Concepts for usable patterns of groupware applications

ABSTRACT

Patterns, which are based on in-depth practical experience, can be instructing for the design of groupware applications as socio-technical systems. On the basis of a summary of the concept of patterns - as elaborated by the architect Christopher Alexander - its adoptions within computer science are retraced and relationships to the area of groupware are described. General principles for patterns within this domain are formulated and supported by examples from a wide range of experience with knowledge management systems. The analysis reveals that every pattern of a groupware application has to combine the description of social as well as technical structures, and that a single pattern can only be understood in the context of a pattern language. It also shows that such a language has to integrate patterns of socio-technical solutions with measures and procedures for introducing them, and that the language not only has to express one type of directed relationship between the patterns but a variety of different types which have to be deliberately assigned to the patterns.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Computer-supported cooperative work

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.1 Office Automation
          Subjects: Groupware
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Organizational design; Theory and models

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.3 Organizational Impacts
          Subjects: Computer-supported collaborative work

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Human Factors, Management

Keywords:
CSCW, knowledge management, pattern, pattern language, socio-technical systems