Privacy, anonymity and interpersonal competition issues identified during participatory design of project management groupware!

Abstract

Project Management Groupware (PMG) presents complex design challenges because the resulting system can act as both (a) a community for interpersonal collaboration and (b) an arena for interpersonal competition. This paper describes an application of the participatory design paradigm to explore these issues, and to track the contingent evolution of computing systems and social systems around the PMG. We describe work in progress on the design of an experimental prototype that appears to have novel attributes in the areas of interpersonal collaboration and competition, information filtration, privacy, and elective anonymity in interpersonal communications.