The appropriation of interactive technologies: Some lessons from placeless documents

Abstract. Appropriation is the process by which people adopt and adapt technologies, fitting them into their working practices. It is similar to customisation, but concerns the adoption patterns of technology and the transformation of practice at a deeper level. Understanding appropriation is a key problem for developing interactive systems, since it critical to the success of technology deployment. It is also an important research issue, since appropriation lies at the intersection of workplace studies and design. Most accounts of appropriation in the research literature have taken a social perspective. In contrast, this paper explores appropriation in terms of the technical features that support it. Draw-ing examples from applications developed as part of a novel document management system, it develops an initial set of design principles for appropriable technologies. These principles are particu-larly relevant to component-based approaches to system design that blur the traditional application boundaries