PRADSAX: An Action Research Programme

An Action Research Program

This program is both action (we want to create a
system) and research (we are trying to investigate a general question
about designing technology in 21st Century social action contexts).

Our (initial) question is:

How do we go about designing new e-practices in the space of technology and social action given:

• Very limited resources - something that the social action sector always experiences)
• Distributed design and development – a key feature of software design for the 21st Century is that the contributors to a project work remotely and have limited opportunities to meet face to face.
• A socio-technical perspective – recognising
  that what we are trying to achieve is a social outcome, i.e. people
  working together in a particular way, supported by technology so our
  design activity needs to consider both social and technical
  perspectives.
• A user centred approach – we begin with a
  goal of creating something of value for our community of users. Users
  are the ultimate arbiters of what is valuable to them.
• An interdisciplinary community – the people
  within this social setting come from different backgrounds, have
  different perspectives, have different skills and often use the same
  words to mean different things.
• In a web 2.0 world – the technology and
  practices we are designing will exist in an ecology where on-line
  collaboration is increasingly common, and the range of tools available
  to support collaboration on-line is constantly growing.

Our hypothesis is:

It is possible to design and produce useful new practices and tools by using a small set of resource that combine:

• a small pot of money to support people and purchase services (amount hidden at present),
• a small amount of developer time (a few person days),
• a community of social action users who see the potential value of the idea
• a community of social action developers who see the potential of the idea
• a small number of researchers and designers to help co-ordinate and facilitate the action
• an open approach to action research where
  our aims and our research practice are shared with the people engaged
  in the design activity