User-centered design and the culture of knowledge creating communities: A theoretical reassessment

Referring to 'community' in all its meanings, this theoretical paper locates User Centred Design (UCD) in the widening spectrum of approaches to Information Systems Design (ISD). Culture in communities is explained in structurational terms, in which human action and social structure (including ICT) interact to produce and reproduce the social that both supports and constrains action. The widening of the spectrum of ISD approaches has paralleled the supplementing or superseding of Fordist methods of production by knowledge-based production. The transition to an ICT world characterised by personal computing and the Internet is identified as key threshold necessitating the development of user-centric concepts of ISD alongside more established techno-centric approaches. The aim is to explore the dimensions and feasibility of a holistic, continuing, participative and reflexive conceptualisation of UCD, resulting in 'design' practices that are an emergent property of community culture. The authors propose to explore the concepts proposed against real-world cases in future research.