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Software offshoring has been established as an important business strategy over the last decade. While research on such forms of Global Software Development (GSD) has mainly focused on the situation of large enterprises, small enterprises are increasingly engaging in offshoring, too. Representing the biggest share of the German software industry, small companies are known to be important innovators and market pioneers. They often regard their flexibility and customer-orientation as core competitive advantages. Unlike large corporations, their small size allows them to adopt software development approaches that are characterized by a high agility and flat hierarchies. At the same time, their distinct strategies make it unlikely that they can simply adopt management strategies that were developed for larger companies.
Flexible development approaches like the ones preferred by small corporations have proven to be problematic in the context of offshoring, as their strong dependency on constant communication is strongly affected by the various barriers of international cooperation between companies. Cooperating closely over companies’ borders in different time zones and in culturally diverse teams poses complex obstacles for flexible management approaches. It is still a matter of discussion in fields like Software Engineering and Computer Supported Cooperative Work how these obstacles can be tackled and how they affect companies in the long term. Hence, it is agreed that we need a more detailed understanding of distributed software development practices in order to come to feasible technological and organizational solutions.
This dissertation presents results from two ethnographically-informed case studies of software offshoring in small German enterprises. By adopting Anselm Strauss’ concept of articulation work, we want to deepen the understanding of managing distributed software development in flexible, customer-oriented organizations. In doing so, we show how practices of coordinating inter-organizational software development are closely related to aspects of organizational learning in small enterprises. By means of interviews with developers and project managers from both parties of the cooperation, we do not only take into account the multiple perspectives of the cooperation, but also include the socio-cultural background of international software development projects into our analysis.
Trust and Social Capital: Revisiting an Offshoring Failure Story of a Small German Software Company
(2009)
This paper aspires to develop a deeper understanding of the sharing/collaborative/platform economy, and in particular of the technical mechanisms upon which the digital platforms supporting it are built. In surveying the research literature, the paper identifies a gap between studies from economical, social or socio-technical angles, and presentations of detailed technical solutions. Most cases study larger, ‘monotechnological’ platforms, rather than local platforms that lend components from several technologies. Almost no literature takes a design perspective. Rooted in Sharing & Caring, an EU COST Action (network), the paper presents work to systematically map out functionalities across domains of the sharing economy. The 145 technical mechanisms we collected illustrate how most platforms are depending on a limited number of functionalities that lack in terms of holding communities together. The paper points to the necessity of a better terminology and concludes by discussing challenges and opportunities for the design of future and more inclusive platforms.
Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for about 40% of the EU’s total energy consumption. However, conscious, sustainable use of this limited resource is hampered by a lack of visibility and materiality of consumption. One of the major challenges is enabling consumers to make informed decisions about energy consumption, thereby supporting the shift to sustainable actions. With the use of Energy-Management-Systems it is possible to save up to 15%. In recent years, design approaches have greatly diversified, but with the emergence of ubiquitous- and context-aware computing, energy feedback solutions can be enriched with additional context information. In this study, we present the concept “room as a context” for eco-feedback systems. We investigate opportunities of making current state-of-the-art energy visualizations more meaningful and demonstrate which new forms of visualizations can be created with this additional information. Furthermore, we developed a prototype for android-based tablets, which includes some of the presented features to study our design concepts in the wild.
Eco-InfoVis at Work
(2020)
In Software development, the always beta principle is used to successfully develop innovation based on early and continuous user feedback. In this paper we discuss how this principle could be adapted to the special needs of designing for the Smart Home, where we do not just take care of the software, but also release hardware components. In particular, because of the 'materiality' of the Smart Home one could not just make a beta version available on the web, but an essential part of the development process is also to visit the 'beta' users in their home, to build trust, to face the real world issues and provide assistance to make the Smart Home work for them. After presenting our case study, we will then discuss the challenges we faced and how we dealt with them.
Die nutzerInnenfreundliche Formulierung von Zwecken der Datenverarbeitung von Sprachassistenten
(2020)
2019 wurde bekannt, dass mehrere Anbieter von Sprachassistenten Sprachaufnahmen ihrer NutzerInnen systematisch ausgewertet haben. Da in den Datenschutzhinweisen angegeben war, dass Daten auch zur Verbesserung des Dienstes genutzt würden, war diese Nutzung legal. Für die NutzerInnen stellte diese Auswertung jedoch einen deutlichen Bruch mit ihren Privatheitsvorstellungen dar. Das Zweckbindungsprinzip der DSGVO mit seiner Komponente der Zweckspezifizierung fordert neben Flexibilität für den Verarbeiter auch Transparenz für den Verbraucher. Vor dem Hintergrund dieses Interessenkonflikts stellt sich für die HCI die Frage, wie Verarbeitungszwecke von Sprachassistenten gestaltet sein sollten, um beide Anforderungen zu erfüllen. Für die Erhebung einer Nutzerperspektive analysiert diese Studie zunächst Zweckangaben in den Datenschutzhinweisen der dominierenden Sprachassistenten. Darauf aufbauend präsentieren wir Ergebnisse von Fokusgruppen, die sich mit der wahrgenommenen Verarbeitung von Daten von Sprachassistenten aus Nutzersicht befassen. Es zeigt sich, dass bestehende Zweckformulierungen für VerbraucherInnen kaum Transparenz über Folgen der Datenverarbeitung bieten und keine einschränkende Wirkung im Hinblick auf legale Datennutzung erzielen. Unsere Ergebnisse über von Nutzern wahrgenommene Risiken erlauben dabei Rückschlüsse auf die anwenderfreundliche Gestaltung von Verarbeitungszwecken im Sinne einer Design-Ressource.
The smart home of the future is typically researched in lab settings or apartments that have been built from scratch. However, comparing the lifecycle of buildings and information technology, it is evident that modernization strategies and technologies are needed to empower residents to modify and extend their homes to make it smarter. In this paper, we describe a case study about the deployment, adaption to and adoption of tailorable home energy management systems in 7 private households. Based on this experience, we want to discuss how hardware and software technologies should be designed so that people could build their own smart home with a high usability and user experience.
3D Printers as Sociable Technologies: Taking Appropriation Infrastructures to the Internet of Things
(2017)
Appropriating Digital Fabrication Technologies — A comparative study of two 3D Printing Communities
(2015)
Digital fabrication technologies have a great potential for empowering consumers to produce their own creations. However, despite the growing availability of digital fabrication technologies in shared machine shops such as FabLabs or University Labs, they are often perceived as difficult to use, especially by users with limited technological aptitude. Hence, it is not yet clear if the potentials of the technology can be made accessible to a broader public, or if they will remain limited to some form of “maker elite”. In this paper, we study the appropriation of digital fabrication on the example of the use of 3D printers in two different communities. In doing so, we analyze how users conceptualize their use of the 3D printers, what kind of contextual understanding is necessary to work with the machines, and how users document and share their knowledge. Based on our empirical findings, we identify the potentials that the machines offer to the communities, and what kind of challenges have to be overcome in their appropriation of the technology.
Beyond HCI and CSCW: Challenges and Useful Practices Towards a Human-Centred Vision of AI and IA
(2019)
Diese Studie untersucht die Aneignung und Nutzung von Sprachassistenten wie Google Assistant oder Amazon Alexa in Privathaushalten. Unsere Forschung basiert auf zehn Tiefeninterviews mit Nutzern von Sprachassistenten sowie der Evaluation bestimmter Interaktionen in der Interaktionshistorie. Unsere Ergebnisse illustrieren, zu welchen Anlässen Sprachassistenten im heimischen Umfeld genutzt werden, welche Strategien sich die Nutzer in der Interaktion mit Sprachassistenten angeeignet haben, wie die Interaktion abläuft und welche Schwierigkeiten sich bei der Einrichtung und Nutzung des Sprachassistenten ergeben haben. Ein besonderer Fokus der Studie liegt auf Fehlinteraktionen, also Situationen, in denen die Interaktion scheitert oder zu scheitern droht. Unsere Studie zeigt, dass das Nutzungspotenzial der Assistenten häufig nicht ausgeschöpft wird, da die Interaktion in komplexeren Anwendungsfällen häufig misslingt. Die Nutzer verwenden daher den Sprachassistenten eher in einfachen Anwendungsfällen und neue Apps und Anwendungsfälle werden gar nicht erst ausprobiert. Eine Analyse der Aneignungsstrategien, beispielsweise durch eine selbst erstellte Liste mit Befehlen, liefert Erkenntnisse für die Gestaltung von Unterstützungswerkzeugen sowie die Weiterentwicklung und Optimierung von sprachbasierten Mensch-Maschine-Interfaces.