‘INFRASTRUCTURING’ AS CAPTURING IN-SITU DESIGN

Many IT design methodologies have been developed to guide professional designers towards aproduction of ‘good’ software that is useful to the users in the application fields addressed. But recentresearch has also stressed the creative activities of the users as an important part of creatingtechnology-in-use. These user activities of in-situ design during technology use have also lead toquestioning the classical dichotomy of “Designers” and “Users” for the description of InformationSystem design processes. In this contribution, we are suggesting a perspective to capture the activitiesof “Designers” and “Users” from an in-situ design angle in a way that can inform the development ofdesign methodologies for the designing user. With our approach, we rely on the notion of“Infrastructuring” suggested by Star and Bowker (2002,) and also the ideas around ‘locatedaccountabilities’ of Suchman (2002). We follow them beyond the traditional notion of infrastructure asa network of connected technological entities to a perspective of infrastructure that relates to itsmeaning for its users.[...]