Software Ecosystems - combining user centered design, organisational and technical dimensions

Today we rarely use programs that are developed to fit one specific customer. When we play games, use business systems for administration, or download apps to our phones, we use software that is part of software ecosystems: software products that are configured to fit a specific business context; platforms that allow sharing of specific kinds of software; or software as a service. Examples of software ecosystems have developed around software products, like game engines, or enterprise resource planning (ERP or CRM) software, integrated development environments like visual studio and platforms like the Android operating system.

In this course you explore software ecosystems from UX design, organizational and technical perspectives. To this end you will analyse a software ecosystem together, propose an improvement related to the ecosystem, and support your proposal with a prototype and / or other design artefacts.