2.4. Approaches to bridging work practice and system design

2.4.1. Ethnography informing design

A significant line of pioneering studies to bring ethnography into the design context was carried out in the COMIC project (Computer-based Mechanisms of Interaction in Cooperative Work, EU Basic Research Action 6225, 1993-1995)[2]1 and the research has continued by the Computer Supported Cooperative Work Research Centre (University of Lancaster). They have explored the ways in which micro-sociological insights gained by ethnomethodological ethnography can be used in software engineering. Rather than aiming at a comprehensively transformative take on design, the interest has been incremental. Hence, research has been focussed on how ethnographic studies of work can be used in specific contexts to inform the design of specific information systems. The series of research projects include the domains of air traffic (Harper & Hughes 1993, Hughes et al. 1993, Hughes et al. 1993), system design (Hughes et al. 1994), the police use of IT (Shapiro et al. 1991), and the financial sector (Rouncefield et al. 1994).

A practical approach has been adopted to address the problematics of ethnography and system design working together, for example in terms of different traditions and practices of communication and representation (e.g. the incommensurability of the rich descriptions of ethnography and the formal notations of design), real-world restrictions on resources in design projects, and of the ethnographer’s role in design as a project management issue. Based on the empirical research projects four roles in which ethnography can contribute to understanding the domain of application and relating the understanding to designers in various phases of the design cycle have been suggested: concurrent ethnography, quick and dirty ethnographic study, evaluative ethnography and re-examination of previous studies (Hughes et al. 1994).

The ways of integration are based on the idea that professional ethnographers would take care of the analysis and mediation between the workplace and the system design community while designers would make design decisions depending on the ethnographers’ explications of work in direct input to a requirements analysis. Conse­quently, it has become important to secure ways for effective communication between ethnographers and designers. Communication and dissemination of information would typically take place in ‘debriefing meetings’ where the designers asked questions of the ethnographers who act as user representatives (Hughes et al. 1993).

The dissemination of ethnographic information has been further facilitated by developing support for the structuring of fieldwork observations and records, such as a framework for the analysis of work practice to be presented in a more designer-friendly form (Hughes et al. 1997) and a software technology solution called Designers’ NotePad, to render fieldwork notes into a more design relevant form (Twidale et al. 1993).

The stance on working together in this approach could be characterised as ethnograp­hi­cal studies being considered of critical value in making visible the ‘real world’ aspects of a work setting, and holding that determining the implications of an ethnographic study is a design question. It is argued that the production and integration of ethnographic materials into design can best be achieved through the collaboration of professional specialists because of the very different nature of the exercises of design and fieldwork. Consequently, the collaboration of ethnographers and designers relies on disciplinary division of labour.

Interdisciplinary integration is seen as a functional activity where the existing disciplinary categories remain unchallenged, fundamental questions can be avoided and specialisation is championed (Salter & Hearn 1996). Ethnography has been contracted to the role of informational input, and the analytic aspirations of ‘innocent’ ethnography have made room for a more ‘informed’ inquiry conscious of the design problematics. This has lead to critical reflections of the challenge and changing role of ethnogra­phy/ethnographers when in contact with design (Shapiro 1994, Hughes et al. 1991). Curiously enough, the critical reflections on the part of ethnography have struck no responsive chords in the involved design community and the work has been continued along similar lines after the project (e.g. Viller & Sommerville 1999, Crabtree et al. 2000, Hughes et al. 1999).

2.4.2. Ethnography infused into a repertoire of Participatory Design methods

Another line of research integrates ethnographically informed studies of work with Participatory Design (see e.g. Muller & Kuhn 1993, Schuler & Namioka 1993, Greenbaum & Kyng 1991, Floyd et al. 1989, Ehn 1988). Although the Scandinavian PD approaches have traditionally emphasised work relevant issues, it is only recently that ethnography has been incorporated explicitly into design projects (Blomberg 1995) as traditionally users have been relied to provide enough knowledge and experience of work context to design. In the perspectives and field techniques of ethnography the PD community has found “a resource for methodological sustenance or even empirical descriptions of work” (Dourish & Button 1998, p. 407).

Participatory design approaches have increasingly started to include ethnographically-inspired fieldwork methods, such as open ended interviews and participant observation, into a repertoire of more traditional PD techniques, such as scenarios, mock-ups, simulations, future workshops, organisational games, and cooperative prototyping (see e.g. Bødker et al. 1993), to gain insights into the work practices and to create shared views on the work (Kensing & Blomberg 1998). The inclusion of ethnographic methods has been attempted both by engaging designer/researchers in fieldwork (e.g. Bødker et al. 1993, Bardram 1997, Kensing et al. 1998b), and by incorporating professional ethnographers into design projects (e.g. Christensen et al. 1998, Crabtree 2000, Büscher et al. 1999).

There is, naturally, variation between the heterogeneous PD approaches in their adoption of ethnographic insight. With its long-standing traditions in prototyping, the Cooperative Experimental System Development approach (CESD) at Aarhus University[3]2 has integrated work analysis into collaborative prototyping by coupling prototyping experiments to work-like situations and use scenarios (Bødker & Grønbaek 1991, Bødker & Grønbæk 1991, Mogensen & Trigg 1992, Grønbæk et al. 1997). It is seen that a sufficient understanding of the current work practice is needed for provoking practice, i.e. to be able to present alternative possibilities within that practice. As change is the overall objective, collaborative analysis is directed towards investigating current practice in relation to possible changes by challenging the established work practice. (Mogensen 1994.)

The researchers of the MUST program at Roskilde University[4]3, in turn, have inte­grated ethnographic fieldwork techniques into the collaboration of users and designer/researchers in the early phases of system design (Simonsen & Kensing 1994, Kensing et al. 1998a). The approach makes a distinction between abstract knowledge and concrete experience in three domains of discourse which are the users’ present work, new system and technological options. Ethnographic fieldwork methods have been used to learn about the users’ present work in particular work settings with a special emphasis on gaining an understanding of practitioners’ concrete experience.

The interest in ethnographically informed participatory design approaches has simply been on joining ethnographic methods with other PD techniques to create a context for design instead of addressing the more fundamental issues of interdisciplinary integration (for an exception see Crabtree 1998). “While ethnography and intervention contrast in terms of their basic approaches and intended results, we have experienced that at a practical level, combining the two approaches and iterating between them has been an effective way in learning about the organisation and has been an important resource in generating realistic visions of future use of technology” (Kensing et al. 1998b, p. 266). Some studies have taken a look at what actually takes place in prototyping sessions (Trigg et al. 1991, Bødker & Grønbæk 1996).

2.4.3. Reconstructing work practice and technology development

The last line of research portrays a comprehensive and influential research programme that was recently summarised in a retrospective account of the work carried out at Xerox PARC by a group of ethnographers and computer scientists working in the area of Work Practice and Technology (Suchman et al. 1999). For two decades they engaged in research a programme aimed at reconstructing technologies as social practice. They have seen the reconstruction as two interrelated projects: one is based on the anthropological tradition and calls for “making sense of what we have” and the other is more reformative with an agenda of “remaking what we have into something new” (ibid., 393).

The projects have been realised in three lines of research. First, they have carried out critical analyses of existing technical discourses and practices in the production of new technologies that have raised fundamental questions and reconceptualised central concepts of technology design (Suchman 1987, Blomberg 1987, Blomberg 1988, Orr 1990, Suchman 1994b, Suchman 1997).

The second line of research comprises studies of work and technologies-in-use with an interest in developing new ways of theorising the social and material organisation of everyday practice. They have explored in detail specific multiactivity, technology and document intensive forms of work, especially those that are in transition from paper-based to increasingly electronic media. Studied worksites include, e.g. administrative office (Suchman 1983, Suchman & Wynn 1984, Blomberg 1987), a law firm (Blomberg et al. 1996, Blomberg et al. 1997), a metropolitan airport (Suchman & Trigg 1991, Suchman 1993, Suchman 1997, Suchman 1996a) and the headquarters of a state transportation department (Trigg et al. 1999).

Third, they have investigated productive ways of relating work practice studies and technology design (Blomberg et al. 1993, Blomberg 1995) by addressing the practicali­ties and politics involved. By reconceptualising and restructuring the ways in which work and technology design are done they have carefully developed alternative, work-oriented and cooperative ways to intervene into the processes of professional technology produc­tion, such as Work-Oriented Design and case-based prototyping (Blomberg et al. 1996).

Work-Oriented Design projects have integrated studies of specific worksites with cooperative development of prototype systems. Detailed understandings of today’s workplaces, i.e. how people work using both existing and prototype technologies, form the basis for an exploration of future technologies and practices. The researchers have a commitment to a close collaboration with individuals from particular worksites. They have sought proactive ways of conducting fieldwork, for instance, by creating possibilities for practitioners’ involvement in using case-based prototypes to evaluate new technology potentials within actual use environments but have been restricted with regard, for instance, to bringing practitioners and designers into direct collaboration (Blomberg & Henderson 1990, Blomberg et al. 1997).

Case-based prototypes are artifacts that incorporate actual materials from workers in the sites of technology’s intended use. They are used as a way to support the imagination of future work practices in cooperative prototyping; they convey design ideas while maintaining their relation to work practices. In addition to providing for a possibility to iteratively gain user input throughout implementation, assessment and redesign, the prototypes also offer chances for discussion and mutual learning. The case-based prototypes offer potential future directions to be assessed in actual work and in relation to other technologies-in-use because individual technologies ‘add value’ only to the extent in which they work together in effective configurations. (Blomberg et al. 1996, Blomberg 1998.)

Another challenge in attempting to create a work-oriented design practice has been to develop innovative ways of making insights from research projects available to product development (Blomberg et al. 1996). The researchers have been committed to finding ways to engage the designers directly in exploring the implications of their field studies and prototypes for development projects (Blomberg et al. 1996, Blomberg & Trigg 2000).