The basic assumptions behind research in End-User Software Engineering (EUSE) are:
a) The number of end users creating software is far larger than the number of professional programmers. These end users are using various languages and programming systems to create software in forms such as spreadsheets, dynamic web applications, and scientific simulations. This software needs to be sufficiently dependable, but substantial evidence suggests that it is not.
b) Solving these problems involves not just software engineering issues, but also several challenges related to the users that the end user software engineering intends to benefit. End users have very different training and background, and face different motivations and work constraints, than professional programmers. They are not likely to know about such things as quality control mechanisms, formal development processes, system models, language design characteristics, or test adequacy criteria, and are not likely to invest time learning about them.
My talk will provide evidence for the following claims:
a) Meta-Design provides a theoretically grounded design framework for End-User Software Engineering (EUSE)
b) Meta-Design embeds software design into a larger context by defining and creating social and technical infrastructures in which new forms of collaborative design can take place. It extends the traditional notion of system design beyond the original development of a system. It is grounded in the basic assumption that future uses and problems cannot be completely anticipated at design time, when a system is developed.
Background Reading - :Gerhard Fischer:
"Meta-Design: A Conceptual
Framework for End-User Software Engineering"
(A Position Paper for
the Dagstuhl Seminar "End-User Software Engineering", February
2007)