This chapter explicates the work that went into developing a tool for work practice based participatory system design. First, it is described how I converted from a participant observer to a participant interventionist and what this new researcher role comprised (section 4.1). Then it is explained how I as a participant interventionist constructed my understanding for the redesign of the experimental teleradiology system (section 4.2). These experiences and reflections were taken advantage of in developing a tool for design practice (section 4.3). Last, the major findings achieved by analysing the actual instances of using this tool in workshops are elaborated (section 4.4).
The reflections on the changing role of fieldworker had already begun during the fieldwork of studying the teleradiology work practice as was described in relation to “becoming a participant observer” in section 3.1. I had frequently been in situations where the role of participant observer had not seemed appropriate, for instance, as the radiology practitioners would turn to me for assistance with the problems encountered in using the experimental system (see also Karasti 1997a, publication I). Therefore, I had accommodated a further aspect into my fieldworker role, that of a participant advisor, which was more proactive than participant observer but not yet intentionally interventionist. Furthermore, in stepping aside to reflect I often found myself also thinking about the system and evaluating how usable it was from the point of view of everyday work practice.
After studying the clinical trial period of the experimental system and before the project would proceed to designing the commercial version, the researcher role needed to be more explicitly addressed in order to be able to organise design interventions. Having learned the part of participant observer it was not unproblematic to turn into an interventionist, in fact, it required a careful reconsideration of how to integrate a more interventionist element into being a fieldworking researcher.
First of all, I could not see myself reverting to the taken-for-granted designer role predominant in system design as it seemed too unscrupulous for intervention that has emphasis on actual work practice. By this I mean that the designer role has remained rather unidirectional towards intervention because the field of system design is regarded as being profoundly about change and development, and having emphasis on the future. Furthermore, the designer role has prevailed insensitive to the social setting of system use because within design, change is seen technologically induced, and hand in hand with this attitude has gone a withdrawal from the ‘social change’.
I turned to approaches where the role of researcher has become more reflectively considered in relation to intervention. Ethnographic traditions have classically eschewed intervention in ways of life and have exercised special cautiousness in regard to influencing or intervening with the researched community[1], but the issues of intervention have become addressed as social scientists have come into contact with technology development. The emergence of such social science specialists moderating between work practitioners and computer system film developers is reported already in Blomberg (1987, 1988). Though there are differences on emphasis, ranging from user champion, proxy user to user surrogate, the adopted role of an ethnographer has been characterised as a mediator between the work site and system development activities (see e.g. Hughes et al. 1993, Bentley et al. 1992, Blomberg & Trigg 2000).
I could not see myself acting as a user representative in design because the radiology practitioners’ understandings of their work excelled mine especially in regard to such aspects of work that are important in envisioning images of future work practice and judging ideas posed for further teleradiology development, e.g. lived experience and historical understanding of work (cf. section 3.3). Furthermore, whereas other researchers report of the practical constraints resulting in restrictions of participation, especially in “the need to ‘channel’ the access to users” (e.g. Blomberg & Trigg 2000, Mambrey et al. 1998) we were fortunate to summon the different parties.
The mediator role has been criticized of being “without a substantive input” for intervention because it has an “attitude of casual observer and facilitator” (Engeström 2000). It has been argued that in the available ethnographic studies of work and the accompanying micro-level methodologies there is a prevalent dichotomy of “obtrusive prescription from above” versus “minimal informal facilitation”. The latter has been criticized to be an “unsatisfactory alternative” of “informal and opportunistic dialogue” (ibid., p. 151). Developmental Work Research has argued for a radical reconceptualization of a possible role of workplace researcher and has demanded for a “bold experimental attitude” in facilitating practical change (ibid.). I found it impossible to embrace the attitude of developmental interventionist with its implicit, exclusive and unquestioned researcher expertise (see also Vehviläinen 1991) because I had learned sensitivity towards and appreciation for the member’s point of view and practitioners’ knowledge of work practice through participant observation.
Though the above roles did not seem appropriate for my purposes they provoked me into reflecting about an interventionist researcher role that would correspond to my approach. In deliberating upon the role that is both appreciative of actual work practice and also explicitly acknowledges change that is intertwined with system design, I have come to think of intervention as a way of participation. The role of participant interventionist[2] is intimately based on being a participant observer (section 3.1) and it necessitates carrying out fieldwork to construct an appreciative understanding of work practice (section 3.3) before turning into a participant interventionist.
Similarly to the role of participant observer a participant interventionist also has a double role to play: a participant and an interventionist. She tries to retain her immersion in the practitioner’s point of view and attachment with actual work practice while she also needs to gain some distance to be able to assess the use of specific technologies in work and to form her understanding of their usefulness in actual work practice.
From the privileged vantage point of having access to both inside and outside perspectives a participant interventionist is able to recognise that technologies are intimately and intricately intertwined with change. As a participant observer I had participated in the ongoing change processes and been involved in the actual instances of problem solving and local innovation in the workplace. As participant interventionist I needed to take an explicit interest in the endogenous change and development, especially in relation to technology use, and to articulate what they comprise. In accordance with her appreciative understanding of work practice the participant interventionist is liable to account for and to make visible and intelligible for system design the ongoing transition in the workplace and the ways in which change is initiated by practitioners from within the work practice.
As mentioned already above in relation to ‘constructing a fieldworker’s understanding of teleradiology work’, my background in system design and a growing understanding of radiology work allowed for a privileged outside perspective already during fieldwork for assessing the system as part of everyday work practice. In addition to the continuing assessment of system use, as participant interventionist I further explored the technology-use relation by reflecting on how to improve the system’s usefulness at work. As a result, I outlined potential system design issues from within the interest of actual work practice.
As system design is always carried out in/for someone’s interest (Suchman 1994b), the paramount concern of participant interventionist is to influence technology development with a special preoccupation with actual work practice and consideration for a practitioner’s point of view. Rather than legitimating any particular outside expertise for design and intervention she promotes an epistemological stance of multiple situated and partial views from within actual work practice collaborating with other interested parties. Thus the role suggests creating possibilities for multiparty collaborative activities of meaning making and constructing shared understandings in system development.
By adopting the role of participant interventionist I have become to view myself as a participant in the co-construction of meaning. My contention is that the fieldworker’s understanding of work practice is just one view among the multitude of others. It is as partial and situated as the others, but it is also distinctively different from them as it is a unique combination of inside-outside views.
The main contribution of participant interventionist for collaborative system design is based on gathering an analytic understanding of how particular technologies are used in work activities, formulating a systematic assessment of how useful they are for work practice, and forming a careful delineation of design issues from within the actual work practice. In this the researcher continues to intentionally make use of the double role that grants her access to both inside and outside perspectives. The construction of such a fieldworker’s understanding in relation to the experimental teleradiology system redesign is elaborated below.
| [1] | The issue has been discussed within the field of qualitative social sciences, and increasingly it has become acknowledged that the social scientists always have an impact on the researched community. |
| [2] | In interviewing me about my research in summer 1997 Ellen Balka came up with the term of participant designer in reference to my changing role in the integration of work practice and system design. However, participant designer to me seemed to require the designer role as a more constitutive part, I rather saw my role as organising interventions to make room for collaborative design, in which I, of course, also participated myself. Furthermore, in this context with professional designers participating I have preferred to emphasise my role as participant interventionist. |