Realising Grounded Design in practice: reflections on using Design Case Studies for practice-centred computing

Abstract It is well-known that moving from the rich kind of qualitative data generated in in-depth qualitative studies predicated on ethnographic approaches to actual design, a core aspect of Grounded Design (GD), is challenging. Although there have been a number of efforts to develop ways of making it easier, Design Case Study (DCS) being one of those, the descriptions of these approaches tend to either only focus on certain parts of the process or to remain too high level to provide clear practical guidance to those who are looking to undertake such work. In this article, we carefully analyse the two initial phases of a specific DCS that led to the successful design of a cyber-physical production system to look in detail at how a combination of different user-centred methods have facilitated the realisation of a GD project. We take care, in particular, to explicate the whole study-to-design pipeline, so that others who are interested in learning how to carry out such projects can see how the different parts of the process are interconnected and can be performed. We specifically contribute a set of sensitising questions to help researchers and practitioners with its realisation.