UNDERSTANDING DESIGN-USE INTERACTION: THE CASE OF NAME BASED HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM IN INDIA

摘要

Responding to the current call of information systems research towards theorizing the materiality of technology to a level as specific as possible, this paper presents a process that covers design, development and implementation aspect of (health) information system, called DHIS2, from the context of India. The paper builds from empirical case obtained from an ongoing action research project that all authors have participated in. We draw up on ensemble view of technology to understand design and development of materialities of DHIS2 - recording and tracking - and their embeddedness and interdependencies with context, focusing on how social processes, work practices and organizational structures are constituted in them. The interdependency, between the social and the material, is a constitutively entangled one that is shaped by an emergent and situated agency of both the human and the material. Understanding this mutual process and being flexible in the design process to proactively respond to changes is, we argue, at the heart of getting the design right - arguably the basis for an effective information system.