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This research proposes a participatory sociotechnical design approach to making explicit issues in collaborative information system design in a multidisciplinary context. The approach proposes the Socio-Technical Evaluation (STE) Matrix as a conceptual tool to address the lack of a technical and methodological instrument to expose cultural differences, boundaries, and conflicts in multidisciplinary research. STE Matrix was born within the context of the Village eScience for Life (VeSeL) project and adopts an empirical sociotechnical experimentation to initially explore the context of the stakeholders, including that of the end-users. These contexts are then revisited through information system design theories to rationalize the STE Matrix paradigm. Subsequent experiments and exposure to communities of practice provide validity to the approach by revealing the different frames of interpretation within the VeSeL project. Furthermore, STE Matrix provided a platform to truly observe participatory design by equally involving end-users and design partners in the subsequent phases of the VeSeL project.

We argue that designing any aspect of information technology requires an understanding of sociotechnical gaps. These gaps are inherent issues deriving from the difference between what is required socially, or culturally, and what can be done technically. In the context of a British-Kenyan project, we introduce an approach for addressing sociotechnical gaps in the design and deployment of digital resources in resource-constrained and culturally different environments. We illustrate how despite having an online, asynchronous tool to visualise sociotechnical gaps among different stakeholders in a design team, we had to complement it with a pen and paper design metaphor elucidation exercise to elicit and visualise locally meaningful user interface elements.

The Centre for Internationalisation and Usability within the School of Computing and Technology at The University of West London aims to enhance understanding of cultural differences in international software development. A particular focus is the development and usability of ICT products in a global market, both in terms of international software development and economic, community and social development. We host a number of researchers and PhD students working in topics such as usability evaluation and culture, socio-technical participatory design, internationalization attitudes of software engineers, mobile learning and library cognitive design.

This paper presents an offline mobile eLearning concept as an ICT solution to address the knowledge requirements of a rural sub-Saharan farming community. A socio-technical customisation and deployment of WikiReaders is proposed to support offline mobile access to digital content. A future use scenario is presented as a demonstration of cheap but sustainable innovation emerging from a longitudinal evaluation of users, their needs and their context.

This paper proposes a socio-technical approach to making explicit cultural issues in collaborative and multidisciplinary teams in information system design. Requirements and design processes of international, multicultural and multidisciplinary partners are put through a series of socio-technical experiments and evaluated to develop and refine a conceptual tool: socio-technical evaluation matrices (STEM). STEM has provided a platform to effectively explore, explicate and reflect on cultural and contextual implications in design processes among stakeholders (including end users).

International audience; This paper offers context and culture elicitation in an inter-cultural and multi-disciplinary setting of ICT design. Localised usability evaluation (LUE) is augmented with a socio-technical evaluation tool (STEM) as a methodological approach to expose and address issues in a collaborative ICT design within the Village e-Science for Life (VeSeL) project in rural Kenya. The paper argues that designers need to locally identify context and culture in situ and further explicate their implications through the design process and at the global level. Stakeholders' context, culture, decisions, agendas, expectations, disciplines and requirements need to be locally identified and globally evaluated to ensure a fit for purpose solution.

STEM is an interactive web application designed to support and facilitate socio-technical discussions in a collaborative environment. This interactive demo shows how STEM aims to encompass issues with collaborative tools such as organisation of discussion threads by relevancy, interdependency and iteration of previous discussions.

We describe our approach and initial results in the participatory design of technology relevant to local rural livelihoods. Our approach to design and usability proceeds from research in theory and practice of cross-cultural implementations, but the novelty is in beginning not with particular technologies but from community needs, and structuring technology in terms of activities. We describe our project aims and initial data collected, which show that while villagers have no clear mental models for using computers or the Internet, they show a desire to have and use them. We then describe our approach to interaction design, our expectations and next steps as the technology and activities are first introduced to the villages.

This article describes how the VeSeL project which involves a distributed team of technologists and users from different cultural backgrounds is attempting to manage the process of user involvement and participation. In this case the developers are distributed but linked by a number of communication technologies while the users have very few technological means of communicating with the developers. It describes how the contrasting social and community issues of both the developers and the users can be understood and managed.