Henry Lieberman , Fabio Paternó , Markus Klann , and Volker Wulf End - User Development : an Emerging Paradigm

We think that over the next few years, the goal of human-computer interaction will evolve from just making systems easy to use (even though that goal has not yet been completely achieved) to making systems that are easy to develop. By now, most people have become familiar with the basic functionality and interfaces of computers. However, developing new or modified applications that effectively support users' goals still requires considerable expertise in programming that cannot be expected from most people. Thus, one fundamental challenge for the coming years is to develop environments that allow users who do not have background in programming to develop or modify their own applications, with the ultimate aim of empowering people to flexibly employ advanced information and communication technologies. Current trends in professional life, education and also in leisure time are characterized by increasing change and diversity: changing work and business practices, individual qualifications and preferences, or changes in the dynamic environments in which organizations and individuals act. The diversity concerns people with different skills, knowledge, cultural background and cognitive or physiological abilities, as well as diversity related to different tasks, contexts and areas of work. Enhancing user participation in the initial design of systems is part of the solution. However, given that user requirements are diversified, changing, and at times hard to identify precisely, going through conventional development cycles with software-professionals to keep up with evolving contexts would be too slow, time-consuming and expensive. Thus, flexibility really means that the users themselves should be able to continuously adapt the systems to their needs. End-users are generally neither skilled nor interested in adapting their systems at the same level as software professionals. However, it is very desirable to empower users to adapt systems at a level of complexity that is appropriate to their individual skills and situations. This is the main goal of EUD: empowering end-users to develop and adapt systems themselves. Some existing research partially addresses this issue, advocating casting users as the initiators of a fast, inexpensive and tight co-evolution with the systems they are using