Towards a Future of Increasing End-User Development: Creating Empowered or Over-Burdened End Users?

An increasing number of technology users are participating in enduser development (EUD) activities, oriented towards crafting and customizing their technology in use. Embedded within a larger culture of participation, these activities open up exciting possibilities for end user empowerment and creativity, but new challenges have emerged as a result. End users are now threatened by participation overload, as activities once driven by personal motivation alone shift away from optional and become a potentially burdensome duty. This position paper suggests several research questions oriented towards understanding and managing participation overload, as well as reports ongoing research work exploring these important issues; these topics are vital to the future of EUD and core to the concepts of the Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age workshop.