The Organization of End User Development in an Accounting Company - End User Computing Challenges and Technologies: Emerging Tools and Applications - page 106

modifying a component at the code level will in
most cases be considerably less demanding and
less error prone than making changes to the entire
application.
Programming a component is simplified with
user-oriented languages (e.g., Visual Basic), but
in most cases, end user developers using the
components approach will not want to modify
components by writing code. Instead they will
choose techniques more appropriate to their
background and skills (e.g., selection, editing at-
tribute values, composition). Based on a survey of
previous work, we suggest the following strategies
for incorporating EUD functionality into generic
applications using the components approach:

and incorporated in future applications. A
design environment might also allow an
end user developer to descend to a lower
level of abstraction in order to decompose a
compound building block into smaller units
in order to rearrange them into a modified,
new component.

The three types of strategies of the compo-
nents approach to EUD have been inspired by
the work of Gerhard Fischer at the University of
Colorado (Fischer et al., 2004; Fischer & Lemke,
1988). Further improvement and detailing of the
components approach have been proposed in
subsequent work (e.g., Mørch et al., 2004b; Won,
Stiemerling, & Wulf, 2006). In the study reported
here, we identified a set of EUD activities that were
accomplished with techniques that range from
deselecting redundant functionality to creating
new functionality from a set of components (a
design architecture). The EUD environment can

• Under-design: A EUD-enabled application

framework or a set of components for a group
of related tasks are examples of this. When first
installed, the generic application is incomplete
or not yet assembled. The architecture of the
system defines a “family of applications,” and
specific applications are created as instantia-
tions of the framework or as configurations
of the set of components, which is brought
about with the help of EUD techniques and
tools. This strategy as viewed from software
engineering defines flexible design spaces for
end-use developers.
Over-design: This strategy is modeled after
multifunctional everyday physical objects,
ranging from photocopiers to mobile phones,
and notoriously represented by the Swiss
army knife, providing a superset of required
functionality. Other examples are minimal-
ist furniture and household appliances that
are both functional objects and works of art
(Figure 1). Techniques such as graying-out,
hiding, and deselection support this strategy
in software applications.
Meta-design: A design environment that
supports an end-user developer in composing
higher-level components from basic building
blocks, which can be stored in a visual builder

Figure 1. Josef Albers “Tea Glass,” 1926,
Bauhaus-Archive, Berlin. This is a minimalist
example of the overdesign strategy to end-user
development. Albers' teacup has two functions:
a horizontal handle for the server and a vertical
handle for the drinker.

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