Participation and Technological Design: Dominant and Alternative Leaps Across the Who, Where, When and Why

Who, how and where people are invited to discuss (and influence) technological design rests ultimately on varying and competing assumptions about value and values. These assumed values, always-loosely justified leaps to what is valued, prompt various leaps to processes and procedures that will achieve these values, and to human participation. In any case, these values and procedural means also make always-incomplete reference to other ends when asked “why”, through necessarily-thinner elaborations and justifications. In all case, they are both the product of and produce the various semi-material realities of the changing technologies themselves. {need to elaborate – but I think there is a matrix of possibilities here}

We consider these necessarily loose connections across the values of human participation in technological design, in order to consider a range of nascent possibilities toward the future. We also consider these connections across a number of broad differences to the underlying nature of information technologies {list them out? enterprise systems; software apps; artificial intelligence}.

This forging of revised rationales for human participation in technological design also raises the more general argument for the future for participation in technological design.

We begin with 2 broad approaches to the rationale of participation: participation as of value, and participation as a value.

Broadly speaking, “participation as of value” considers participation in technological design as a means to desired ends - e.g. efficient product-service delivery; product-service customization for customers; and harm reduction, to name a few. The desirability of these ends are necessarily associated with other ends to justify their pursuit, for example: efficiency in order to compete with other organizations in order to avoid organizational decline and death; product-service customization as a different means to the same competitive ends through differentiation (not cost); and the reduction of harm in order to steer within legal constraints and to avoid legal sanctions. In every case, the desirability of an end depends on a number of leaps across a set of “why” answers to justify their pursuit.

In term of the “how” to achieve these ends through technological design, a number of possible and never-purely derived methods and means are possible. Within those means, a number of possible rationales and methods for human participation are also possible, but not always. These possibilities revolve around how answers to the who, what, where, when and why of participation are justified in supporting its value to the desired ends.

For example, if improved organizational efficiency is the goal, there is a possible leap to assumptions that technology and business-process experts should in-charge of selecting and implementing new technologies into the organization. Employees would participate in order to learn how to use and adapt these technologies to achieve these organizational-efficient ends.

Very different means to organizational efficiency have also been proposed and evaluated; for example, socio-technical design and the efficiency produced by letting to coal miners figure out the most efficient practices and technologies. Similar conjectures were considered during the so-called end user computing movement in the 1980s, which radiates through in revised form in today's user-lead technology selection and use of software apps.

In both cases, the values and ends of the project typically drive the processes and means to achieve them. For example, the use of technology for organizational efficiency can prompt efficient design processes; for example, the use of technology experts to select “best of breed software; the “involvement” of people early in design to introduce the project and to get “buy-in”; the selection of representatives from identified groups to simplify deliberation; the categorization of individuals into stakeholder groups with more-or-less well defined interests; a focus on early design and requirements “sign-off”; and the identification of users and desirable use (and “resistance” if some oppose this use). Once infected with the end for design, that end can typically drive the procedures to achieve them.

In contrast, a company involved in the generation of new and novel electronic games could emanate from very different ends to technological design and participation: e.g. the freedom of individuals to explore and find generic software applications to select and customize for individual, group and collective needs. In this case, a marketplace of numerous app providers with numerous products serves as a ready source of supply for users to find and shape their digital space. Whether this generative context is an entirely new form of human participation in technological design, or whether it is sits on top of or beside the efficiency goals of production (e.g. the need for github and other software design systems to manage coding teams), it provides an alternative means-end reason for particular forms of participation in technology design, and its ends.

In any of these “participation as of value” cases, despite the broad range of ends and processes, people's participation in design is towards the production of value.

In contrast, and still depending on a loose but different set of relationships to means, is participation “as a value”. Participation as a value considers participation as end in itself, irrespective of any external ends. Participation is itself “good”, in whatever form it takes.

To be clear, there are possible cross-overs into the “participation as of value”, both to support and critique it. But participation as a value is good for itself, without focusing or pushing it as a means to other ends.

Despite this assumed independence from other ends, its justification depends on other higher ends to answer “why” for “its own sake”: e.g. individual rights to shape the technologies that they use and are affected by; the joy of humans shaping their own tools and work environment; seeing each and every person as offering a unique and important vantage point from individual experiences; seeking diverse perspectives on work and individual experiences in shaping technological design and use (but as a secondary end); the striving for limited or zero harm to people's quality-of-working life. {some of these are still ends driven, and so will need further work}.

Broader values about participation as a value may support a view that all organizations and technology should be driven by all humans interests, and not by the goals of other non-human things/means; markets, organizations (survival), technology for technology sake, artificial intelligence to see if we can replicate human intelligence, shareholders (a subset of human interests), or any other goals.

Participation as a value can also provide a critique of the assumed relationships across means and ends in participation as of value, for example the restriction of participation to “buy in” in order to efficiently produce efficient systems that address only shareholder value; the possibility of shrinking consumer demand if work is lost to automation; the loss of the natural environment making life unlivable.

In addition to participation of value and a value, various loose connections are made to the handling of the semi-material realities of new and changing information technologies. We use the term “loose” because they are neither the inductively-proven results of experiment, nor deductively-derived proofs from theoretical concepts, so must always remain more-or-less, conjectures about the processes and possibilities for realizing values.

In terms of information technology, we consider 3 broad social and material natures of it over time, all now operating in the present in 3 semi-independent spheres.

Large and cross-department technologies, custom-built initially in the 1970s and and 80s, and now evident in enterprise systems requiring more or less customization to achieve enterprise-wide results, are our first or three social and material natures to IT.

It is typically in this particular social and material sphere that we encounter some of the earliest discussions of employee participation, at work. As such, the who, what, where, when and why questions of participation were typically answered in the 70s and 80s, as a means to particular ends:

• why: to increase organizational efficiency, typically focused on quickening and streamlining inter-organizational processes through transactional processing and the semi-automation of production.
• what: the determination of requirements (and non-requirements) in designing a new technology.
• who: employees as users, managers as project holders, and designer-programmers as technology coders
• where and when: with customization, participation by employees was typically done early through meetings
  • why: in order to produce the requirements for what the system should do.
  • who: Typically unstated as participants were the designers who had continual access to shaping the emerging technologies, and managers who had the final say on whether certain requirements became required (or not).
• how: through designer lead conversations,
  • how: in many industrial cases, the threat of industrial action if employee input was ignored or neglected tended to surround the focal how.

In contrast and at the same time, other configurations of the questions were organized through socio-technical logic:

• why: to increase organizational efficiency, typically focused on quickening and streamlining inter-organizational processes through transactional processing and the semi-automation of production.
• what: the determination of new work and technical arrangements through continuous conversation and adjustment
• who: across employees as work participants, independent of managers; drawing upon designer-programmers directly to build emerging technologies
• where and when: continuous participation and discernment across employees throughout
  • why: employees have the local understanding and expertise to make change
• how: through self-organized teams

An enterprise systems emerged in the 1990s to dominate enterprise-wide systems development, we find a switch back to the first chain-of-reasoning, with alternative logics and new participants:

• why: to increase organizational efficiency, typically focused on quickening and streamlining inter-organizational processes through transactional processing (less semi-automation of production)
• what: the determination of requirements (and non-requirements) for a new technology;
• what: the selection of a “best fit” enterprise system, using its preexisting structures to change organizational processes.
• who: employees still as users, managers as project holders, business consultants to consider current and changed organizational practices, designer-programmers their to implement and customize the software.
• where and when: participation by employees is done throughout, but emphasis is on training and accommodation, and the identification of gaps needing either software customization or work-related change
  • why: in order to change what the system will do or what the employee will need to learn.
  • who: as before, unstated participants include the technology (STS), the consultants, the designers who have reduced access to shaping the emerging technologies, and managers who had the final say on project outcomes.
• how: through consultant-designer lead conversations with users throughout
  • how: in many industrial cases, the threat of industrial action is no longer present. Nevertheless, so-called problems with employee resistance in post-implementation use remain.

Beginning with end-user computing and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s, extending into the internet era, we see another social and material ensemble emerge, which we call participant-lead computing, in an effort to explain in a phrase, the form of participation it encouraged. Whether through spreadsheets and word processor in the 1980s, internet browsers and e-mail in the 90s, social-computing in the 00s, or personalized productively apps in the 10s, the plethora of software available for download and use encourages a very different set of answers to our questions about participation:

• why: a range of responses, but generally the end is the production of useful software through participant-lead selection, exploration and use of software for personalized productivity: writing, deciding, and communicating
• what: the availability of numerous software apps to meet an ever-increasing appetite for functionalities that inform, delight, communicate –
• who: employees and citizen revealed demands; software app producers and social medial companies meeting and exceeding the want.
• where and when: participation is continuous and through society-wide use, within and beyond the organization; app companies meet or create the demands (or not) for their products
• how: through user forums and customer experiences; producing or reducing market demand

In many respects, the participant-lead computing looks like the dominant answer to the production of useful software, the diversity of human needs, and the inclusion of diverse perspectives into technological design. However, its ideal rests on a number of important assumptions that are not immediately closed to critical questions:

• enterprise systems development still dominates most people's experiences of technological design in work.
• the challenges of scaling individually-selected software into group and enterprise-wide coordination is difficult (but not impossible) to imagine.
• given the previous point, the conditions and possibilities for participant-lead computing may be minor compared with other social and material conditions
• the meeting of any particular individual demands still rests on the market availability of software to meet demand. If there isn't enough of a market for a particular function, individual needs remain unmet.
• with any downloadable software, there is still often considerable time and expertise required in order to shape the software towards individual needs and productivity. It may thus be only possible for those who are in jobs and organizations where such resources and time are available.

Our third social and material setting, while more recent but sitting beside and often drawing upon the second setting, is another social and material ensemble which we call data-revealed computing. Whether through spreadsheets and word processor in the 1980s, internet browsers and e-mail in the 90s, social-computing in the 00s, or personalized productively apps in the 10s, the plethora of software available for download and use encourages a very different set of answers to our questions about participation: