Requirements are in the Eyes of the Beholders

It will be demonstrated that the perceived attributes or characteristics of information artefacts can act as constraints on the ways in which people use and interact with them. This is particularly true when the information artefacts behave as boundary objects within organisations. Yet despite the different uses to which these information artefacts are put the user interfaces to them are typically uniform, The proposed approach brings together insights from activity theory, affordances and personal construct theory, and adopts repertory grids as its principle means of investigation. Finally, the consequences of this approach to design of local user interfaces to information artefacts is considered.