Participation of Heterogeneous User Groups: Providing an Integrated Hospital Information System

Abstract

Integrated information systems require new approaches to participatory design because of the heterogeneity of the user groups involved. This applies especially to the context of work settings with complex cooperation and joint tasks as in hospitals. Integrated systems for these work settings should provide explicit ~ooperation support besides "simple" integration of subsystems. Since joint tasks consist of a number of individual tasks being performed by workers from different departments and professions in close cooperation, the understanding of the underlying cooperation needs the contribution of representatives of each participating department. This requires new techniques for the active participation of heterogeneous user groups. Thus, in this article we evaluate experiences with heterogeneous user groups and present such techniques developed and applied in the context of a cooperation project with a hospital. These techniques visualize cooperation in joint tasks and help identifying different interests by means of representations directly understandable to users.