Understanding the Periphery: An analysis of the shared experiences of outsiders in the use and non-use of systems and platforms

Sammanfattning: The existence of systems has been essential in bringing order and providing benefits and security for people throughout the course of history. However there are cases wherein people have difficulties in adopting or conforming to systems. The aim of this study is to understand how systems that intend to be open encounter the paradox of excluding people in the process. The Public Transportation Agency in the southernmost county in Sweden and its traveling card solution, Skånetrafiken and the Jojo Card will be respectively used as a case study to understand how this paradox happens on a concrete level. By discussing small objects, such as the Jojo Card, conceptual discourses can be unwrapped by looking onto the object and how other actors interact with it. Four questions have been formulated that serve to achieve the main objective that has been set: 1.) What is the process of creation of rules and platforms of Skånetrafiken?; 2.) How do people become outsiders in the use and the non-use of systems and platforms?; 3.) What is the relationship between systems, platforms, rules and people?, and; 4.) Why can some people conform to rules while some could not? How do those who can not conform react to the system? By conducting qualitative research through ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and go-alongs, four themes were discussed in answering the research questions. These are discussed in the sections a.) On the Creation of the Platform; b.) The Outsiders; c.) Accessing the System, and; d.) Degrees of adoption. The findings of this study are not just applicable to Skånetrafiken understand the implications of creating platforms, but for other technologies and other types of problems that arise in society. This calls for a rethinking of how rules, platforms and systems are designed to be able to cater to different groups of people that would want to interact with it.