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The quality and quantity of participation supplied by human beings during the different phases of the design and development of a software artifact are central to studies in human-centered computing. With this paper, we have investigated on what kind of experienced people should be engaged to design a new computational artifact, when a participatory approach is adopted. We compared two approaches: the former including only future users (i.e., novices) in the design process, and the latter enlarging the community to expert users. We experimented with the design of a large software artifact, in use at the University of Bologna, engaging almost 1500 users. Statistical methodologies were employed to validate our findings. Our analysis has provided mounting evidence that expert users have contributed to the design of the artifact only by a small amount. Instead, most of the innovative initiatives have come from future users, thus surpassing some traditional limitations that tend to exclude future users from this kind of processes. We here challenge the traditional opinion that expert users provide typically a more reliable contribution in a participatory software design process, demonstrating instead that future users would be often better suited. Along this line of sense, this is the first paper, in the field of human-centric computing, that discusses the relevant question to offer to future users a larger design space, intended as a higher level of freedom given in a software design situation, demarcated by precise design constraints. In this sense, the outcome has been positive.

Designing human-centric software artifacts with future users: a case study