduced as software which lies in the midst of the range between single-user applications and large organizational information systems. Examples include e-mail, instant messaging, group calendaring and scheduling, and electronic meeting rooms. The developers of groupware today come mostly from a single-user background, and hence many do not realize the social and political factors crucial to developing groupware.


The challenges for developing groupware technologies and be defined as
  • Disparities in who does work to make an application succeed and who benefits from it, which can be solved by designing processes that create benefits for all group members;
  • Challenges in obtaining a critical mass of users, which can be solved by reducing reduce work required for all users and build in incentives;
  • Social, political, and motivational currents that software must navigate, which can also be solved by contextual inquiry, domain familiarity or understanding;
  • Providing the flexibility required by often surprisingly variable work routines, which can be solved by studying actual work practice and allow exceptions;
  • The challenge of designing infrequently used features to be unobtrusive but accessible when needed, this also can be solved by adding groupware features to existing single-user applications then creating awareness and access to infrequently used features;
  • Underestimated Difficulty of Evaluating Groupware;
  • Lack of intuition for the needs of groups and their diverse members, which can be solved by contextual inquiry or domain understanding; and
  • A New Challenge for Product Developers, which can be also solved by adding groupware to existing applications and by observing other systems good design (by understanding the environment of use, yet again contextual inquiry) and by developed adoption strategy.

Groupware should strive to directly benefit all group members, build off of existing successful applications if possible, develop thoughtful adoption strategies, and be rooted in an understanding of the physical, social, and political environment of use.



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