The Conception of the Human Being in Information Systems Development: Systems Designers’ Reflections

As information systems are increasingly pervading human life, the way information systems designers’ conceptualize and carry out the relationship between computerised information systems (IS) and users has recurrently been brought forward as a significant question. In particular, a matter of utmost importance is how the IS specialists create the IS-user relationship from the point of view of humans, i.e. humanise information systems. In contrast to the prevailing methodology-driven views of information systems development, in this paper I propose a study which aims at examining how do the Finnish IS designers conceptualise human characteristics and behaviour.