Ex-situ Technology Appropriation of an e-Deliberation Platform in an Art Gallery Anna Maria Al Zubaidi-Polli 1 , Nervo Verdezoto 2 , Nawfal Al Zubaidi R-Smith 3 Gabriele Anderst-Kotsis 1 1 Department of Telecooperation, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenbergerstrasse 69, 4040 Linz, Austria 2 Department of Informatics, University of Leicester, University Road, LE1 7RH Leicester, United Kingdom 3 Department of Radio Electronics, Brno University of Technology, Technicka 12, 61600 Brno, Czech Republic anna.polli@fh-hagenberg.at ABSTRACT When designing interactive web applications and services, understanding the situated nature of interaction and investigating technology appropriation experiences in the context of real-world use deserve special attention. In this paper, we report on experiences with technology appropriation of an e-Deliberation platform that we designed to support collaborative interpretation in an art gallery. Our qualitative study is based on interviews with 23 participants to explore a) visitors’ practices when commenting on and interpreting art and b) how these practices are shaped by interaction with an e-Deliberation platform for collaborative writing that imposes strict regulations. An analysis of 12 hours of interview data yielded two particular appropriation practices related to the demand to satisfy additional visitors’ communication needs, such as exchanging their ideas and thoughts face-to-face before writing an interpretation. Although the designers anticipated these specific needs, users also appropriated the e-Deliberation platform in unanticipated ways. These practices lead to a better understanding of the situated nature of ex-situ interaction when using interactive web applications to support remote collaboration in the art gallery context. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI) Keywords Appropriation practices, E-Deliberation platform, Initial familiarity, Interpretation writing, Communication needs 1. INTRODUCTION The concept of appropriation has engaged several research communities over the last 15 years. Research has broadened our understanding of how people adopt and adapt technologies [1] as well as how people fit them into the routines of their everyday lives [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Appropriation may occur because existing features of a specific technology are designed to support it or when a system does not meet the needs of the intended user, who may then have to re-adapt it. In fact, people domesticate technology and use it in their own ways by adding and applying further physical and digital tools with which they are familiar from their everyday practices to ease interaction [3]. When this has occurred, a technology has been appropriated and has become the user’s own and is no longer simply what we – as designers – provided. Such improvisations and adaptations around technology are not a sign of failure [7]; rather, they show how technology can be domesticated when users understand and feel comfortable enough to use technology in their own ways [3]. When technology is flexibly designed, it can easily be shaped by people [8], and they may feel more in control of a collaborative activity and thereby establish a sense of ownership [9] through its use and appropriation. A good example of technology that has been domesticated is Wikipedia, an e-Service platform that supports collaborative writing. The web-based, free-content encyclopedia project, Wikipedia has been a role model due to its flexibility in enabling constructive participation in online collaborative deliberation [9]. An e-Service can be available not only at any time, but also anywhere [10]. However, availability is not the only advantage; further successful factors and methods of e-Applications have been identified that have an impact on sustainability [11] and therefore provide permanent access. Giving people continuous access to a web-based format of contributions – as in Wikipedia, where both novices and Wikipedians are able to contribute to articles, no matter where they are located – can increase their feeling of being part of the production of the collaborative text rather than being mere spectators [9]. At the iiWAS2015 conference, Johansson et al. [10] presented various concepts for enhancing citizen participation and cooperation, and highlighted the importance of investigating the adoption of e-Services that can transform citizen involvement. In this study, we explored such an approach, investigating whether people gain a sense of ownership by participating in writing one collaborative interpretation. We invited 23 participants to use an e-Deliberation platform collaboratively to Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Permissions@acm.org. iiWAS '17, December 4–6, 2017, Salzburg, Austria © 2017 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5299-4/17/12…$15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3151759.3151761