Abstract
In information systems research there has long been a tradition of design, and this dissertation seeks to represent this tradition across three research essays. In essay 1, we develop and evaluate a novel IT artifact to allow remote hands-on IoT training. Findings from this essay demonstrated the usability of this device using subjective and objective performance metrics. In essay 2, a novel scale to measure embodied social presence was developed and deployed to discern differences in embodied social presence across two distinct groups. Findings suggest that vicarious experiences are perceptually rich, enacting similar perceptual outcomes as active experiences. Essay 3 seeks to define, design, and implement a novel design artifact to enhance information seeking in the oral history context. In phase one, the device was iteratively developed, evaluated, and improved across four studies using formative assessments. Once the device was shown to reliably improve information seeking, a second phase was performed to evaluate the generalizability of the designed artifact to the oral history context through a week-long qualitative investigation with a context-specific sample. This research contributes to research in knowledge management systems through the description of a device to manage unstructured data. For practitioners, this research describes a novel tool that can be adopted and applied to current oral history repositories. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates how design can be used effectively in information systems research, whether it be the focal aspect of study (chapters 2 & 4), or as an essential component to further non-DSR research (chapter 3).