Developing Lawful Technologies – A Revelatory Case Study on Design Patterns

Abstract

Higher legal standards with regards to data protection of individuals such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR) increase the pressure on developing lawful systems. The development does not only involve developers, it requires knowledge from other stakeholders such legal experts that lack technical knowledge but are required to understand IT artifacts. For this purpose, we see two strings that can benefit from the use of design patterns: first, the well-known use of design patterns to support developers in case of recurring problems. Second, we see a potential that legal experts, who have to interact with and understand complicated, novel technologies, benefit from the same patterns. Thus, we conduct a revelatory case study using the design patterns to develop and assess a smart learning assistant. We scaffolded the case interpretation through the human-centered view of socio-materiality. Using the insights, we provide contributions concerning new application scenarios of design patterns.