Practice-Based Design of Information Systems: Notes from the Hyperdeveloped World

This paper offers a set of alternative understandings of change and innovation that underwrite a practice-based design approach that includes a view of innovation as indigenous to technologies in-use, an emphasis on the investments needed to create sustainable change, and an orientation to artful integration as an objective for information systems design.

Abstract

Abstract This paper offers reflections on information systems design based in everyday practices. Drawing on experience in what I name the hyperdeveloped world of industrial research and development in the United States, I outline a series of concerns, organized under the themes of information flows, local improvisations and work practices. I then offer a set of alternative understandings of change and innovation that underwrite a practice-based design approach. These include a view of innovation as indigenous to technologiesin-use, an emphasis on the investments needed to create sustainable change, and an orientation to artful integration as an objective for information systems design. Keywords: Practice Ethnography Research And Development Design And Use Innovation