European Journal of Information Systems

Designing our Digital Futures: Challenging Current Assumptions and Envisioning the Future of IS Design and Development

Special Issue Overview:
Information systems (IS) design and development, heretofore a core topic in the IS field, is arguably at a critical juncture as it faces challenges unlike ever before in its short history. On one hand, there have been significant technological advances in areas such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing that potentially provide and require different ways of designing and developing. Complementing this, the ‘digital native’ consumers of new information systems seek rapid continuous delivery of large-scale information systems, tailored to individual needs while delivering responsibly on all aspects such as privacy, fairness and transparency.

At this critical juncture, the goal of this special issue is to consider the next generation of IS design and development. Looking at the present, we invite researchers to challenge the fundamental prevailing assumptions of the field embracing the ‘contrarian’ and ‘pragmatic’ perspectives that underpin the ethos of the European Journal of Information Systems (Nandakumar, 2010; Ägerfalk, 2010). We welcome papers that question the logic, methods, and tools in contemporary IS design and address topics or take perspectives that some may find uncomfortable. We invite papers that explore alternative approaches and perspectives to the design of digital futures. In addition to examining the immediate future, we encourage researchers that take a ‘Promethean’ perspective (Conboy, 2019), examining radically different ways of designing technology, and taking perspectives that are very different or even unrecognisable in comparison to those envisaged by current research and practice.

We invite papers on any and all aspects of IS design and development, but below are some guiding themes related to the call:

The role of emerging technologies in shaping the future of IS design: Emerging computing paradigms such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and quantum computing are now reshaping design and development processes, automating coding, altering decision-making structures, and challenging established paradigms (Seidel, Frick et al. 2025). AI in particular threatens to replace or at least alter significantly the traditional role of the developer. AI-assisted development automates coding and design yet raises concerns over control, reliability, and creativity, misinformation, biased decision-making, and legal uncertainties (Liu et al 2024). Trace data allows developers to gain an unprecedented and detailed understanding of user behaviours. Indeed, the act of designing and developing also leaves a trail of trace data which can be used to reflect on and fine tune the design process (Ågerfalk et al. 2022; Berente et al. 2021). We welcome submissions that critically evaluate any aspects of the role of these technologies in design and development or discuss what technology may change design and development in the future.

The limits of current design and development methods: As technology rapidly evolves, one would expect that the methods for designing and developing would also advance. While this is happening, there are many concerns. In today’s fast-paced and fluid world methods such as continuous development and DevOps have emerged but have not been evaluated or studied conceptually, theoretically, or practically to the extent that predecessors such as agile have (Wiedemann et al. 2020; Hemon-Hildgen & Rowe 2022). There is a similar issue with emerging citizen development, ‘low code, no code’ techniques where there is huge potential but there are questions regarding the co-ordination, control and productivity of these approaches (Carroll, Holmström & Matook, 2024; Matook et al. 2024) as well as impact on technical debt (Novales & Mancha 2023). Also, the scaling up of methods to large scale environments has proven highly challenging, with few successful cases to date. We welcome papers that examine these methods and question fundamental assumptions (For example, should we even be trying to scale agile or is something different or new needed to solve the large scale development problem?).

Design science beyond the science of the artificial: Design science also provides a methodological foundation for structuring the design, development, and adoption of information systems (Hevner et al. 2004; Peffers et al. 2007). However, as digital technologies increasingly shape society, we must move beyond designing the “artificial” (Simon, 1969) and instead create the digital realities we want to live in. The challenges of today demand more than incremental fixes—they require a fundamental shift in how we envision and build digital futures. Many have proposed new concepts to deal with the emergent nature of contemporary design such as design echelons (Tuunanen et al., 2024) or alternative pathways, starting with visions, emerging technologies, or theoretical constructs (Schoormann, et al., 2024). It remains unexplored whether established evaluation frameworks, guidelines, design principles, and theoretical foundations still retain their applicability. Addressing these questions also hinges on fundamentally rethinking the design science entry point, methods, processes, tools, artifacts, and the way we formulate different artifact typologies, i.e., knowledge, prescriptive, predictive, and generative models.

Design and development in an era of heightened responsibility: We welcome submissions that reflect on or critique the extent to which current design and development approaches consider the nuances and increased expectations of the responsible technology movement. This could include a critique of the concept of ethics or responsibility generally (Mikalef et al. 2022; Hemon-Hildgen & Rowe, 2022) or may hone in on specific aspects of responsibility such as empathy, compassion (Cirello et al.; 2025), fairness or transparency or explainability - as long as these papers address the design implications of these concepts. We also welcome papers that might critique national, international or industry-based principles and laws or policies governing IS design and development. Also, design and development now takes place under ever evolving security challenges, including how to adequately address data privacy issues as software increasingly collects, stores, and analyzes data to enable increasingly sophisticated features. DevSecOps emphasizes prioritizing security into software development processes (Gall & Pigni 2022). Software designers have to take into consideration how to avoid dark patterns and designs that may harm users’ well being as software becomes more complex, personalized, and supports a range of user activities outside of work (e.g., fitness technologies, social media).

Illustrative focus areas
Some of the key topics we are interested in include (but are not limited to):

• The impact of AI on any or all aspects of IS design and development.
• The impact of emerging technology such as quantum computing, blockchain, wearables, etc. on the future of IS design and development.
• The future of traditional software designers and developers and if and how these roles will exist in the medium to long term.
• Contrarian perspectives that challenge assumptions and norms of existing methods such as agile, continuous development and large scale methods.
• Emerging techniques for development e.g. continuous development, citizen development, ‘low code no code’
• New ‘Promethean’ methods that encourage thinking about and designing distant digital futures.
• Challenging the problem-solving paradigm in designing IS solutions.
• Embracing vision-oriented and future-oriented DSR.
• Critique or discussion of existing policies, laws and regulations governing aspects of IS design.
• Exemplars of IS design and development for digital futures.
• New methods for designing digital futures anchored in IS design and development heritage.
• New perspectives on responsible design and the design of responsible IS.
• Design of subtle functionality such as compassion, empathy, and emotion into technologies such as artificial intelligence applications.
• Ethical issues in the design of personalized software, including software designed to adapt to personal characteristics.
• Unique perspectives on the consideration and integration of privacy and security by design, especially into emerging technologies.

Format of submissions
This special issue welcomes visionary and contrarian contributions in all of the above areas. While of course studies may employ approaches or follow guidelines that are intentionally contrarian such as critical research broadly (Myers & Klein, 1999; Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2011) or problematisation (Sandberg & Alvesson; 2011) specifically, this is not a requirement. We appreciate diversity in theories, methods, and genres. We welcome empirical research, philosophical work, conceptual development, or opinion and commentary papers. If in doubt about the suitability of your research to the special issue, please do contact the editorial team at si.futureofisdesign@gmail.com.

Associate Editors

• Pär Ågerfalk, Uppsala University, Sweden
• David Agogo, University of Utah, USA
• Wasana Bandara, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
• Richard Baskerville, Georgia State University, US
• Laura Brandimarte, University of Arizona, US
• Tone Bratteteig, University of Oslo, Norway
• Noel Carroll, University of Galway, Ireland
• Shahla Ghobadi, University of Leeds, UK
• Asif Gill, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
• Shirley Gregor, Australian National University
• Samrat Gupta, IIM Ahmedabad, India
• Alan Hevner, University of South Florida, USA
• Gwanhoo Lee, American University, US
• Alexander Madche, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
• Sabine Matook, University of Queensland
• Lorraine Morgan, University of Galway, Ireland
• Jeffrey Parsons, Memorial University of Newfoundland, USA
• Bala Ramesh, Georgia State University, US
• Cynthia K. Riemenschneider, Baylor University, USA
• Sofia Schöbel, University of Osnabrück, Germany
• Yash Shreshta, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Thorsten Schoormann, Roskilde University, Denmark
• Klaas Jan Stol, University College Cork
• Monica Chiarini Tremblay, William & Mary, US
• Tuure Tuunanen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
• Jan vom Brocke, University of Münster, Germany
• Sofie Wass, University of Agder, Norway

References
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Ågerfalk, P. J., K. Conboy, K. Crowston, J. Eriksson Lundström, S. L. Jarvenpaa, S. Ram and P. Mikalef (2022). Artificial intelligence in information systems: State of the art and research roadmap, Association for Information Systems.

Berente, N., B. Gu, J. Recker and R. Santhanam (2021). "Managing artificial intelligence." MIS quarterly 45(3).

Carroll, N. Holmström, J.; and Matook, S. (2024) "Special Issue Editorial: Transforming Business with Low-Code and No-Code," MIS Quarterly Executive: Vol. 23: Iss. 3, Article 2.

Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. (2011). Doing critical information systems research – arguments for a critical research methodology. European Journal of Information Systems, 20(4), 440–455. https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2010.67

Ciriello, R., Gal, U., Hannon, O., & Thatcher, J. (2024). Responsible social media use: how user characteristics shape the actualisation of ambiguous affordances. European Journal of Information Systems, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2024.2444249

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Gall, M., & Pigni, F. (2021). Taking DevOps mainstream: a critical review and conceptual framework. European Journal of Information Systems, 31(5), 548–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2021.1997100

Hemon-Hildgen, A., & Rowe, F. (2022). Conceptualising and defining DevOps: a review for understanding, not a framework for practitioners. European Journal of Information Systems, 31(5), 568–574. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2022.2100061

Liu, Y., Le-Cong, T., Widyasari, R., Tantithamthavorn, C., Li, L., Le, X. B. D., & Lo, D. (2024). Refining chatgpt-generated code: Characterizing and mitigating code quality issues. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 33(5), 1-26.

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Tuunanen, T, Winter, R., vom Brocke, J. (2024) Dealing with Complexity in Design Science Research: A Methodology Using Design Echelons. MIS Quarterly, 48(2):427-458

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