The document discusses the problem of the user-designer relationship in information systems design. It notes that people often think differently and views can become rigid. This can be seen as either a problem or an opportunity. The current situation is described as having distinct roles for designers, managers, developers and users, separated by boundaries. The ideal is described as having open dialogue between all parties as the core process, with communication tools to create shared understanding and overcome rigid thinking. Dialogue allows issues to be discussed and questioned to discover shared meanings.

1. The problem
of user-desiger
relationship
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

2. The Problem
 A simple thing. As simple as a man.
 People think different. A question of divergent
thinking.
 Difference is either a problem or an
opportunity
 A problem – defence of ’own’
 Reified views and thinking
 An opportunity – sharing
 creativity and innovation
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

3. Ways to get stuck
Actant
Direction of
knowledge
transfer
Actant
Prime motive
of action
Social action
type
World view
Perspective
on IS Paradigmatic
notion of
designer
Tools, techniques,
methods
(Habermas) (Pepper) (Nurminen)
Customer Designer
Examination
of existing
social systems
Communicative Contextualism Humanistic
Social therapist,
labor partisan
Ethnographies,
contextual inquiry,
workplace studies
etc.
Customer Designer
Design of
work,
Enhancing
business
operations
Discoursive &
strategic
Formism
Sosio-
technical
Facilitator,
emancipator
BPR, RUP, future
workshops,
exploratory and
experimental
prototyping etc.
Customer Designer
Design of a
technical
system
instrumental Mechanism
Systems
theoretical
Systems expert
OOA/OOD, ER-
descriptions, DFD
etc.
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

4. Current situation?
Designers
Managers /
sponsors
Coders /
implementers
End users /
Operational
workers
boundary zone
IS representations
as mediative
boundary objects
Modus of communication: negotiations (discoursive & strategic)
Sharing and interpretation of knowledge
distinct beneficiaries
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

5. negotiations
design
implementation
utilizationThe ISD process
what is here?
a hollow centre?
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

6. Human understanding
Immanent
Noema
object as that which is experienced or meant
Extramental object – a phenomenon (Eidos)
Anthropology the distinctive expression of the cognitive or intellectual character of a culture or social group.
ORIGIN 1930s: from Greek, literally form, type, or idea, partly in contrast to ETHOS (FORM)
Transscendent
”core”
Intramental object – a schema
interpretation directs
search
modifies
hyle
becomes
apparent to
Noesis – imagination & reason
the process of experiencing or meaning
Directs attention
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

7. Descriptions of dialogue
”Buber used the term ”dialogue” in 1914 to describe a mode of exchange among
human beings in which there is a true turning to one another in a full appreciation of
another not as an object in a social function, but a genuine being” (Smith, 1998, p.119).
4
”Dialogue proposes to explore current beliefs and thinking… dialogue is a mutual
inquiry, which is different from discussion, whose root is the same as percussion and
concussion. We believe that dialogue can be a method for discovering paradigm
assumptions in understanding the collective wisdom. Dialogue is uncovering the group
mind, discovering shared meaning…” (ibid).
”Dialogue is referred to here, not in the ordinary sense of a conversation
between two people, but in a specific sense, defined by the late physicist David
Bohm, which uses particular methods by which a group can ”participate in a pool of
common meaning which is capable of constant development and change”… There
is no predetermined output, no agenda, no structure… Difference is
valued.” (Varney, 1996, p. 31). 6
”Dialogue can lead to the emergence of the true ”mind of the organization”
– a collective intelligence that transcends the limited capacity of individual
managers... Transcendence of personal limitations releases individual minds from
deep cultural conditioning and enables higher level learning to take place”(ibid.).7

8. Descriptions continued
”Dialogue is a process of allowing issues to be raised, discussed and questioned. It is
also a process of sharing attitudes, feelings, reactions and discomforts with others to
uncover a common disposition” (O’Donovan, B. & Roode, D., 2002, pp. 32-33). 8
”Dialogue’s purpose is to overcome incoherence, fragmentation, and polarities” (Ibid.
p. 33). 9
”The degree of mutual understanding between the communicating persons and their
individual and united ability and will to communicate their understanding in an
individualized development process.”
(Kunøe, 1998, siv. 1127). 10
”Mead (1927/67) says that, ”The development of communication is not simply a
matter of abstract ideas, but a process of putting one’s self in the place of the other
person’s attitude, communicating through significant symbols. Mead is not explicitly
discussing dialogue, but is pointing to the common world of symbols the
communicating parties have to share if they are to be able to communicate at all.
Bråten (1987) defines “dialogue communication” a “symmetrical
conversation between communicating participants based on self reflective
terms”” (ibid.).

9. Dialogue as a core process (of ISD)
An open
dialogue
Creation of
understanding
Coders / implementers
Facilitators
Managers / sponsors
End users /
operational workers
Communication tools
- shared and mutual objects
Designers in
participatory design:
all
Awareness of:
Habituational influences
Institutionalized patterns
Reified thinking
Inscription, codification
De-scription, interpretation
accountabilities
Modus of communication: dialogue (communicative)
(explicable, understandable
- unfolded)
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä

10.  Shared and mutual communication tools
– Bricolage, co-realisation, situated
development - ”hacking” on social level?
 A common language
 A problem – bound communication
 An opportunity – boundless
communication

11. Inherent values & ideals
 Starting point of action
 Computers, systems, people?
 People as means or ends
 Information extracting or creating
 Treat people as people
 Everyone’s opinion is important
 Democratic design situation
 Not easy, but desirable?
Tämä teos, jonka tekijä on
Pekka Muukkonen, on lisensoitu
Creative Commons Nimeä-JaaSamoin
4.0 Kansainvälinen -lisenssillä