Actor Network Theory and Participative Design in CSCW

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Actor Network Theory and Participative Design in
CSCW

• Based on slides originally prepared by Magnus
  Ramage

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CSCW system for CS Department - Discussion

• How would you get started?
• Who would you involve?
• What sort of experts would be needed?

• How can we accommodate change within the
  organisation in our system?
• Is there a wider societal context to be
  considered?

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What CSCW can learn from Actor Network Theory?

• Actor Network Theory originated with John Law,
  Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University
  http//www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/jlaw.html

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Actor Network Theory

• Technological artifacts are open to sociological
  analysis, not just their usage, but especially
  with respect to their design and technical
  content.
• Technology is treated as a systems metaphor.
  Stresses the importance of paying attention to
  different but interlocking elements of physical
  artifacts, institutions and their environments.
  This brings into consideration the integration of
  technical, social, economic and political
  aspects.
• Breaks down the distinction between human actors
  and natural phenomena. Both are treated as
  elements in Actor Networks.

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Heterogeneousness

• Heterogeneous composed of unrelated or differing
  parts or elements.
• Actors are the heterogeneous entities that
  constitute a network
• No distinction between the animate and the
  inanimate, or individuals from the organization
• There is no outside/inside - that is, no
  social/technical dichotomy.
• The actor world shapes and supports the technical
  object.
• The actor network is reducible neither to an
  actor alone nor to a network.

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CSCW System for CS
Perspective A. Rigid, natural/social divide a
network in which the social and the technical
are already embedded.
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CSCW System for CS
New analytical base, network which gives rise to
the social and the technical.
CSCW
CS
Perspective B
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What CSCW can learn from Actor Network Theory

• Relations are not simply social. Society,
  organisations, agents and machines are all
  effects generated in patterned networks of
  diverse materials.
• Knowledge may be seen as a product of an effect
  of a network of heterogeneous materials.
• All our interactions with other people are
  mediated through objects of one kind or another.
• There is no reason to assume, a priori, that
  either objects or people in general, determine
  the character of social/ organizational change
  or stability.

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Taking a systemic perspective (1)
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Taking a systemic perspective (2)

• A set of inter-related components organised
  together to form an entity that, as a whole, has
  emergent properties that belong to no single
  component or subset of the components of which it
  is formed (Paul Lewis, 1994, Information-Systems
  Development)
• example of emergence riding a bicycle
• Thus the concept of socio-technical systems
  those which contain both social and technical
  aspects
• CSCW systems must be considered in this way
  (hence the onion)

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Participatory design (1)

• Involving users in the design process
• Good for organisations (helps buy-in)
• Good for workers (more control over work)
• Good for designers (more assurance their work
  will be used)
• Also often connected with industrial democracy -
  Scandinavian approach
• Quite threatening in hierarchical firms!
• Politics power issues crucial

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Participatory design (2)

• Principles (Greenbaum Kyng, Design at Work,
  1991)
• need for designers to take work practice
  seriously
• we are dealing with human actors, not
  cut-and-dried human factors
• work tasks must be seen within their context, and
  are thus situated actions
• work is fundamentally social, involving extensive
  co-operation and communication

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Participatory design (3)

• Some PD techniques
• Cardboard Computing
• Iterative / cooperative prototyping
• PICTIVE
• Evaluation Through Redesign
• Future Workshops
• Wizard of Oz (related)

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Plastic Interface for Collaborative Technology
Initiatives through Video Exploration (PICTIVE)

• Combines low tech design components with high
  tech video recordings
• Plastic icons are employed on a design surface
  and a video record is made
• Individual expertise is recognised - users on
  job/task scenarios, developers on system
  components
• shared concrete visualisation and social record