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to the design and implementation of software
artifacts, including application workshops. In this
way, software engineers, HCI experts, and end
users acting as developers, each one through his
or her system workshop, can shape software arti-
facts by working with tools that are in accordance
with his or her own culture, experience, needs,
and skills; they can also exchange the results of
these activities to converge to a common design.
The proposed approach fosters the collaboration
among communities of end users, managers, and
designers, with the aim of increasing motivation
and reducing cognitive and organizational cost,
thus providing a significant contribution to the
EUD evolution, as suggested in Fischer et al.
(2004).
We have discussed how the SSW methodology
exploits metadesign by requiring that software
engineering actually design environments that
allow representatives of end users to be involved
in the design of the application workshops that
will be used by all end users in the specific project
domain. End users have then a twofold role: users
and designers of their own software environment.
Moreover, the work described introduces a per-
spective on system personalization, distinguishing
between customization and tailoring of software
environments. The software environments are
customized by the design team to the work con-
text, culture, experience, and skills of the user
communities; they are also tailorable by end users
at runtime in order to adapt them to the specific
work situation and users preferences and habits.
End-user development is thus sustained by these
two kinds of personalization.
Because end users and systems evolve during
time, the design team must evolve the set of appli-
cation workshops as well as the visual interaction
languages. To face this phenomenon, the design
team must be maintained active for the whole life
of the system. The SSW network is organized so
that designers in the team receive the observations
of end users at work (Costabile, Fogli, Mussio, &
Piccinno, in press) and also can monitor end user
usage of the application workshops (Arondi et al.,
2002). Working at the design and metadesign level,
the team can improve the application workshops
whenever necessary to evolve it in response to
the end-user evolution at the work level.
The application of the SSW methodology to a
project in a medical context has been described.
Physicians and their activities have been care-
fully examined through a field study, in order to
understand their work practice and integrate it in
the software design. Physicians are collaborating
with enthusiasm to the development of the SSW
prototypes. They understand and appreciate the
novel approach of being involved in collaborative
design processes, through which they can have a
more active role than simple consumers of new
technologies. Actually, available off-the-shelf
software in the medical domain is designed to
support specialized activities, such as image
processing, clinical data organization, and sta-
tistical analysis. However, they do not support
physicians in integrating these activities for diag-
nostic purpose. The Software Shaping Workshops
designed for physicians allow them to carry out
the activities that physicians are used to perform
face-to-face (e.g., exchanging consultations) and
that off-the-shelf software does not address yet.
We are confident that this approach may deter-
mine an increase in end user productivity and
performance, that is, a better quality of diagnosis
and medical cure.
aCknowledgment
The authors wish to thank the physicians of the
Hospital “Giovanni XXIII” in Bari for their col-
laboration. We are also grateful to Giuseppe Fresta
for his contribution to the implementation of the
prototypes presented in the chapter. This work was
partially supported by the Italian MIUR and by
EU and Regione Puglia under grant DIPIS.
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