Characterizing the dynamics of open user experience design: The cases of Firefox and Openoffice.org

Paula M. Bach, John M. Carroll

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

We describe two cases of open user experience (UX) design using the Firefox web browser and OpenOffice.org office suite as case studies. Open UX design refers to activities and practices surrounding designing for the user experience in open source contexts. We analyze the socio-technical complexity of integrating UX activities into the two open source projects using activity awareness, a theoretical framework for understanding team performance in collective endeavors of significant scope, duration, and complexity. The facets of activity awareness are common ground, communities of practice, social capital, and human development. We found differences with the following dynamics in the two open source projects: community building, UX status in the community, decision making, and ways of sharing design information.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)902-925
Number of pages24
JournalJournal of the Association for Information Systems
Volume11
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications

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