Transcript Usability Inspection Methods: Executive Summary

Understanding Practice:
Video as a Medium for
Reflection and Design
Lucy A. Suchman & Randall H. Trigg
In ‘Design at Work’, Greenbaum and Kyng, pp. 65-89, 1991
Presented by Sung Won Lee
http://people.cs.tamu.edu/sungwon/671.html
What is this paper about?
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The value of using video when performing
ethnographic studies
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Ethnography : the study and systematic
recording of human cultures; also : a descriptive
work produced from such research
(from m-w.com)
Work as Situated Activity
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Work : a form of situated activity in the
design of new technology
-development of the artifacts and
development of work practice
-work/technology relation
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Sample study - Routine Trouble in an
Airline Operations Room
-complex sheet
-computer-based?
-need new methods for understanding work
practice in detail
Work Practice and Design
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Sociality
-community rather than the individual
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Closeness of designers to users
-design from a distance
-> gap between scenarios and
actual circumstances
Ethnography and Interaction Analysis
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Ethnography
- traditional method of social and cultural
anthropology
- careful study of activities and relations
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Interaction Analysis
- detailed investigation of the interaction of people
with the material environment
- focus on joint definition and accomplishment of
the work
What we record
Setting-oriented records
 Person-oriented records
 Object-oriented records
 Task-oriented records
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How we work as researchers
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First - a rough content log of the entire videotape
- issue-based logging
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Careful transcription
- detailed sequential analyses (focus on non-vocal interaction)
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Interaction analysis
- uncover the regularity and efficacy
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Video-based interaction analysis
- A powerful corrective to our tendency to see
in a scene what we expect to see
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Time consuming and labor intensive, but worthy
Tool
Reflection and Design
RESEARCH
Appreciation for
Current practice
Reflection
Action
Research
Rich
Descriptions
Future Visions
DESIGN
Design scenarios,
Prototype Evaluation
PRACTICE
Points / Discuss
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Video allows to see the action repeatedly.
Participants usually do not perceive information
that is obvious to them and their recollection of
events is not very accurate.
Video promotes the analysis and understanding of
the situation, to proceed with a fast prototype and
return to the analysis and understanding of the
new situation.
What is the applicability in the industry?
Doesn’t it require too much time?
Lucy A. Suchman
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Professor, Anthropology of Science and Technolo
gy
Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, U
K
awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer
and Cognitive Science and elected to the Academ
y of ACM SIGCHI in 2002
1979-2000 researcher at Xerox Palo Alto Researc
h Center, most recently as a Principal Scientist an
d manager of the Work Practice and Technology
area, a multidisciplinary research group
Ph.D. in Social/Cultural Anthropology
from the University of California at Berkeley in 19
84
Recent publications
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2002 (with R. Trigg and J. Blomberg) Working Artefacts: Ethnomethods of the prototype. British Jou
rnal of Sociology Vol. 53, No. 2:163-179.
2002 Practice-based design of information systems: Notes from the hyperdeveloped World. The Info
rmation Society, 18:1-6.
2001 Building Bridges: Practice-based ethnographies of contemporary technology. In Schiffer, M. (
Ed.) Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.
163-177.
2000 Making A Case: "Knowledge" and "Routine" work in document production. In Luff, P., Hindmar
sh, J. and Heath, C. Work, Interaction and Technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
pp. 29-45.
2000 Suchman, L. and Bishop, L. Problematizing "Innovation" as a Critical Project. Technology and
Strategic Management Volume 12 (1):327-333.
2000 Organizing Alignment: A case of bridge-building. Organization, Vol. 7 (2):311-327.
2000 Embodied Practices of Engineering Work. Mind, Culture & Activity, 7(1&2): 4-18.
1999 (with J. Blomberg, J. Orr, and R. Trigg) Reconstructing Technologies as Social Practice. In P. L
yman and N. Wakeford (Eds.) .) Special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist on Analysing Virtu
al Societies: New Directions in Methodology, Vol. 43, No. 3, November/December, pp. 392-408.
1999 Working Relations of Technology Production and Use. In Mackenzie, D. and Wajcman, J. (Eds.)
The Social Shaping of Technology, Second Edition. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, pp. 258
-265.
1999 (with J. Finley, J. Muse, J. Blomberg, S. Newman and R. Trigg) O Night Without Objects. In C.
Harris (Ed.) Art and Innovation: The Xerox PARC Artist-in-Residence Program. Cambridge: MIT Press
, pp. 46-101.
1998 Human/Machine Reconsidered. Cognitive Studies Vol. 5, No. 1, March, pp. 5-13.
1997 Centers of Coordination: A case and some themes. In Resnick, L. B., Säljö, R., Pontecorvo, C.,
& Burge, B. (Eds.) Discourse, Tools, and Reasoning: Essays on Situated Cognition. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, pp. 41-62.
1997 (with J. Blomberg and R. Trigg) Back to Work: Renewing Old Agendas for Cooperative Design. I
n M. Kyng and L. Mathiassen (Eds.) Computers and Design in Context. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p
p. 268-287.
1997 The Social and Interactional Dimensions of Human-Computer Interfaces, Peter J. Thomas (Ed.)
, reviewed in the American Anthropologist Vol. 99, No. 3, pp. 660-661.
1996 (with J. Blomberg and R. Trigg) Reflections on a Work-Oriented Design Project. Human-Comp
uter Interaction, Volume 11, pp. 237-265.
Randall H. Trigg
•Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of Maryland, 1983.
•1999 Participatory Design consultant at the Global Fund for Women,
a non-profit that supports international groups working for
women’s human rights.
•1992 - 1999
Research scientist, Work Practice & Technology group Xerox Palo
Alto Research Center Research in
ethnographically-influenced participatory/cooperative design,
tailorable system design, open hypermedia.
•1989 - 1992
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus
University.
Research in participatory design and system development,
hypermedia, tailorable systems and open architectures.
•1984 - July 1989
Researcher, Xerox Corporation Researcher on the Workplace
project. Co-design and implementation of the Activity
Representation Tool to support the work of video-based interaction
analysis.
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Trigg, R. H. (2000). From Sandbox to "Fundbox": Weaving participatory design into the fabric of a busy non-profit. Proce
edings of the Participatory Design Conference (PDC 2000). T. Cherkasky, J. Greenbaum, P. Mambrey, J. K. Pors (eds.).
Palo Alto, CA, USA: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). 174-183. Grønbæk, K., & Trigg, R. H. (199
9). From web to workplace: Designing open hypermedia systems. MIT Press.
Trigg, R. H., Blomberg, J., & Suchman, L. (1999). Moving document collections online: The evolution of a shared reposit
ory. Proceedings of the Sixth European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW'99) . S. Bødker, M
. Kyng, K. Schmidt (eds.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. 331-350.
Suchman, L., Blomberg, J., Orr, J. E., & Trigg, R. (1999). Reconstructing technologies as social practice. American Beha
vioral Scientist, 43(3), 392-408.
Trigg, R. H. (1996). Hypermedia as integration: Recollections, reflections and exhortations. Keynote address: Hypertext '
96 Conference, Washington, DC.
Blomberg, J., Suchman, L., & Trigg, R. (1996). Reflections on a Work-Oriented Design Project. Human-Computer Intera
ction, 11(3), 237-265. Earlier version appeared in R. Trigg, S. I. Anderson, & E. Dykstra-Erickson (Eds.), Proceedings of
Participatory Design Conference (PDC'94). Palo Alto, CA, October. Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, P.O
. Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717, 99-109.
Grønbæk, K., & Trigg, R. H. (1996). Toward a Dexter-based model for open hypermedia: Unifying embedded references
and link objects. In Proceedings of Hypertext'96. Washington, DC, March 10-14. ACM Press, 149-160.
Blomberg, J., Suchman, L., & Trigg, R. (1995). Back to Work: Renewing Old Agendas for Cooperative Design. In Proceed
ings of Third Decennial Conference on Computers in Context: Joining Forces in Design. Aarhus, Denmark, August 14-18.
Trigg, R. H., & Bødker, S. (1994). From implementation to design: Tailoring and the emergence of systematization in CSC
W. In R. Furuta & C. Neuwirth (Eds.), Proceedings of the Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW'9
4). New York: ACM Press, 45-54.
Grønbæk, K., & Trigg, R. H. (1994). Design issues for a Dexter- based hypermedia system. Communications of the ACM,
37(2), 40-49.
Suchman, L., & Trigg, R. (1993). Artificial Intelligence as Craftwork. In S. Chaiklin & J. Lave (Eds.), Understanding Practic
e. New York: Cambridge University Press, 144-178.
Suchman, L., & Trigg, R. H. (1991). Understanding Practice: Video as a Medium for Reflection and Design. In J. Greenba
um & M. Kyng (Eds.), Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbau
m Associates, 65-89.
Trigg, R. H. (1991). From trailblazing to guided tours: The legacy of Vannevar Bush's vision of hypertext use. In P. D. Ka
hn & J. Nyce (Eds.), From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine . Academic Press.
Trigg, R. H. (1988). Guided Tours and Tabletops: Tools for Communicating in a Hypertext Environment. In Proceedings o
f ACM CSCW'88 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. New York: ACM Press, 216-226.
Trigg, R. H., & Irish, P. M. (1987). Hypertext Habitats: Experiences of Writers in NoteCards. In ACM Hypertext'87 Proceed
ings. New York: ACM Press, 89-108.
Trigg, R. H., Moran, T. P., & Halasz, F. G. (1987). Adaptability and Tailorability in NoteCards. In Proceedings of IFIP INTE
RACT'87: Human-Computer Interaction , 723-728.
Trigg, R. H. (1983). A Network-Based Approach to Text Handling for the Online Scientific Community. Ph.D. Thesis, Dept
. of Computer Science, University of Maryland (University Microfilms #8429934), November.