Gardeners and Gurus: Patterns of Cooperation Among CAD Users

We studied CAD system users to find out how they use the sophisticated customization and extension facilities offered by many CAD products. We found that users of varying levels of expertise collaborate to customize their CAD environments and to create programmatic extensions to their applications. Within a group of users, there is at Ieast one local expert who provides support for other users. We call this persona local developer. The local developer is a fellow domain expert, not a professionrd programmer, outside technical constdtant or MIS staff member. We found that in some CAD environments the support role has been formalized so that local developers are given official recognition, and time and resources to pursue Iocal developer activities. In general, this formalization of the locaI deveIoper role appears successful. We discuss the implications of our findings for work practices and for software design.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1992
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Michelle Gantt, Bonnie A. Nardi
• Keywords: CAD Environments, CHI 1992, Human Computer Interaction, Local Developers, Persona Local Developer