Increasing sensitivity towards everyday work practice in system design

Helena Karasti

Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu

Abstract

This thesis explores the integration of work practice and system design in deliberating upon how to increase the sensitivity of system design towards everyday work practice. The attempt to make work practice visible and intelligible for system design necessarily relates to two very different bodies of knowledge: the actual work activities and knowledge of practitioners, and what is considered relevant information for requirements analysis in system design. The strategy of this work comprises the integration of ethnographically informed study of work practice and participatory design by drawing on the longitudinal fieldwork of studying technologically mediated radiology work and promoting work practice based participatory design interventions into technology projects in the clinic of radiology. The adopted theoretical attitude of interweaving construction and reconstruction necessitates questioning and reconfiguring some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of disciplinary dichotomies and conventional frames of reference both with regard to ethnographic traditions focused on current practices as well as technology-centered and future-oriented system design.

Radiology, with its ongoing and complex transition from film-based to digitally mediated work, has provided the concrete setting for thinking about the relations between researcher, designer and work practice practitioner in an attempt to find ways in which to sensitise system design towards everyday work practice. Establishing the relevance between ethnographic findings of work and design specifications requires a reformulation of work practice that appreciates the everyday fluency of work practice and recognises the endogenous change for the needs of system design. The possibilities of extending the multivoiced expertise prevalent in participatory design with an explicit interest on emic-etic views and knowledges inherent within ethnographic traditions is explored through reflecting on the changing researcher knowledge and location. The reflections are also used in developing a tool for work practice oriented participatory design and in constructing the role of participant interventionist. Through mutual exploration and constructive collaboration of ethnographic and participatory design traditions as well as scrutiny of actual design sessions, the dimensions of analytic distance, horizon of work practice transformations and situated generalisation are put forward as general interactions of work practice sensitive participatory design.

Table of Contents
Preface
List of original publications
1. Introduction
1.1. Research interest and questions
1.2. A guide for the reader and an introduction to the original publications
2. Bridging work practice and system design
2.1. Research setting in clinical radiology
2.2. Work practice
2.2.1. Social organisation
2.2.2. Technological mediation
2.2.3. Socially constructed knowledge and meaning
2.2.4. The intertwined character of unfolding activities
2.3. System design
2.3.1. From work to work practice orientation in participatory design
2.3.2. Direct multiparty collaboration with extended practitioner participation
2.3.3. Knowledge and expertise
2.3.4. Developing tools and techniques for collaboration in design
2.4. Approaches to bridging work practice and system design
2.4.1. Ethnography informing design
2.4.2. Ethnography infused into a repertoire of Participatory Design methods
2.4.3. Reconstructing work practice and technology development
2.5. Research approach and process
2.5.1. Video-assisted, ethnographically informed study of work practice
2.5.2. Interaction Analysis
2.5.3. Ethnomethodologically inspired
2.5.4. Interdisciplinary working
2.5.5. Researcher location
2.5.6. Action research
2.6. Empirical research of radiology work
2.6.1. A longitudinal series of situated fieldwork phases
2.6.2. Studying the co-existing ways of working mediated with different technologies
3. Ethnographically informed fieldwork
3.1. Becoming a participant observer
3.1.1. Learning participation
3.1.2. Learning observation coupled with interviewing
3.1.3. Learning to appreciate everyday work practice ‘as it is’
3.2. Video-assisted fieldwork methods to study radiology work practice
3.2.1. In situ interviewing with radiology nurses
3.2.2. Shadowing film developers
3.2.3. Stimulated recall interviews with radiologists
3.3. Constructing a fieldworker’s appreciative understanding of teleradiology work practice
3.3.1. Participating
3.3.2. Observing
3.3.3. Accounting for the multiplicity of insider views
3.3.4. Integrating insider-outsider views
4. Towards work practice based participatory system design
4.1. Turning into a participant interventionist
4.1.1. The role of participant interventionist
4.1.2. Participant in the co-construction of meaning
4.2. Constructing a fieldworker’s understanding for an appreciative intervention into teleradiology system redesign
4.2.1. Identifying endogenous change
4.2.2. Taking distance to analyse and assess system use
4.2.3. Juxtaposing differently mediated ways of working
4.2.4. Appreciating actual work practice and assessing system-in-use situations
4.2.5. Synthesizing situated and partial views
4.2.6. Exploring the integration of a participant’s and an interventionist’s perspectives
4.3. Developing a tool for design practice
4.3.1. Participation
4.3.2. Work practice represented in video collages
4.3.3. Collaborative analysis, evaluation and (re)design
4.4. Learning from an actual instance of tool use
4.4.1. The interplay of views in the co-construction of shared understandings
4.4.2. Four elements contributing to the gravitation on work practice
5. Increasing sensitivity towards everyday work practice in system design
5.1. Radiology work in transition
5.1.1. The technological mediation of work practice transformed
5.1.2. From technology driven to work practice oriented systems development
5.1.3. Changes in technology acquisition
5.2. Video-based WPASED workshops - A tool for design practice
5.2.1. Multiparty participation
5.2.2. Video-based design tool
5.2.3. Integrating the perspectives of analysis, evaluation and design
5.2.4. Discussion of practical contributions
5.3. The dimensions of work practice sensitive participatory design
5.3.1. Analytic distance in the analysis of work
5.3.2. The horizon of work practice transformations
5.3.3. The situated generalisation
5.4. Building on researcher experience and location
5.4.1. Constructing the fieldworker’s understanding through the change of roles
5.4.2. The participant interventionist in comparison to other researcher roles of integration
5.4.3. The interdisciplinary researcher
5.4.4. The participant interventionist and stances of interdisciplinarity
6. Appreciating everyday work practice in system design
6.1. Reformulating work and change from the point of view of actual practice
6.2. Exploring the integrations of emic and etic views and knowledges
6.3. Extending expertise in work practice based participatory design
6.3.1. Practitioners’ expertise
6.3.2. Participant interventionist’s expertise
References
List of Figures
1. A groundplan for the radiology department in OUH depicts the most relevant work spaces, devices and tools used in the CT-neurology examinations.
2. The teleradiology system overview.
3. The teleradiology workflow and related articulation work.
4. Workshop participants co-viewing a sequence of video-collage.
5. Sari is sitting on the table and preparing the video camera to record Maija’s work with the teleradiology system in the small room where the scanner and computer workstation were located in the Kuusamo Primary Care Center. An interested by-passer on the left has stepped into the room to follow what was going on.
6. In situ interviewing while observing roentgen nurses doing head examinations on a CT scanner. Sirkka and Arja, two roentgen nurses (on the left), explain to me (facing the camera) the next procedure while Anne, the patient nurse (who can be seen through the window), is preparing the patient. A medical student (on the right) observes.
7. Liisa, a film developer, is preparing the next day’s roentgen meeting for surgeons. I am videotaping (reflection in the mirror) her intensively material oriented activities.
8. In a stimulated recall interview Kari, a teleradiologist, has risen up from the chair to point out on the TV screen an interface detail of the display application the use of which he is explaining. I am closely watching his explanation.
9. The perspectives and shared object of activities in the WPASED workshops.
10. The dimensions of integrating systemic analysis and appreciative intervention: (1) The analytic distance, (2) The horizon of work practice transformations, and (3) The situated generalisation.
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