Developing Groupware with Evolution and Participation A Case Study

Abstract

This paper is about experiences with the evolutionary and participatory development of a search tool for a groupware system. After the description of different software engineering approaches and their use for evolutionary and participatory software development the POLITeam groupware project is presented. The procedure of how the search tool for POLITeam was developed including interviews, workshops and the usage and evaluation of prototypes is described. The resulting search tool is presented. The paper concludes with remarks about the usage of participatory design methods for the introduction and customization of generic groupware in different organizational settings.