Asymmetrical Learning Create and Sustain Users' Drive to Innovate, When Involved in Information Systems Design

We describe a case of development of an interface to online feedback on electricity consumption designed for private households. The development process was planned and executed in line with traditions of participatory design and Scandinavian systems design: inviting selected users to take the lead as much as possible by introducing a design space and design artifacts in their home environment, and gradually, in a sequence of three events unfolding over a month, drawing their attention to possible futures. Our reflection on this case makes us suggest a couple of central principles of user involvement and user engagement, in short ‘the user drive’. We emphasize mutually asymmetrical partnership comprising knowing, artifacts, and dedicated space: users knowing the setting of use, designers knowing technological possibilities, the design artifacts which stages user imagination and serve as a boundary object of communication between designers and users, and the dedicated space of imagination, which in our case had the form of a time- and story-line running from observing own home to innovating present ways of knowing about electricity consumption.