Artful Reconfiguration: Decoupling Novelty and Design in a Computer-Saturated World

Abstract

Foundational CSCW research positions the design of novel technologies to support collaborative work as the raison d’etre for the field. While sensible during CSCW’s genesis in the late 1980s, an orientation that emphasizes novel technology needs updating for a world already suffused with collaboration systems. As an example of the approach for which this paper advocates, we describe a long-term engagement with a legal non-profit called Themis. Although initially focused on the design of a novel technological system, over time our efforts shifted to helping redesign some of this organization’s core information management systems and practices. This design process neither produced a novel computing system, nor implications for building such a system. However, it did result in a reconfiguration of existing technologies and work practices that ultimately proved beneficial for Themis. We suggest this kind of an approach, which we refer to as artful reconfiguration, as an alternative mode of engagement that can ensure CSCW’s continued usefulness in a technology-saturated world.