These documents are work in progress and are therefore not available directly. Much of the work has been adapted for inclusion in the deliverables. Requests for copies of any of these papers should be directed to Jacqui Forsyth in the first instance.
K. Kuutti
OULU-2-9
The field of the study is challenges posed to Information Systems research by emerging new forms of work organization. The concepts used in analysing work in routine automation are insufficient when analyzing new work situations, and new conceptual tools are needed.
The characteristics of Post-fordist work are identified and compared with the issues raised in recent discussions in Information Systems and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work research. It is found that there is a remarkable overlap. Based on findings a set of features necessary to analyze work situations for design is identified.
The suitability of the concept of activity from Activity Theory as a tool for such analysis is studied by comparing it with the constructed set of features. It is found that the concept covers the set rather well and is thus a promising starting point for further development of conceptual tools.
Using the concept of activity as the foundation, a 18-class typology of work support is developed. It attempts to list all potential possibilities to support the new work forms by computer. The application of the typology is tested in a practical case.
K. Kuutti
OULU-2-3
The paper elaborates a hypothesis that one of the major reasons for the emergence of CSCW has been the inability of both IS and HCI research traditions to deal with active subjects as parts of the domain to be designed.
From Ethnographic Fieldwork Towards the Change and Development of Work: Experiences from Developmental Work Research Projects
OULU-2-8
The paper presents an overview of Developmental Work Research (DWR), an Activity Theory - based approach to design and implement changes in work practices in a participatory way. DWR uses ethnography in several phases of the process, and has thus searched and fould some solutions to the problem how ethnography can be connected to design, or put more broadly: how to move from fieldwork to design.
D. Shapiro
LANCS-2-9
The paper addresses some of the divergences between social sciences, and proposes the development of hybrid forms of participation in CSCW. It offers a critique of the theoretical isolationism of some ethnomethodological ethnography. It reviews the prospects for interdisciplinary collaboration, and seeks to motivate it with some `core propositions' which expose the inescapable character of the problems (though not necessarily of the solutions) which are `owned' by different disciplines. It illustrates hybrid forms with discussion of some issues in two areas: the cognitive versus the ethnographic, and the politics of participation.
J. Hughes, T. Rodden, V. King and H. Andersen
LANCS-2-8
Ethnography has gained considerable prominence as a technique for informing CSCW systems development of the nature of work. Experiences of ethnography reported to date have focused on the use of prolonged on-going ethnography to inform systems design. A considerable number of these studies have taken place within constrained and focused work domain. This paper reflects more generally on the experiences of using ethnography across a number of different projects and in a variety of domains of study. We identify a number of ways in which we have used ethnography to inform design and consider the benefits and problems of each.
L. Bannon
RISØ-2-6
This document contains an introduction to the area of what has come to be called Participative Design. It provides some background on this work, some key concepts, and references for further reading. The purpose of this document is to make all on COMIC aware of what has been going on in this field, in order to see how aspects of COMIC can benefit from, or distinguish itself from, what has been termed in some quarters the "Scandinavian" approach to system development.
L. Bannon
RISØ-2-7
This paper provides a commentary on the way work practices are represented in the design process and specifically critiques 3 papers describing 3 different approaches to the problem - one by Morten Kyng describing Participative Design approaches, one by Karen Holtzblatt and XX describing Contextual Design, and finally a paper by Pat Sachs discssing Activity Approaches to design. All of these papers were part of a Symposium organized by Lucy Suchman at HICSS'94.
M. Twidale, D. Randall and R. Bentley
LANCS-2-10
This paper discusses an evaluation of the MEAD prototype, a multi-user interface generator tool particularly for use in the context of Air Traffic Control (ATC). The procedures we adopted took the form of opportunistic and informal evaluation sessions with small user groups, including Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs). We argue that informal procedures are a powerful and cost effective method for dealing with specific evaluation issues in the context of CSCW but that wider issues are more problematic. Most notably, identifying the `validity' or otherwise of CSCW systems requires that the context of use be taken seriously, necessitating a fundamental re-appraisal of the concept of evaluation.
J. Hughes and D. Randall
LANCS-2-6
The aim of this paper is to present some 'analytic vignettes' from an ethnographic investigation of work in a branch office of a building society. The invitation to do the study arose out of a request by a financial services systems developer for a 'sanity check' on a highly structured model of the transactions and information flows within the organisation that was to serve as the possible basis for system development. Our brief was to look at the daily work of the office and to see to what extent the presumptions made in the model about the nature of the work were consistent with the work as actually done on a day-to-day basis. Although we were unable to do an 'in-depth', prolonged investigation, the ethnographer was able to provide sufficient material to suggest that in crucial respects the model poorly expressed some of the facets of financial processing particularly in respect of the work of the cashier, the 'interface' between the customer and the organisation.
K. Kuutti
OULU-2-7
Scenarios are one of the new topics that have been gaining more and more popularity in different contexts of HCI research and design. There is no generally accepted definition what the term means and its use in different contexts vary wildly. This paper is an attempt to create some order to the scenario phenomenon and offer some explanations why they have become popular just now. It is based on the idea of a historically shifting focus and broadening scope of software development. Scenarios are seen in this paper as an indication that design has got new challenges to cope with, and some possible reasons for these challenges are explored. Scenarios are analysed using a three-level framework developed within information system design community, where some related issues have been discussed already for some time. It is found that on one hand the framework can be used in explaining scenarios and relating different types of them to each other, but on the other hand scenarios contain features exceeding those found in the framework and thus showing way to a further conceptual development.
L. Bannon
RISØ-2-8
This paper argues for a shift in perspective away from thinking of the activities of design, use and evaluation as quite distinct activities, but as activities that are necessarily interleaved and mutually constitutive. Adopting this view has implications for the organisation of design teams, and for the role of "evaluation" in the larger design process. After some discussion of these points, the paper reviews some recent evaluation studies in the area of CSCW and notes some methodological issues that need to be addressed in evaluation work.
M. Rouncefield, J. A. Hughes, T. Rodden and S. Viller
LANCS-2-11
Ethnographic studies of CSCW have often seemed to involve the investigation of relatively large scale and highly specific systems; consequently ignoring the small office within which many people spend much of their working lives and which is a major site for the introduction and implementation of IT. This paper is concerned with a `quick and dirty' ethnographic study of a small office that was considering the introduction of greater levels of IT. The process of work in a small office and its recurrent features; notably the massive volume of paperwork; the importance of local knowledge in the accomplishment of work; and the phenomenon of `constant interruption'; are outlined as generic features of office work. This paper suggests that despite the obvious contrasts with work settings analysed in other ethnographic studies, similar features of cooperative work can be observed in the small office and that the issues of cooperation and the sociality of work cannot be forgotten about even in small scale system design.