The Influence of Sociology and Anthropology within CSCW

1
The Influence of Sociology and Anthropology
within CSCW

• or, what are workplace studies?

2
Some ways of studying the social world

• Talking to people
• ranges from individual interviews, through focus
  groups, to group exercises
• Watching what people do
• things theyd be doing anyway
• greatly influenced by anthropology
• Getting people to do things
• experimental studies, outside real world

3
The argument for situated studies

• Looking at people in real situations (workplace
  studies) is more meaningful than in the
  laboratory
• the situations are too complicated to reduce to
  their constituent parts
• Finding the problem is the hard part finding the
  solution is then easy
• but potentially very invasive!

4
What is ethnography?

• Method used by anthropologists
• ethnos nation/culture, graphe writing
• originally used in studying foreign tribes
• then switched to studying local tribes
• Very long-term immersion in a culture,
  understanding its values, customs, language etc
• detailed field-notes, conversation transcripts
• entirely qualitative

5
Why is ethnography so influential?

• How to spot an ethnographer look for the cloak
  of invisibility
• All about studying local situations
• good at exploring detailed issues over a long
  time
• rather shorter times used in CSCW
• Seen to work in early work in CSCW

6
Ethnomethodology

• A way of working with ethnographic data very
  influential
• Ultra-detailed analyses of second-by-second
  activity
• Concerned with how people make sense of the
  world regards this as more important than
  structures processes
• Claims non-invasiveness objectivity

7
Some other analysis methods

• Structuration theory (Giddens) mutual dependence
  of structure of society and human ability to act
  freely
• Grounded theory (Strauss) focus on the data, the
  theory will come later
• Breakdown analysis (Winograd Flores) where the
  user has cause to focus on the system rather than
  the task

8
Key lessons from workplace studies (1)

• Plans are post-hoc rationalisations not guides
  for action (Suchman on photocopier users)
• Vaguely knowing what your neighbour is doing is
  crucial (Heath Luff on underground controllers)
• The use of physical artefacts can carry as much
  information as what they say (Hughes et al. on
  air-traffic controllers flight strips)
• People construct work-arounds to get their work
  done in the face of inadequate/unhelpful
  technology (Bowers et al., on workflow systems in
  printing)

9
Key lessons from workplace studies (2)

• Many organisations have one person whos been
  there for decades knows everything (the Mavis
  Phenomenon - Rouncefield, studying a large bank)
• Constant interruptions to peoples work are often
  the point of the work (Hughes et al, small
  office)
• Disparity of work benefits (Grudin, electronic
  calendars)
• Critical mass systems arent useful until most
  people are using them aka network effect
  (also Grudin)

10
Grinters summary of workplace studies

• People make assessments about data based, in
  part, on the status of the provider
• Individuals make some of their work visible to
  others, and also monitor each other
• Peoples perceptions of technology affects the
  ways that they use it
• Work is dynamic and involves many channels of
  communication
• Spatial information provided by the arrangement
  of papers and personnel lets others know the
  current activities of the entire group
• People construct and share interpretations of the
  work-in-progress
• Work often deviates from the planned activity in
  order to accommodate situated action
• Maintaining context supports long-term
  collaboration
• (Rebecca Grinter, From Workplace to
  Development What Have We Learned So Far and
  Where Do We Go?, Proceedings of GROUP 97)