To build or not to build? that is the question: conditions of possibility in translation for design

There are many qualitative approaches that aim to improve information systems design, particularly for HCI. However, there are translation issues which make IS design difficult, particularly for complex and socially sensitive settings. This research began with the theoretical lens of user centered design (UCD) and critically reflected on the trajectory of interactions involved translating across the research setting, the researcher and the technologists. A multi-theoretical and methodological perspective was chosen, drawing on principles and techniques from UCD, customer trajectory analysis (CTA), distributed cognition (Dcog) theory, and various practice theories with the objective of including as a condition of possibility, the ability to recognise when it is not necessary to build a technology. BreastScreen Tasmania was chosen as a suitably sensitive, complex social domain for implementing various research design methods into a setting, to explore the boundaries of translation issues and to develop a meta-framework in which IS research and design can fruitfully interact with a setting and possibly choose to refrain from building something technical.