5.2. Video-based WPASED workshops - A tool for design practice

5.2.1. Multiparty participation

Though multiparty participation has often been presented as one way to align ethnographic studies of work and system design (e.g. Blomberg et al. 1993, Jordan 1996a), there are few examples of actual instances of multiparty collaboration in analysis and design. More typical forms of collaboration seem to be either between ethnographers and designers (e.g. Lancaster CSCW research group) or between designers and users (e.g. PD approaches).

The proponents of PD strongly argue for user participation: “The experience of the end users cannot be effectively mediated by representations of work or representatives of users, such as system analysts or ethnographers” (Kyng 1995). Whereas some ethnogra­phers question both the practical possibilities of user participation and the competency of users in design: “a serious constraint to the practice of user-centred design is the availability of users” (Bentley et al. 1992, pp. 128-129), “while users often understand the nature of their own tasks very well, they are not always aware of how these fit into the overall organisation of work activities” (Hughes et al. 1993, p. 240), and “a sense of their [users]; interests and satisfactions which may otherwise limit a willingness to make admissions, recognise alternatives, and explore options. … It is not that the users cannot talk about what they know, or how things are done, but they may not be familiar with the problem of organising their explanations in the context of design problems” (Randall et al. 1994, pp. 255-256).

In our case three parties, i.e. practitioners, designers and researcher/fieldworkers, participated in the WPASED workshops and collaborated in all activities for the co-construction of shared understandings of work practice and system design issues. I argue for multiparty participation in work practice based system design because there is a necessity for multiple partial views and knowledges. In this work I have mainly focussed on practitioner and fieldworker/researcher participation. An outside analytic view of work practice is needed though not enough by itself, as ethnographers/fieldworkers are limited with such knowledge and experience that is valuable with regard to evaluating design ideas and thinking about future. Practitioners have their lived experience from within the actual work practice and, therefore, their participation is needed in such a way that recognises the challenges with user participation.

5.2.2. Video-based design tool

I have started using video for data gathering in connection to fieldwork (section 3.2) and its use has come to form a continuum in my work as I have repeatedly realised the potential of video to be explored in the context of bridging work practice and system design. I have used video for the recording of work activities during fieldwork, in the stimulated recall interviews, for the detailed interaction analyses of work activities, for the preparation of edited video collages to be worked on in the workshops and in the video-based workshops themselves, all of which are elaborated in Karasti (1997b), publication II[1].

During the last decade or so there has been a growing interest in the possible uses of video in research. The use of video in qualitative social science research has increased, for instance, in such areas as video-assisted ethnography and studies of social interaction within the workplace as well as ethnographically inspired inquiry into technology use in work contexts. Also the uses of video in system design have started to be explored (e.g. Suchman & Trigg 1991, Wall & Mosher 1994, Brun-Cottan & Wall 1995)[2]3. Where some emphasise the analytic abilities in video work (e.g. Carter & Anderson 1989, Jordan & Henderson 1994), others promote exploring the potential of innovative uses of video in design, such as video as ‘design material’ (e.g. Buur et al. 2000, Binder 1999). The current state of research on video use in design is well captured in: “Video documentary on work practices appears to most designers as a valuable input to the design process, but the leap from documentary to design artefacts is difficult and poorly understood” (Buur et al. 2000, p. 21).

I have explored ways in which to combine the use of video as material for analysis and design. Already the stimulated recall interviews suggested that the border between data gathering and analysis can be blurred as the sessions provided for both more data for further analysis and a possibility for collaborative analysis and learning (Karasti 1997b, publication II and section 3.2.3). In preparing the video collages for workshops I realised that, in addition to using them as representations of work practice, I could also incorpo­rate in them some of my ideas of how to join analysis of work practice and system (re)design. The video collages could work as material to be worked on, medium for collabo­ration and a shared object of participants in the workshops, thus creating possibili­ties for integrating co-analysis, multiple interpretations and design dialogue in the workshops.

Analyses of the WPASED workshops have revealed several interesting qualities of the use of video collages as tools in collaborative activities. First, the fieldworker who has constructed her understanding of actual work practice by transforming from a participant observer to a participant interventionist edits the video collage according to her under­stand­ing of the actual work practice. Thus the contents of video collage reflect the fieldworker’s inside-outside understanding. They make visible both the multiple situated views of practitioners and locations from within the actual practice (emic) as well as integrate an overall view of the entire work practice as it is gathered according to an outside, analytic and synthesized view (etic).

Secondly, the fieldworker can edit into the video collage her ideas of how to bridge work practice and system design. The sequential structure and order of viewing organises the workshop activities respectively. In the case of teleradiology redesign, the collage started with the film-based work for establishing shared understandings of traditional practice and then offered for juxtaposition the emergent teleradiology work to be evaluated and redesigned.

Though the contents and structure of the collage reflect the fieldworkers’ understand­ing, it does, however, not act as a too strict agenda in the workshop because video as easily accessible and rich material allows for the participants’ interpretations. This brings us to the third point which is that the video collage renders the work familiar and strange to practitioners. By representing the ordinary practice it evokes the practitioners’ experi­ences and recollections. The video also functions as a mirror for self-confrontation by giving the practitioners a chance to see their work as if with the eyes of an outsider and to analyse it without being immersed in its everyday accomplishment.

Fourthly, the video collage allows workshop participants to have access to actual instances of everyday work as they have taken place. The participants can engage and remain focussed in analysing how work is actually carried out in everyday practice. In comparison, in the typical experimental PD techniques the focus is somewhere else than actual work as the techniques are more future-oriented and technology-centered. Therefore, it has been pointed out that there may be a discrepancy between how users see their work when immersed in carrying it out and when removed from the actual practice (Crabtree 1998, p. 95) which may have a distorting effect on the construction of understandings of everyday work. This issue is elaborated in section 5.3.1.

Fifthly, and in close relation to the preceding point, as the video collage was edited from recordings of naturally occurring work activities to provide for instances of everyday work practice as it ordinarily takes place, it allowed for analysis and identification of both the smoothly unfolding routinised ways of working as well as the problems and disturbances encountered in the course of working (cf. ‘mirrors’ portraying problematic occurrences and aspects of everyday practice for analysis, Engeström 1996).

Sixthly, a video collage portrays technology necessarily as technology-in-use as it comprises instances of technologically mediated work activities. In this way it allows the participants to focus on the actual use of technologies as a necessary part and parcel of everyday work without, however, diverting attention solely to the technology, but rather maintaining its embeddedness in the actual work in which it is used. Again in comparison to the PD techniques, in experimental environments it becomes difficult to maintain a shared understanding of what is representational, what is coincidental and what is actual in, for instance, the prototype, and therefore explicit work needs to be done by participants to discern the differences (Kyng 1995, p. 54). By representing technology-use-at-work the video collage affords for a possibility, in addition to analysis, to evaluate the technology under scrutiny as part of the everyday work practice.

Lastly, by depicting co-existing but differently mediated ways of working the video collage allows for their analysis and juxtaposing. By comparing and finding relations between the contexts the participants start to evaluate the system-in-use, to generate ideas to improve its usefulness, and to envision images of future technology and work practice. The video collage creates a setting where analysis of work practice, evaluation of system-in-use situations and (re)design can meet and conjoin by bringing together different ways of working in the same situation. With emphasis on the existing ways of working, the WPASED workshops, undisputedly, give less support to the future context than to the ones of current practice. Therefore, integrations with more future-oriented techniques could be explored to create more balanced tools for design practice.

5.2.3. Integrating the perspectives of analysis, evaluation and design

The third essential idea of WPASED workshops is the integration of analysis, evaluation and design. Based on the experiences gained in the workshops and insights achieved through their analysis I suggest integrating the perspectives of analysis, evaluation and design (cf. the perspectives of practice, research, and design (Suchman & Trigg 1991) and of use, design and evaluation (Bannon 1996)) with the video collage of actual work practice as the shared object for collaborative activities (see Figure 9, p. 104). The participants are encouraged to engage in and shift between the perspectives during the workshop.

The video collage forms the shared object (Figure 4, p. 62) and loosely structures the participants’ collaboration in the workshop with its built-in assumptions on how to base joint activities on analysis and how to support participants in grounding design issues in work practice. By viewing videotaped instances of work the participants can maintain a sustained analysis of everyday work practice (e.g. the viewing of clip 2 was paused for discussions 11 times in the workshop on radiologists’ image interpretation, see Karasti 2000, publication IV, p. 6). The collaborative analyses make the complicated practice more easily accessible, shareable and understandable also for the non-practitioners. The co-constructed understandings of traditional film-based work practice serve as a shared foundation – as if an emergent and evolving criteria - as evaluation and envisionment start to interweave with analytic activities.

The practitioners can share their lived experiences of work, both about the traditional ways of working as well as about the new system as they are evoked by the video collage. Seeing the everyday work as if an outsider helps in engaging in a new, analytic perspective towards the so familiar practice. Learning that other practitioners have faced similar problems, for instance with using the new technology, they can move forward from blaming themselves to more aptly and reflectively evaluating the system. Expanding their situated views of work through sharing and analysing a variety of situated activities and views, the practitioners can also account for others’ work and mutual collaboration. Practitioners can evaluate the proposed design ideas by relating them to their local knowledge and lived experience. By projecting their experience and expertise they can engage in design by envisioning images of future system and work practice.

The designers can familiarise themselves with the concrete work with the support of practitioners and participant interventionists in making the complicated practice more understandable. Essential from the designers’ point of view seems to be the possibilities of engaging in the collaborative analysis, asking questions without having to know the exact terminology and getting informed answers from multiple practitioners ‘from within’ the work practice. The designers can see the technology they have developed in use and learn to evaluate it from the point of view of actual work practice. They can suggest improvements to the existing system, offer other technological potentials to be evaluated and get immediate feedback on their design ideas. engage

The fieldworker/researcher is already familiar with alternating between analysis, evaluation and envisionment through fieldwork and engaging in the role of a participant interventionist. Therefore, s/he can assist the other participants in taking on and shifting between the perspectives. This is not to suggest that the fieldworker could not contribute to the collaborative activities in other ways, on the contrary, s/he can offer observations and ideas for discussion while supporting the collaborative learning process.

5.2.4. Discussion of practical contributions

The WPASED workshops hardly brought about any once-and-for-all change-over in the technology development practices of the clinic of radiology. However, they did offer the first chance for work practice oriented participatory design and provided for a neutral forum and appreciative environment to explore the often delicate issues. Some of the outcomes and ideas for increasing sensitivity towards actual work practice in technology development have persisted.

During the follow-up study (fieldwork phase IV, see Table 2, p. 53) I noticed that the interface and functionality of the system had been further developed to comply with the design issues raised in the workshops (e.g. two monitors, black image background, simul­ta­neous access to all patient images, date of exposure available on image heading, two functions for greyscale adjustment, see Karasti 2000, publication IV). The professional designers also told that they continuously, though not systematically, collected user feedback in connection to their site visits. My observations of such instances revealed that the practitioners aptly analysed their system use and the system’s functionality and that in this they would resort to some of the ideas of the workshop. For instance, in relation to a demonstration session of new system features the radiologist would try out the newly added enlargement function by using it in the interpretation of that day’s cases. He would take the designers through the cases by explaining what he was doing and highlighting what was important from his point of view. He would compare the use of the new function to the previous possibilities for enlargement and also to the film-based practice. In juxtaposing the traditional and teleradiology ways of working he would concretely alternate between the computer workstation and an adjacent alternator to clarify his points and to persuade the designers.