Use-Oriented Design and Software Ecosystems

Software today is more and more often part of either product or platform ecosystems. Examples are ERP systems, scientific software, but also the India stack (http://indiastack.org/about/). Software development in such ecosystems is often distributed over several organizations: the software provider/platform developer; application developers and customizers; and sometimes even end users acting as developers. Software products and platforms need to be continuously evolved to keep up with the evolving use and business cases. In the context of societal infrastructures, the design of functionality and interaction needs to be adapted to technically savy subcultures as well as underprivileged communities. Here, the design for and with underprivileged communities is especially challenging.

In the talk, I draw on research on software eco-systems in Scandinavia and user centered design and development of software in Scandinavia, India and Africa. The lecture will outline challenges and possibilities of use-oriented design in the context of software ecosystems.