Design as intercultural dialogue: Coupling human- centered design with requirement engineering methods

In the design of information technologies, the challenge of integrating a human-centered design approach with software engineering methods emerge in different forms. The main challenge is to set the ground for different disciplines and professional cultures communicate and work together. The orchestration of different contributions and the establishment of communication practices that facilitates the integration of the different languages and procedures are crucial steps to take full advantage of different research traditions. This paper presents a case study in which human-centered design and requirement engineering methodologies have been used within a large research projects aiming at developing innovative technologies and services to support professionals in nursing homes. The design process took the form of an intercultural dialogue that required human-centered and requirement engineering professionals to work across borders. Starting from our case study, the paper presents the boundaries identified between the human-centered and the engineering perspective and proposes a framework to guide the integration process conceived as an intercultural dialogue between disciplines.