There are several reasons for choosing a particular group
of people living under specific circumstances (such as students
living in a dormitory). First, it enables professional designers to
focus on specific design problems by using data from a distinct
participant group. Second, overlapping mutual circumstances
often lead participants to value cases more and make information
obtained from specific cases more easily adaptable to their
own lives. Individuals are also more willing to share their own
cases with people in circumstances similar to their own. Third,
dormitories are residences with limited space, and most dormitory
residents live on limited budgets. Thus, dormitory residents tend
to appropriate artifacts relatively frequently, as a lack of resources
is the strongest motivation for appropriating everyday artifacts
(Brandes & Erlhoff, 2006).