Anderson, R. J. 1994. Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design. Human-computer interaction 9: 151-182.  Home/Search   Document Not in Database   Summary   Related Articles   Check

....organised around three main dimensions; distributed coordination , plans and procedures and awareness of work ; thereby facilitating effective communication and collaboration between designers and ethnographers. INTRODUCTION The value of ethnography in design is a matter of some controversy [1] [2] 10] and while we are strong supporters of the method, the role of ethnography as we have practised it is primarily as an informational input to the design process, which can, nevertheless, be of critical value in making visible the real world aspects of a work setting. It is this ....

....conclusions from the results of ethnography. A case can be made for ethnography (or sociology) having a more far reaching impact upon design, insofar as it provides a means to rethink the nature of the social world that is being designed for, or to rethink the designer s role within that world [1] [2] It can be, it has been, argued that ethnography (or sociology more generally) ought to carry implications for design as in one of our colleague s (indelicate) suggestion that it was time for Sociology to piss or get off the pot . However, our concern has not been with anything so ....

Anderson, R. J., (1994), 'Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9 pp. 151-182.

....observational methods are non reductive, in that they do not attempt to reduce what goes on in what is being studied to a simple relationship or a dependent variable. Instead questions such as what problems do users have or how do people manage to finish what they are doing are asked [2, 5, 24]. While observational methods can be less successful in establishing if a particular design is more productive or valuable for users, they do generate rich data which can be used to answer a range of different questions for developers. Observational methods in particular can be applied in settings ....

Anderson, R.J. Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design. Human-computer interaction, 9. 151-182.

....enable work to be accomplished. Although the emphasis is on the detailed, minute by minute description of events, ethnographic methods involve far more than mere detailed description but bring a particular focus to the analysis of systems in use and thereby outline the play of possibilities [1] for work and design; to enable designers to question the taken for granted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem solution design framework ( 1] 170) This paper is concerned with comparing two instances of groupware usage in the Bank Project RATE, the utilisation of a videolink ....

.... mere detailed description but bring a particular focus to the analysis of systems in use and thereby outline the play of possibilities [1] for work and design; to enable designers to question the taken for granted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem solution design framework ([1]:170) This paper is concerned with comparing two instances of groupware usage in the Bank Project RATE, the utilisation of a videolink between different sites within the Bank; and the SYCOMT Project, the installation and use of a network for the electronic exchange and integration of ....

Anderson, R. J., (1994), 'Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' HumanComputer Interaction, Vol. 9 pp. 151182.

....approaches, and it is important not to be too ambitious for any method, least of all in systems design where new methods follow one another with monotonous regularity and where design is, at best, a satisficing activity. The role and value of ethnography in design is a matter of controversy (Anderson, 1994; Rogers et al. 1995) However, if the turn to the social within systems design means that designers should be informed about the social character of work, and it is recognised that ethnography is an important means of gaining such knowledge or sensitivity, then serious attention needs to be ....

Anderson, R.J. (1994). Representations and requirements: the value of ethnography in system design, Human-Computer Interaction, 9(1), 151-182.

....constellations of assistance and deployment of local knowledge that enable work to be accomplished. Ethnographic methods involve, therefore, far more than mere detailed description but bring a particular focus to the analysis of systems in use and thereby outline the play of possibilities (Anderson 1994) for work and design; to enable designers to question the taken for granted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem solution design framework (Anderson 1994:170) It is in these senses that ethnography can perhaps be understood as a bottom up method for re specifying and developing a ....

.... description but bring a particular focus to the analysis of systems in use and thereby outline the play of possibilities (Anderson 1994) for work and design; to enable designers to question the taken for granted assumptions embedded in the conventional problem solution design framework (Anderson 1994:170) It is in these senses that ethnography can perhaps be understood as a bottom up method for re specifying and developing a more sophisticated view of business processes. Our argument is that the descriptive and analytic techniques to be found in ethnographic approaches provides an ....

Anderson, R. J., (1994), 'Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9 pp. 151-182.

....been suggested that this gulf can be bridged by adapting ethnographic methods to better meet the needs of designers (Hughes et al. . 1994) yet others contend that by such adaptation, many of the benefits, in terms of the provision of contextualised, situated accounts, are lost in the compromise (Anderson 1994). It is my belief that these modelling problems, and the attendant debates, are in part reflections of a narrow focus of design activity, which emphasises representation of working context within the system, rather than supporting activities which take place around it 2 . This distinction ....

Anderson, R., Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design, in Human-Computer Interaction , 9, 1994, pp 151-182.

....the work of the last year in any detail it is worth briefly restating the position that has emerged within the COMIC project on ethnographic studies in design and the nature of the framework. Ethnographic Studies in Design The value of ethnography in design is a matter of controversy (cf. Anderson,1994, 1995, Rogers, 1995) and we have consistently argued, as in D2.1 that there are no panaceas for the problems of, even, requirements capture in CSCW design. Given this background we can only expect ethnography (or the sociology that may be associated with it) to have a modest utility to design. ....

....you and to say only just enough to keep you talking. quoted in Barley 1989) The research method adopted in this study is that of ethnography although, as suggested in the earlier reports, ethnography is neither a single nor simple method, see Hughes et al., 1994; Button and King, 1992; Anderson, 1994; Pycock et al., 1994) but is a gloss on various (and sometimes different) research approaches and analytic frameworks. The framework employed here is broadly that of ethnomethodological ethnography . The distinguishing characteristic of the ethnographic approach is the researcher s relatively ....

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Anderson, R. (1994), `Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9..

....WESCON , August 1970, 1 9 and reprinted in Ninth IEEE international conference on software engineering , Washington D.C. Computer Society Press of the IEEE 1987, 328 38. Rudd, J. Stern, K. and Isensee, S. 1996) Low vs high fidelity prototyping debate. Interactions, January 1996, 76 85. Sanderson, P.M. and Fisher, C. 1994). Exploratory sequential data analysis: foundations. Human Computer Interaction 9, 251 317. Schegloff, E.A. and Sacks, H. 1973) Opening up closings. Semiotica 8, 289327. Schegloff, E.A. Jefferson, G. and Sacks, H. 1977) The preference for selfcorrection in the organization of repair in ....

Anderson, R.J. (1994). Representations and requirements: the value of ethnography in system design. Human-Computer Interaction 9, 151-82.

.... world are ethnographies and that the idea of ethnography as a method for the specification of end user requirements for systems is predicated in a misunderstanding of ethnography s role in social science , he stated flatly that designers do not need ethnography to do what they wish to do (Anderson, 1994, p. 153) designers may well work closely with users, engage in fieldwork among the end user organizations for whom they are designing; and focus on the intersection of the technological, Version 3.0, 17 June 1998 To appear in Christian Heath, Jon Hindmarsh, and Paul Luff (eds. Workplace ....

....of the working environments within which their designed systems will find a place, all without ever engaging in the kind of analytic ethnography [ found in the social sciences. In fact, doing ethnography may prove a barrier to achieving the goals that designers want to set themselves. (Anderson, 1994, p. 155) 1 While Anderson s observations that not all kinds of qualitative studies of social life in the real world are ethnographies and that ethnography cannot serve as a requirements analysis methodology are topical and appropriate, he did not get to what I consider the root of much of ....

Anderson, Robert J.: `Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design,' Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 9, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New York, 1994, pp. 151-182.

....and importance for work (Randall, 1995) In contrast our work began with a sharper focus which will be described later. However, we omit aspects of a situation that an ethnographer would record. But ethnographers openendedness is often seen as a weakness when it is used for requirements capture (Anderson 1994). By being more restricted our approach is better suited to drive systems design. Ethnomethodology has also been used within HCI (Suchman, 1988) Ethnomethodologists observe, collect and analyse data and decide what is relevant about work activity as it really is, not as an idealised conception ....

....ordered but in how it becomes ordered in and through the processes of interaction. The main contrast between ethnomethodology and other modes of sociology is that it seeks to describe from within how people actually order their work activities through mutual attentiveness to what has to be done. Anderson (1994) calls it society s lived work . We too were seeking to describe people s work activities but again the a priori focus on specific aspects of work distinguish our approach. Armed with the knowledge of what work had to be done we were interested in establishing breakdowns which could affect the ....

Anderson, R.J., (1994) Representations and Requirements : The Value of Ethnography in System Design. In Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 9, Lawrence Erlbaum, pp 151-182.

....design commences; evaluative ethnography to validate design proposals; the re examination of previous studies to inform early design. On the other hand, critics have cautioned against the view of ethnography as a data collection technique, instead pointing to the value of analytic ethnography (Anderson, 1994), an ethnographic orientation (Cooper et al. 1995) or foundational analysis (Nyce and Lwgren, 1995) where normally taken for granted concepts are challenged and radically novel design possibilities are brought to light. 8. CONCLUDING REMARKS In this section, I summarize some salient ....

Anderson, R. (1994). Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design. Human-Computer Interaction 9(2):151-182.

.... can be overcome by adapting methods of analysis such as ethnography to better meet the needs of designers (Hughes et al. 1994) however others contend that by adapting methods in this way, many of the benefits in terms of provision of contextualised, situated accounts are lost in the compromise (Anderson 1994). We believe that these modelling problems, and the resulting debates, are artefacts of an inappropriate focus of design activity and reflect a narrow interpretation of the notion of computer support for cooperative work. In this paper we are concerned with an alternative approach; one which ....

Anderson, R. (1994): Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design, in Human-Computer Interaction, 9, 1994, pp 151-182.

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Anderson, R. J. 1994. Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design. Human-computer interaction 9: 151-182.

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R.J. Anderson, Representations and requirements: the value of ethnography in system design, Human-- Computer Interaction 9 (1994) 151--182.

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Anderson, R. J., (1994), 'Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9 pp. 151-182.

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Anderson, R. J., (1994), 'Representations and Requirements: The Value of Ethnography in System Design.' Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 9 pp. 151-182.

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Anderson, R. J. (1994). Representations and requirements: The value of ethnography in system design. Human-Computer Interaction 9, 151-182.

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