Article

A Scandinavian challenge, a US response: methodological assumptions in Scandinavian and US prototyping approaches

Author:

Clay SpinuzziAuthors Info & Claims

SIGDOC '02: Proceedings of the 20th annual international conference on Computer documentation

Pages 208 - 215

https://doi.org/10.1145/584955.584986

Published: 20 October 2002 Publication History

Abstract

In the early 1980s, Scandinavian software designers who sought to make systems design more participatory and democratic turned to prototyping. The "Scandinavian challenge" of making computers more democratic inspired others who became interested in user-centered design; information designers on both sides of the Atlantic began to employ prototyping as a way to encourage user participation and feedback in various design approaches. But, as European and North American researchers have pointed out, prototyping is seen as meeting very different needs in Scandinavia and in the US. Thus design approaches that originate on either side of the Atlantic have implemented prototyping quite differently, have deployed it to meet quite different goals, and have tended to understand prototyping results in different ways.These differences are typically glossed over in technical communication research. Technical communicators have lately become quite excited about prototyping's potential to help design documentation, but the technical communication literature shows little critical awareness of the methodological differences between Scandinavian and US prototyping. In this presentation, I map out some of these differences by comparing prototyping in a variety of design approaches originating in Scandinavia and the US, such as mock-ups, cooperative prototyping, CARD, PICTIVE, and contextual design. Finally, I discuss implications for future technical communication research involving prototyping.

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Index Terms

A Scandinavian challenge, a US response: methodological assumptions in Scandinavian and US prototyping approaches
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGDOC '02: Proceedings of the 20th annual international conference on Computer documentation

October 2002

272 pages

ISBN:1581135432

DOI:10.1145/584955

Conference Chair:
Kathy Haramundanis
Hewlett-Packard Company
,
Program Chair:
Michael Priestley
IBM Toronto

Copyright © 2002 ACM.

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Published: 20 October 2002

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Jing FBerger SBecerra Sandoval JPepper KWheeler AMayoral PLokesh DFeng AMijalkovic MBao CDholakia SGoyal M(2024)Designing for Agonism: 12 Workers' Perspectives on Contesting Technology FuturesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36410018:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641001
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