Co-operative Design — perspectives on 20 years with 'the Scandinavian IT Design Model'

TLDR

Co‑operative Design originated in the 1981‑85 Utopia project, pioneering early user involvement that has since become a standard in HCI and CSCW. The authors aimed to give end users a voice in computer support design to improve system quality. Over 20 years of practice, they identified concerns from the original Utopia work and developed methods to mitigate them. The methodology, featuring low‑tech prototyping and early user sessions, has greatly influenced IT design, though practical adoption is limited by time constraints and other difficulties. Utopia, the seminal 1981‑85 project, is the origin of Co‑operative Design.

Abstract

The authors were all involved in the ‘seminal’ Utopia project, 1981-85, where Co-operative Design methodology, involving users very early in the design process, had an early development and application in the use of computers. One strong goal was to ‘give the end users a voice’ in design and development of computer support in work places, thus enhancing the quality of the resulting system. The ‘secondary result’ of Utopia, the methodology, with ingredients such as low-tech prototyping, early design sessions with users etc, has had great impact on IT design in general. This is the case not only where the methods are a main ingredient as in Co-operative Design and in Participatory Design, but also as part of now common practices in HCI and in CSCW in general and in later methodologies such as Consensus Participation, Contextual Design and Co-operative Inquiry. Thus the obvious idea to involve the users as early as possible in systems and interface design, using low and high tech prototypes, has become a standard to which most developers pay at least lip service. That it is not necessarily followed in practise is usually because of time constraints and lack of insight rather than ill-will, but there are also inherent difficulties. In Utopia and in further Co-operative Design practise we have met important concerns not taken into account in the original Utopia work. In our 20-year practical experience from several design and development projects we have gained insight and found methods to deal with these concerns, not always solving but at least relieving the problems. Utopia