Reconceptualizing users: The roles and activities of people as they engage with digital technologies

User

The most common term used to describe people in relation to information systems is that of a user. According to the OED, a user is a person who regularly makes use of a thing (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023b). The concept tends to assume people are external to a thing (in our case, the IT artifact). Although introductory information systems textbooks have taught for many years that people are one of the components of an information system, we suggest the traditional concept of a user is inconsistent with this premise. A person who makes use of a thing, such as a hammer or a toaster, is not a part of it.

An assumption that the user is not part of the system underlies theories of the user that originated early in computer science and research into the human computer interface (HCI). Such theories were concerned with the psychology and behavior of users, together with ideal designs of a system’s user interface. The design of such user interfaces needed to consider the dimensions of user behavior: evaluating, predicting and controlling their behavior. System designers needed to consider users’ knowledge and processing limits, including quality, speed, and ethics (Moran, 1981). These concerns were consistent with a conceptualization of the user who is external to the system, while recognizing that people’s psychology and behavior must be accommodated.

Earlier conceptualization of the user in information systems research were similar. Lamb and Kling (2003) say that “The most common conception of the user in information systems research is of an atomic individual with well-articulated preferences and the ability to exercise discretion in ICT choice and use, within certain cognitive limits” (Lamb & Kling, 2003, p.198). If atomic individuals have a choice about whether to use a particular technology, they are not a part of it; by definition, they are external to it. It seems we have kept using the term in this way, even though information systems scholars’ conceptions of the relationship between people and technology have long since moved on. Although much information systems research in the past focused on user involvement (Ives & Olson, 1984) and user participation (Barki & Hartwick, 1994) in information systems development, Lamb and Kling (2003) argued that the concept of user is “socially thin” and people who interact with ICT on a daily basis cannot be characterized as users.

Usage

If we shift the focus away from the user and over to usage, the interaction between people and information systems becomes key. Studies of usage, rather than users per se, helped clarify how people and technology were each being affected by the other. These included studies of shifts in individuals’ identities through technology usage (e.g., Devaraj & Kohli, 2003) and studies of shifts in the identities of both individuals and information technologies (e.g., Carter & Grover, 2015).

Carter and Grover (2015) are representative of usage research that was discovering how newer information systems were growing socially broader in scope. New platforms were mediating social interactions, such as social networking, that are beyond organizations.

Nevertheless, the usage concept still conceptually separates the user from the system. They are distinct entities interacting with each other, and each being affected by the other. But the person is still using the system, not a part of it.

Actor

As a reconceptualization of the term user, Lamb and Kling (2003) offer the term social actor. As in sociotechnical systems, a social actor is seen as situated within an institutionalized organizational context. They are “social actors who interact with variously constituted others to form the basis of social institutions and identities” (Lamb & Kling, 2003, p. 201). They are organizational members who have affiliations that link organizations and individuals within and across industries, creating organizational action, using organizational resources, and characterized by an identity ascribed to their role in the firm. Lamb and Kling (2003) say the term actor more accurately portrays the complex and multiple roles people fulfill while adopting, adapting, and using information systems.

Following Lamb and Kling’s (2003) lead, Pollock and Hyysalo (2014) propose the term reference actor as a replacement for user. They define reference actors as “a network of users within and across an organization that form part of a wider packaged enterprise system community” (Pollock & Hyysalo, 2014, p.474). They say reference actors form part of the politics of packaged enterprise system development and acquisition.

As can be seen, both Lamb and Kling (2003) and more recently Pollock and Hyysalo (2014) use some variant of the term actor to describe people in organizational contexts. In some ways this term is much richer than the term user. However, by focusing solely on the organizational use of IT, the use of information systems in non-organizational contexts for personal use is completely ignored. Digital technologies are not just used in organizational and business contexts, as they were in the past, but are now used for everyday activities (Yoo, 2010). These technologies are used for both personal and professional purposes in both organizational and non-organizational contexts. For example, most of us use the same mobile device for both personal and work-related purposes. As digital technologies have become a part and parcel of our personal and professional lives (Baskerville et al., 2020), people now seamlessly move between their engagement with IT in personal, organizational and societal contexts. To illustrate, one minute we might be using WhatsApp on our mobile to chat with a PhD student, the next minute we might be using the same mobile and the same app to chat with a family member.

Alter suggests that people are integral members of work systems in his Work Systems Theory (Alter, 2013). Instead of using the term user, Alter suggests the terms customer and participant. He says that work systems exist to produce products/services for customers (who are external to the systems), and participants (who are within the system) perform various roles within it. While Work Systems Theory is relevant for organizational systems and business professionals, like Lamb and Kling (2003) and Pollock and Hyysalo (2014), Alter ignores the personal and non-organizational use of IT.

As well as the terms user, actor, customer and participant, various theories have been used in information systems research to characterize people in relation to information systems. For example, in agency theory, people enact roles as agents of organizations (Bahli & Rivard, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989); in sociotechnical systems, people comprise the social subsystem within the organization’s information system (Pasmore et al., 1982); in an ecosystem, people are seen as part of a digital ecosystem (Vial, 2019); in actor-network theory, people are one kind of actor in the organizational networks that produce actions (Braa & Vidgen, 1999; Walsham, 1997). As used in information systems research, however, these theories have almost always been used to describe people within organizational contexts.

Two examples

In this section we provide two examples illustrating how people participate within multiple information systems, and how people now move seamlessly between organizational and non-organizational contexts.

Actors performing in digital first world

In order to consider in more depth the various roles that people play in relation to information systems, we draw on the concept of digital first and the ontological reversal. Baskerville et al. (2020) suggest that, in a digital first world, information systems do not simply represent and reflect the world; rather these systems are now creating and shaping physical reality. The ontological reversal is where the digital version is created first, and the physical version second (if needed). In this digital first world, computed human experiences are embedded with multiple platforms and multiple institutional logics, all of which are constantly evolving (see Figure 1). Figure 1 shows there are four dimensions of computed human experiences: time, place, artifacts, and actors.OPEN IN VIEWER

If we focus on just one of these dimensions—the actors—then we suggest Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical model of social interaction might be relevant for understanding the various roles these actors play. These actors can be people or IT artifacts interacting with other IT artifacts. In this paper, however, we focus on people only. Hence, we will now briefly explain Goffman’s theory, before discussing the various roles that people play in a digital first world.

Goffman’s theory uses the metaphor of the theater to explore social life (Goffman, 1959, 1961). Social life is seen as a drama where actors (individuals and groups) use a script (norms, rituals, expectations of how one should behave) to perform on a stage (a variety of settings and social situations). Goffman says an actor’s role involves the enactment of rights and duties attached to a given status (Goffman, 1959). An actor’s performance in a social situation encompasses many of the activities of daily life.

If we apply this theory to people in a digital world, we can say that actors (people) perform many roles and engage in many activities in their daily life. The sociomaterial view of information systems sees people as increasingly entangled with digital technologies (Cecez-Kecmanovic et al., 2014; Scott & Orlikowski, 2014). People have multiple roles and often move seamlessly between them. For example, if you are traveling, you might be a passenger and a family member at the same time, meaning that you will probably move seamlessly between your favorite travel app and your favorite messaging app. These roles have related activities that people might be performing at any given time. These activities are discussed next.

The expanding scope of information systems

Until now, information systems scholars have tended to study information systems in organizational contexts and especially in business organizations. The focus on business is probably because most of the early applications of information systems were in business organizations, and most information systems scholars ended up being in business schools. While some information systems scholars today might study e-government and information systems in the public sector, the focus has tended to be on the organizational or business aspects of these systems. Hirschheim notes traditional information systems topics have tended to dominate the field, to the exclusion of topics that might have wider scope and impact (Hirschheim, 2019).

However, while we purport to focus on the organization, many organizations have been extending their information systems beyond the boundaries of the organization. They have extended their systems further and further out into their ecosystems and into the public domain. The trend of information systems extending beyond the organization began with applications such as electronic business-to-business (B2B) data exchange systems, protocols such as electronic funds transfer (EFT) between financial institutions, and electronic data interchange (EDI) among supply chain business partners. These electronic data exchange systems replaced paper documents such as bank cheques. These trends have gradually extended to business-to-consumer (B2C) systems such as online banking, online shopping, and online travel reservations. Web 2.0 introduced consumer-to-consumer (C2C) systems such as Zelle (for transferring money between individuals), eBay (exchanging goods between individuals), and Uber (ride sharing among individuals).

With EFT, banking and other financial organizations began extending electronic access to their information systems to other financial organizations. With EDI, manufacturing, wholesale, and retail businesses began extending electronic access to their information systems to other, similar, businesses. This trend continued when businesses adopted enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that provided even tighter inter-organizational data exchange. These extensions of the information system not only created electronic networks of organizational business partners, but also provided a varying degree of integration among the various information systems. In other words, the network information system, by spanning multiple businesses, led to an entire digital ecosystem being created, much larger than just the organization itself.

The myriad new online services further extended information exchanges with consumers. Banks and other financial institutions extended their information systems to permit customers to access accounts and services via the web or a mobile app. Retailers similarly extended their information systems to permit customers to order, return, and pay by directly accessing the retailer’s information system. Travel agencies, airlines and hotels extended their information system to permit travelers to make reservations, buy tickets, and pay by directly accessing the provider’s information system. Businesses were not only extending their information systems into other businesses but were extending their information systems to the public. These information systems became part of one or more digital ecosystems.

These trends grew during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people became used to the online exchange of information, money, goods and services. These trends inspired many businesses to exist mostly, if not entirely, online. Businesses grounded on social networking and information provisioning (such as news and entertainment media) now rely on collecting information from their consumers (often called subscribers in the media industry) and the public and develop their revenue by formatting and supplying the collected information back to the public and their subscribers. Such businesses primarily exist by extending their information systems out to the public. Many news companies both collect and provide information (news) to the public for free, while providing additional information (often called a premium news service) for paid subscribers. In their role as contributors, such subscribers are no longer peripheral users, but participants in the workings of the information system itself.

If we continue to see users as outside the system, we fail to see how they might serve different roles within multiple interconnected systems. In the preceding paragraph we find people are purchasers, payers, travelers, creditors, buyers, and sellers. More critically, each person can be an inherent link pin between systems by simultaneously belonging to or being participants in multiple, myriad information systems. Figure 2 depicts how a person (say, someone named Jack Hubb) is linking together eight information systems, not as an external user but as an essential participant of each system. When Jack joins a new company, in his role as an employee he links the company’s system to the tax system in his role as a taxpayer; he links the employer system to the bank system in his role as bank customer; he might also link additional systems such as his personal or professional social media profiles. While we tend to think of the systems themselves being linked via application programming interfaces (APIs), these systems cannot operate effectively unless the participants in the system are also participants in myriad other systems. For example, tax systems cannot operate effectively unless its participants are also participants in employer systems, bank systems, etc. Online shopping cannot operate effectively unless people provide their bank account or credit card details. People need to have joined up and subscribed as a participant in these systems (e.g., signed up as a bank customer) for each of these systems to work effectively.OPEN IN VIEWER

We propose a reconceptualization of the user that moves beyond the early computing assumptions based on behavioral psychology and expands to incorporate assumptions based on constructivist sociology. These expanded assumptions encompass social ideas underlying the concept of actors. Using assumptions that emerge from Goffman’s theory of social life (Goffman, 1959), in which actors (people) perform various roles and conduct many activities in their daily life, we can explain the relationship between people and technology in our digital world more completely. As almost every role that we play, and every activity we perform, is digitally mediated nowadays, the old meaning of the term “user” grows evermore incomplete. If the role and the activity that a person wants to perform is important, then a richer view of the user is needed.

In the two examples provided earlier, we find an important shift in the way people interact with information systems. The scooter rider or the homeowner are not simply outside the system. Rather, they are active participants in the system—they are an essential part of it and entangled with it. They provide computational devices and connect them into Lime’s or Amazon’s information systems. They decide where to take the scooter and where to park it safely, and they watch over deliveries being made to their homes. They are part of a digital ecosystem that requires both technology and people to function seamlessly. The door lock, the camera, the scooter, the smart phone, the homeowner, and the rider are all essential parts of the system.

More importantly, these people are not necessarily employees or contractors for Lime or Amazon. They are riders or delivery-receivers while at the same time being members of the public; they are part of the society in which Lime and Amazon operate. This shift is a dramatic change for information systems. Information systems through technologies such as the Internet of Things, the cloud and mobile apps extend the reach of information systems throughout society.

There are many implications for the information systems discipline if we treat users as having various roles in relation to information systems. Topics once considered peripheral to information systems become central, and some of those that were considered central might become peripheral. For example, the implications of a new app for public policy might become a central concern if the public and lawmakers become involved in shaping its future use and impact. The willingness of people to trust a particular technology, while an important topic already, becomes even more important in a digital first world.

The impact of the extension of information systems beyond the business heralds a fundamental shift in the academic discipline of information systems. Once an insular field focused on the innards of business processes, the discipline is finding that the business world has itself pushed large parts of the body of the information systems phenomena well beyond the business. Information and communications technology is emerging as a society-wide topic of which the business is but a part.

Evidence of this emergence is most evident in research related to ICT being conducted in disciplines outside of the business school. Formerly business research topics such as big data, data analytics, software development, digital innovation, commercial graphics, entrepreneurship, and technology diffusion are becoming common among the humanities, the sciences, medical schools and law schools.

The rapid uptake of new technologies implies that we need to become more agile in our research. The Lime company introduced e-scooter sharing in 2018, yet by 2019, Lime was operating in more than 30 countries. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 meant that many “at-home” technologies expanded explosively: including online meetings (e.g., WebEx and Zoom), online shopping (such as Amazon and eBay), and online food delivery (e.g., DoorDash and Uber Eats).

Some of the most important issues today are related to the interrelationship between public policy, ethics and technology: for example, privacy (anonymity of the people in the system) versus safety (catching criminals requires knowing their identity); freedom of expression (a democratic right), versus censorship (stopping the spread of fake news and extremist content), etc. Whereas the former is more democratic, the latter is more restrictive and authoritarian. What is the right balance between these? Because information systems include the public as participants, design considerations now include these broader considerations. How people respond to these considerations depends on human values. How developers build their systems depends on their underlying values as well as those of their employer and/or government.

The current wealth of data opens up the study of information systems, not only to large scale statistical analysis, but also to big data analytics techniques. It also makes large blocks of anonymized data available from businesses, for example, credit card transaction data. With a new focus on the public, qualitative research probably needs to become more sociological. The focus shifts from studying individual organizations to communities, social networks, ecosystems, and the social and cultural issues in the wider society.

These changes also open a new audience for many ideas that are well-known in information systems, but unfamiliar to our new audience. Information systems concepts that may be new to scholars outside of our traditional business disciplines might include sociotechnical systems, technology intermediation, technology acceptance, systems success models, and so forth. These well-studied information systems concepts and theories may gain a new life with a new audience.

The activities of people in a digital world

The activities that people perform in relation to digital technologies are now myriad and varied. This can be seen if we consider the International Classification of Activities provided by the United Nations (United Nations Statistics Division, 2017). The activities that people perform are classified into nine major divisions. These activities are listed in Table 2.

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Table 2.

International classification of activities.

Major division	Activities
1	Employment and related activities
2	Production of goods for own final use
3	Unpaid domestic services for household and family members
4	Unpaid caregiving services for household and family members
5	Unpaid volunteer, trainee, and other unpaid work
6	Learning
7	Socializing and communication, community participation, and religious practice
8	Culture, leisure, mass-media and sports practices
9	Self-care and maintenance

What is striking about this list is that almost every single activity that people perform nowadays involves digital technologies. For example, employment almost always involves using the information systems in an organization (division 1); production of goods for own final use might include the use of social media or YouTube for obtaining gardening advice (division 2); unpaid domestic services might involve using an app for cooking recipes (division 3); unpaid caregiving might involve reading a book to a child using an iPad (division 4); unpaid volunteer work might involve using online shopping to purchase an item for household maintenance (division 5); learning at school might involve reading online resources using a laptop (division 6); socializing with one’s friends and family might involve using WhatsApp or WeChat (division 7); leisure activities might involve online gaming or streaming a movie (division 8); and self-care might involve making a booking online to see your doctor (division 9).

Another striking feature of this list is that just one of the nine activities is related to work in an organization (division 1), and yet this is what we as information systems scholars have mostly focused on in our research.

The roles of people in a digital world

If we consider the major divisions of activities as per the UN classification, some examples of the various roles that people might play in their daily life are listed in Table 3. This list is by no means comprehensive, but simply an indication of the roles that people have. This table reveals that, in a digital first world, the traditional concept of user does not make sense. For example, if a mother communicates via WhatsApp with her daughter, she is first and foremost a mother as part of the same family. If a person makes a travel booking through an airline reservation system, this person is first and foremost a passenger. If a person is watching a movie on Netflix, this person is primarily a viewer (as well as a subscriber if considering the payment aspect). The old concept of user no longer has any meaning, since almost all the activities that people perform in a particular role are so closely entangled with digital technologies. Digital technologies are entangled with and productive of our social reality (Scott & Orlikowski, 2014).

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Table 3.

Activities and roles.

Major division	Activities	Example roles
1	Employment	Accountant, IT specialist, Manager, Salesperson
2	Production of goods for own final use	Home gardener, Home handyman
3	Unpaid domestic services	Volunteer housekeeper, Cook, Shopper
4	Unpaid caregiving services	Family caregiver, Elder helper, Helping hands
5	Unpaid volunteer work	Volunteer Fireman, Volunteer Rescue Squad
6	Learning	Student, Teacher
7	Socializing and communication, community participation and religious practice	Blogger, Facebookers, Bride, Groom, Church member, Friend
8	Culture, leisure, mass-media and sports practices	Football player, Spectator, Viewer, Netflixer, Gamer
9	Self-care and maintenance	Dieter, Patient

As the fields of computing and information systems have emerged, we have seen two (and now perhaps three) progressively different kinds of theories of the user. The first is the theory of the subject user, an outsider who must be accommodated by the system designer (e.g., Moran, 1981). The second is the theory of the development user who participates in the design and development of information systems such as participative design and end-user development (e.g., Henfridsson & Lindgren, 2010). The third, proposed here, is the theory of the digital citizen user, who participates and lives in multiple information systems. Here, we adopt the meaning of citizen as “A person who regards himself or herself as an inhabitant of the [digital] world as a whole or as a member of the [digital] worldwide community.” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023a). Our reconceptualization of the user builds on this third kind of theory, where users are people who inhabit a digital reality.

If we consider people as integral participants of many digital ecosystems, multiple activities and roles come to mind. For example, in Figure 3, Kristian engages in Waze in his work as a taxi driver. Under the UN activity divisions, Kristian’s activity is employment. Once he is on the road with a passenger, many roles in many systems may be engaged. He is engaged in the bank system as a client paying for fuel, union dues, license fees, etc. He is also engaged in the Chauffeur Union’s member system, the Auto Association member system. He is a driver. He is engaged in the Town Taxi’s driver system. In Kristian’s case, he is also a Wazer. Like Jack Hubb, he brings with him into the Waze system potential connections to a bank, a union, a state chauffeur licensing bureau, an automobile association, a taxi company, and probably more. There is a list of missed opportunities if Waze considered Kristian to be a user of their system only. Kristian is not external to Waze, he is an active participant in their entire digital ecosystem.OPEN IN VIEWER

Looking at it another way, we recognize four ways in which people undertake essential roles within information systems.

First, people are active in controlling the behavior of the information system. The control that a person has over an IT artifact will vary, of course, depending on the structure of the relationship between a person and the IT artifact, and the permissions associated with it. For example, in Open Source Software development, there is an expanded role for users and a more cooperative developer-user relationship (Fitzgerald, 2006). As another example, whereas Web 1.0 was seen as consisting mostly of static web pages, Web 2.0 enabled people to create and upload content to social media, blogs, etc. Potentially, Web 3.0 (Web3) enables people to have much more control. “Web3 refers to a decentralized online ecosystem based on the blockchain. Platforms and apps built on Web3 won’t be owned by a central gatekeeper, but rather by users, who will earn their ownership stake by helping to develop and maintain those services” (Edelman, 2021). We acknowledge, however, there is considerable debate as to whether Web3 as currently described will eventuate. Nevertheless, as everyone is to some extent a member of the public, they can vote, express their opinions on social media, websites, news media sites, etc., and lobby politicians. People are not powerless users, but potentially politically active citizens. They might encourage or force lawmakers to enact regulations that have a significant impact on the use and value of a particular system. No longer are they simply users who have no say. Instead, they may become involved in requiring that a service or product be adjusted to fit their expectations and demands.

Second, people are partners in producing information in the information system. Because they are participants in a system, people are participants in a group who collectively produce valuable information. Examples of such productions include product and service reviews and evaluations. In Kristian’s case, he might post a warning on Waze about an accident on the freeway.

Third, people may choose to provide their own extensions to information systems. When they attach their devices to the Internet of Things (IoT), they add new endpoints to organizational information systems. For example, when a person brings up Google’s Waze navigation system app, they not only get location specific advertising, but also notifications of approaching road conditions, accidents, traffic jams, hazards, and law enforcement operations. This information is crowd-sourced to participants in the Waze community. People may choose to attach devices such as motor vehicles, home heating air-conditioning plants, major appliances, not-to-mention computers and smart phones, to manufacturer’s systems in order to receive updates and provide information about operating conditions and comparative performance. Connecting an automobile to an insurance provider makes the participant’s safe driving performance and vehicle operating history visible to the insurance provider’s information system.

Moreover, people can innovate, finding new ways to generate benefits from within an information system. Such innovations can effectively add functionality to a system. For example, parents weary of ferrying their children around for after-school activities soon recognized they could use ride-sharing services instead. Parents could order the car, specify pickup and drop-off locations, identify drivers, track routes, etc. The built-in accountability provides a degree of safety. When debates arose over the practice for responsible parents, new systems were born, for example, HopSkipDrive.

Fourth, people are sometimes used by (as well as being users of) the information system. Just as a member of our body, such as a limb, might be used by us, so an individual person might be used by an information system. People’s activities become a source of information. Nowadays people willingly trade access to their personal data about their activities in exchange for access to an information service. Zuboff (2019) describes the results of this exchange as “surveillance capitalism.” Furthermore, with big data and the datafication of personal information, businesses and government agencies are able to “apply predictive analysis to generate new information and knowledge about customers and citizens” (Mai, 2016, p. 192). Individual persons (consumers, citizens and the public) are a source of data in these systems. More specifically, individuals become data objects (data encapsulated in a business process). Hence, people have become data; they have become the used.

We suggest these ways in which people participate in information systems provide a richer and more comprehensive picture of the engagement of people with information technology today. People are an integral part of the system, and not external to it. People’s engagement in the system is required for the system to be effective and to provide value to others. Also, because people are members of a system, a company can provide an information service in return for data surveillance. The more data that can be collected from people, the more valuable the information provided by the system potentially becomes. For example, Netflix relies on recommender systems software to suggest movies to subscribers. These recommendations rely on gathering huge amounts of data regarding the viewing habits of other similar subscribers. The more fine-grained data that can be gathered, the more “accurate” the recommendations become.

To some extent, we can appreciate Zuboff’s perspective which implies people are used and are powerless in this new age of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2019). But this is just one of the ways in which people might be participants in information systems. People can participate in other ways, with people being able to provide feedback to the company that owns the system, and members of the public having the potential to determine the use and impact of a particular technology.

For information systems developers, the traditional concept of user does have the advantage of simplifying design requirements. The concept fits well when people are atomic individuals who are mainly a source of data and a delivery point for information. The “user” interface might be based on a more-or-less generic person who is a source of keypresses, mouse clicks, and touch screen gestures and interacts to complete a transaction.

However, the traditional concept of user does not fit well in a digital first world, where almost every activity and every role that people perform is digitally mediated. For example, if Kristian, the taxi driver, contacts the help desk for the Automobile Association (AAA) because there seems to be a problem with the system when renewing his annual subscription, how should the AAA think of him? We think it makes more sense for the AAA to consider him as a driver who is having difficulties with payment. Of course, he is a user of their digital payment service, but he is only using it because of the value he obtains from the AAA as a taxi driver. His relationship to the AAA is defined by his role as driver and a member of the AAA, not by the fact he happens to use their system.

If we reconceptualize the user concept, and think of people’s activities and roles, it might become easier to invite people to participate in systems design. For example, the Waze app not only enables people to warn each other about driving hazards ahead, but also to interact with each other in social ways such as placing their level or mood icons in the Waze map, earning points by contributing reports, etc. As with Web 2.0, Waze developers have enabled community-building features that let Wazers know when other Wazers are nearby. The Waze app is not so much a “user” interface as it is a portal into the “Wazer Community.” Members of this community may also be automobile club members, professional transport drivers, emergency vehicle drivers, law enforcement officers, etc. Designing for “Wazers” (a role) whose driving activity is integral to the Waze information system is a qualitatively different goal than designing for “users.” We believe that by reconceptualizing the user concept, information systems developers might gain greater clarity of purpose with respect to the breadth of functions that the system needs to deliver. For example, designing a system for a traveler on an airline enables a much richer concept of the user. Seeing someone as a traveler implies that the person might want to need other things besides a seat on a plane (e.g., a rental car and a hotel room).