How Do You Get Developers to Care for the Itches of Others? Introducing Usability to an Open Source Community

Lene Nielsen, Mads Bødker, Rikke Ørngreen

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearch

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    Abstract

    The focus of this paper is the study of distribution of knowledge about actual users and actual use to a distributed open source software organization. While there is an increasing use of open source systems in various types of organizations, the assumption is that the types of users and work situations are differentiated. These issues have not been sufficiently explored from within the open source development community, and knowledge about users and use situation need to be investigated and the knowledge disseminated to the development community.
    Various attempts to introduce end-user issues are presented. Lastly, in an attempt to understand the preconditions for an understanding of users within an open source development environment, a discussion between members of a usabilityoriented fraction within the organization is analyzed. In this analysis, understanding HCI and end-users as boundary objects for the organization discloses how an insufficient coordination and translation of these, for HCI, key terms leads to a flawed organizational implementation of usercentered approaches.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the Sixth Danish Human-Computer Interaction Research Symposium. DHRS 2006
    EditorsOlav Bertelsen, Martin Brynskov, Peter Dalsgård, Ole Iversen, Marianne Graves Petersen, Martin Wetterstrand
    Number of pages2
    Place of PublicationAarhus
    PublisherAarhus Universitet
    Publication dateNov 2006
    Pages13-14
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2006
    EventThe Sixth Danish Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Research Symposium 2006, University of Århus - Århus, Denmark
    Duration: 15 Nov 200615 Nov 2006
    Conference number: 6

    Conference

    ConferenceThe Sixth Danish Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Research Symposium 2006, University of Århus
    Number6
    Country/TerritoryDenmark
    CityÅrhus
    Period15/11/200615/11/2006
    SeriesDaimi Report Series
    NumberPB 580

    Keywords

    • Open source
    • Usability
    • HCI
    • Learning
    • End-users
    • Boundary objects

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