Happenstance, Strategies and Tactics: Intrinsic Design in a Volunteer-based Community

This paper presents the study of a volunteer community, its technologies, and the processes in and through which it develops, sustains and makes its community artifact ecology work. Based on previous work proposing the concept of community artifact ecology as a way of understanding the constellation of technologies a community owns, has access to and uses in their practices, we examine the dynamics and development of such a community artifact ecology in detail. The findings indicate that in volunteer communities developing a working community artifact ecology is a process mixing happenstance, community strategies and everyday tailoring and appropriation tactics. Additionally, much of the design and infrastructuring work in shaping the community artifact ecology and making it work both blurs with use and can be considered as intrinsic design as it is conducted by members of the community, with no input from the outside. Based on the empirical findings we expand on multiple positions within the theoretical space of design-in-use and intrinsic practice transformation mediated by technology and conclude with a more multi-faceted understanding of the shaping of technology in volunteer-based communities.