This chapter lays out some necessary context for the book by examining how the problem it address... more This chapter lays out some necessary context for the book by examining how the problem it addresses first came about as systems design encountered the need to engage more concretely with the social. We start by looking at the interdisciplinary character of work in systems design and how Human Computer Interaction (HCI) arose as an area of interest within it. A point of particular focus here is how systems design has mistakenly presumed social science to be a relatively univocal affair whereas, in fact, it contains a concatenation of different voices. A naive conflation of ethnography and social science therefore overlooks the contested character of ethnography within social science itself. Thus, when called upon to consider ‘new’ approaches to ethnography design is therefore confronted with a choice between a number of divergent perspectives upon the social. Much of design’s engagement with the social to date has been through collaboration with ethnomethodologists, who locate expertise in the social milieu. This contrasts with ‘new’ approaches, which locate expertise in the long-standing traditions of social science. This being the case we seek to highlight the real nature of the choice designers are being asked to consider. In the ethnomethodological approaches that characterise much of design’s early engagement with the social, the expertise design is being asked to engage with is the expertise of the members of society themselves who populate the settings that are investigated for design purposes. By contrast ‘new’ approaches, built upon traditional understandings of ethnography within social science, invite design to engage with the social scientist as expert, where the goal is to replace members’ expertise with the theoretical and conceptual machinery of social science.
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2010
This paper explores links between ethnographic approaches, technology design and use and values a... more This paper explores links between ethnographic approaches, technology design and use and values and beliefs. We document recent empirical work on the use of photographs amongst Chinese families; pointing to some differences with previous empirical studies from predominantly Western cultures and tentatively linking Chinese photo work to rather broader cultural values that may develop some ‘sensitivities’ for design. For some time ethnography has been interested in ‘values’ in methodological approaches and concerns. The notion of ‘values’ is also repeatedly called upon in ethnographic studies of (technology for) the home. In this appeal these studies tellingly echo Peter Winch's sentiments regarding how, in general, social life can be understood only through a understanding of beliefs. This paper documents and explicates photo work amongst Chinese families, linking the families' own explanations and comments about these practices to much wider, if particular, sets of social and cultural values and reflects on the potential influence of these values on technology design.
Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design... more Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design, when it is essential for designers to obtain as clear a statement as possible of the intended purpose and function of a system. The process of requirements capture and presentation is highlighted by the software engineering community as error-prone, and one where even the simplest error can have significant and costly implications. Numerous methods have been proposed to facilitate this process (see, for example, McDermid 1994, Sommerville 1992). These methods focus on both the development of techniques to elicit requirements from users and notational approaches to allow these requirements to be presented to systems developers.
In the previous chapter we suggested that practical sociology may be studied empirically through ... more In the previous chapter we suggested that practical sociology may be studied empirically through the use of ethnography, which entails fieldwork or going and looking at the naturally occurring work of a setting, and the application of an analytic perspective to uncover the organisation of a setting’s work. We suggested, too, that there are a great many analytic perspectives available but that we focus exclusively on ethnomethodology and the naturally accountable character of work and its organisation. Uniquely, this perspective concentrates on the methodical ways in which a setting’s members assemble, build up or put their work together, and make it accountable to others in doing so. Work practice is another term for the methodical assembly of work and finding it is ethnography’s task as it makes visible a social machinery of interaction that a setting’s members use to do and organise their work. This machinery is usually ‘seen but unnoticed’, which is to say that members know and make use of it but pay little heed to it; instead they get on with whatever it is they are doing through its use. Like the animal hiding in the foliage, we need to attend carefully to the machinery of interaction to make it out and make it available to design reasoning. The issue we want to elaborate here is how we can find the machinery of interaction. To put it another way, how do we uncover work practice and make members’ methods visible? By way of an answer we want to explore a range of examples which articulate different orders or modal expressions of the phenomenon at work. The examples should not be read as definitions, only as concrete cases that display the methodical character of work.
This chapter elaborates the relationship between ethnography and systems design. It addresses the... more This chapter elaborates the relationship between ethnography and systems design. It addresses the turn to the social that occurred in the late 1980s as the computer moved out of the research lab and into our collective lives, and the corresponding need that designers had to find ways of factoring the social into design. It does so from the point of view of people who initially developed the ethnographic approach for systems designs, notably that cohort of sociologists and software engineers who came to be known as the Lancaster School. We provide a brief account of the impetus towards the turn to the social before moving on to consider how members of the Lancaster School set about addressing this problem of factoring the social into design through ethnography and what was involved in doing it. This is not a formal account but rather an informal one based on interviews with sociologists and software engineers who were there at the off so to speak. This retrospective brings to the fore the practical concerns that motivated both parties, the contexts in which they were working at the time, and the foundational need to develop a constructive relationship between ethnography and systems design. That is to say, the need to have ethnography help designers figure out what to build and to help them determine what works and what doesn’t. These are still extremely salient issues today. They underpin ethnography’s ongoing relevance to systems design and frame the following chapters in which we explicate the work involved in doing ethnography and relating it to systems development.
SwePub titelinformation: Working out IT in Medical Practice IT systems design and development as ... more SwePub titelinformation: Working out IT in Medical Practice IT systems design and development as co-production.
... Simon Kelly, Marian Iszatt White and Mark Rouncefield ... and Skills Sector', bu... more ... Simon Kelly, Marian Iszatt White and Mark Rouncefield ... and Skills Sector', but which also handed over the responsibility of inspection from the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) to the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI). ...
Fitton, D. and Cheverst, K. and Rouncefield, M. and Dix, Alan (2007) Exploring Adoption in the He... more Fitton, D. and Cheverst, K. and Rouncefield, M. and Dix, Alan (2007) Exploring Adoption in the Hermes Door Display Deployment. In: 1st International Workshop on Ubicomp in the Office, Ubicomp 2007. ... Full text not available from this repository. ... Lancaster EPrints is powered by ...
This chapter lays out some necessary context for the book by examining how the problem it address... more This chapter lays out some necessary context for the book by examining how the problem it addresses first came about as systems design encountered the need to engage more concretely with the social. We start by looking at the interdisciplinary character of work in systems design and how Human Computer Interaction (HCI) arose as an area of interest within it. A point of particular focus here is how systems design has mistakenly presumed social science to be a relatively univocal affair whereas, in fact, it contains a concatenation of different voices. A naive conflation of ethnography and social science therefore overlooks the contested character of ethnography within social science itself. Thus, when called upon to consider ‘new’ approaches to ethnography design is therefore confronted with a choice between a number of divergent perspectives upon the social. Much of design’s engagement with the social to date has been through collaboration with ethnomethodologists, who locate expertise in the social milieu. This contrasts with ‘new’ approaches, which locate expertise in the long-standing traditions of social science. This being the case we seek to highlight the real nature of the choice designers are being asked to consider. In the ethnomethodological approaches that characterise much of design’s early engagement with the social, the expertise design is being asked to engage with is the expertise of the members of society themselves who populate the settings that are investigated for design purposes. By contrast ‘new’ approaches, built upon traditional understandings of ethnography within social science, invite design to engage with the social scientist as expert, where the goal is to replace members’ expertise with the theoretical and conceptual machinery of social science.
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, 2010
This paper explores links between ethnographic approaches, technology design and use and values a... more This paper explores links between ethnographic approaches, technology design and use and values and beliefs. We document recent empirical work on the use of photographs amongst Chinese families; pointing to some differences with previous empirical studies from predominantly Western cultures and tentatively linking Chinese photo work to rather broader cultural values that may develop some ‘sensitivities’ for design. For some time ethnography has been interested in ‘values’ in methodological approaches and concerns. The notion of ‘values’ is also repeatedly called upon in ethnographic studies of (technology for) the home. In this appeal these studies tellingly echo Peter Winch's sentiments regarding how, in general, social life can be understood only through a understanding of beliefs. This paper documents and explicates photo work amongst Chinese families, linking the families' own explanations and comments about these practices to much wider, if particular, sets of social and cultural values and reflects on the potential influence of these values on technology design.
Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design... more Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design, when it is essential for designers to obtain as clear a statement as possible of the intended purpose and function of a system. The process of requirements capture and presentation is highlighted by the software engineering community as error-prone, and one where even the simplest error can have significant and costly implications. Numerous methods have been proposed to facilitate this process (see, for example, McDermid 1994, Sommerville 1992). These methods focus on both the development of techniques to elicit requirements from users and notational approaches to allow these requirements to be presented to systems developers.
In the previous chapter we suggested that practical sociology may be studied empirically through ... more In the previous chapter we suggested that practical sociology may be studied empirically through the use of ethnography, which entails fieldwork or going and looking at the naturally occurring work of a setting, and the application of an analytic perspective to uncover the organisation of a setting’s work. We suggested, too, that there are a great many analytic perspectives available but that we focus exclusively on ethnomethodology and the naturally accountable character of work and its organisation. Uniquely, this perspective concentrates on the methodical ways in which a setting’s members assemble, build up or put their work together, and make it accountable to others in doing so. Work practice is another term for the methodical assembly of work and finding it is ethnography’s task as it makes visible a social machinery of interaction that a setting’s members use to do and organise their work. This machinery is usually ‘seen but unnoticed’, which is to say that members know and make use of it but pay little heed to it; instead they get on with whatever it is they are doing through its use. Like the animal hiding in the foliage, we need to attend carefully to the machinery of interaction to make it out and make it available to design reasoning. The issue we want to elaborate here is how we can find the machinery of interaction. To put it another way, how do we uncover work practice and make members’ methods visible? By way of an answer we want to explore a range of examples which articulate different orders or modal expressions of the phenomenon at work. The examples should not be read as definitions, only as concrete cases that display the methodical character of work.
This chapter elaborates the relationship between ethnography and systems design. It addresses the... more This chapter elaborates the relationship between ethnography and systems design. It addresses the turn to the social that occurred in the late 1980s as the computer moved out of the research lab and into our collective lives, and the corresponding need that designers had to find ways of factoring the social into design. It does so from the point of view of people who initially developed the ethnographic approach for systems designs, notably that cohort of sociologists and software engineers who came to be known as the Lancaster School. We provide a brief account of the impetus towards the turn to the social before moving on to consider how members of the Lancaster School set about addressing this problem of factoring the social into design through ethnography and what was involved in doing it. This is not a formal account but rather an informal one based on interviews with sociologists and software engineers who were there at the off so to speak. This retrospective brings to the fore the practical concerns that motivated both parties, the contexts in which they were working at the time, and the foundational need to develop a constructive relationship between ethnography and systems design. That is to say, the need to have ethnography help designers figure out what to build and to help them determine what works and what doesn’t. These are still extremely salient issues today. They underpin ethnography’s ongoing relevance to systems design and frame the following chapters in which we explicate the work involved in doing ethnography and relating it to systems development.
SwePub titelinformation: Working out IT in Medical Practice IT systems design and development as ... more SwePub titelinformation: Working out IT in Medical Practice IT systems design and development as co-production.
... Simon Kelly, Marian Iszatt White and Mark Rouncefield ... and Skills Sector', bu... more ... Simon Kelly, Marian Iszatt White and Mark Rouncefield ... and Skills Sector', but which also handed over the responsibility of inspection from the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) to the Office of Standards in Education (Ofsted) and the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI). ...
Fitton, D. and Cheverst, K. and Rouncefield, M. and Dix, Alan (2007) Exploring Adoption in the He... more Fitton, D. and Cheverst, K. and Rouncefield, M. and Dix, Alan (2007) Exploring Adoption in the Hermes Door Display Deployment. In: 1st International Workshop on Ubicomp in the Office, Ubicomp 2007. ... Full text not available from this repository. ... Lancaster EPrints is powered by ...
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