HCC class lecture 19 comments

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HCC classlecture 19 comments
John Canny4/4/05
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Administrivia

• No class on Wednesday CHI
• Social networks (next reading) should be online
  Friday.

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Knowledge Ecologies

• Sometimes bundled as part of Actor-Network
  Theory, draws on a similar tradition to Latour
  anthropological and sociological studies of
  science.
• The ecology metaphor is used by Susan
  Leigh-Star, Bonnie Nardi and Vicky ODay. A
  different emphasis from Latour more concern
  about social groups (communities of practice),
  centers of power and the boundaries between them.
  
• Another key figure in this line of research is
  Donna Haraway, author of A Cyborg Manifesto.

4
Immutable Mobiles

• Kinds of artifacts that convey essentially the
  same meaning independent of context
• Maps
• Math equations
• Charts, graphs etc.
• Far more prevalent in science than in other
  realms of human endeavor.
• They dont require knowledge of the writers
  context or background, as do novels or many other
  texts.

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Immutable Mobiles

• Semiotics introduced a number of concepts to
  think about immutable mobiles. These include
• Realism the philosophical perspective that
  things exist in the world independent of words.
• Modality the degree of truth or reality of a
  sign. I.M.s are at the extreme end of realism
  the signifier is supposed to unambiguously denote
  the thing.
• Readerly (vs. Writerly) texts the meaning of the
  text is clear to the reader.
• The discussion of modality explicitly separated
  the map from the territory. So does Piagets
  work there is a specific stage when children
  understand how to navigate the neighborhood
  first-hand, but not using a map.

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Layered Representations

• Seems to mirror Latours idea of black boxes
• The representations are exposed as one opens up
  the boxes.
• Some are opaque (unopened), while others are
  exposed.

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Formalism and Distance

• Stars focus is on what happens at a distance, as
  immutable mobiles cross social boundaries.
• As we saw with Wengers readings, many objects
  intended as immutable mobiles, such as
  insurance claim forms, are anything but that.
  The desire for formalism apparently faces
  insurmountable obstacles.
• Fortunately, there are still people in the loop
  to figure out what to do.

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Formalism and Distance

• Any push towards greater formalism should be
  matched by a greater understanding of the group
  work context.
• i.e. in order to make mobiles really mobile,
  one must understand the resources and conventions
  at the likely sources and destinations.

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Freezing Representations

• In reality, the layered representations used in a
  complex organization tend to move by themselves.
• A natural strategy to force stability is to
  freeze various parts of the representation with
  specifications or standards.
• Put another way, design is about making
  progressive commitments. In practice these
  commitments are not made top-down, or bottom-up,
  but at arbitrary levels driven by all the
  constraints in the system.

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Boundary Objects

• Boundary objects are artifacts that mediate the
  interaction between different work-groups, or
  communities of practice.
• Rather than spanning time and space arbitrarily
  (as immutable mobiles), they mediate between
  specific communities.
• But otherwise they share similar properties. In
  general, the more concrete they are, the
  better.

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Brokering

• Boundary objects, as the term suggests, are
  objects.
• Boundaries can also be mediated by people, called
  brokers. These people speak the language of
  two or more communities, and it is understood
  that their role includes mediation between them.
• Brokering is a complex role which involves
  reconciling perspectives and philosophies. It is
  a difficult political space since the foci of
  power are in centers of discipline or
  perspective.

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Brokering

• Brokers are often in a difficult situation since
  they must represent the views of a conflicting or
  a competing group, but must avoid taking sides.
  
• Brokers often form communities of practice of
  their own to address these issues.

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Discussion Topics

• T1 List some boundary objects that you routinely
  work with. What are the communities between which
  these objects mediate? Are there brokers as well?
• T2 Suppose you wanted to identify boundary
  objects or brokers computationally. What kind of
  data would you need, and what would you do with
  it?