Transcript of Reading Bob Anderson, 1997: “Work, Ethnography and System Design” Seminar on Qualitative Methods...
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- Reading Bob Anderson, 1997: Work, Ethnography and System Design
Seminar on Qualitative Methods in Design WS11/12 Gunnar Stevens
Human Computer Interaction University of Siegen, Germany
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- WHAT IS THE AUTHOR ATTEMPTING TO ARGUE? HOW TO CAPTURE AND
ARTICULATE THE VALUE, WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY ACTUALLY BRINGS TO DESIGN
What do you think the author is most concerned about regarding this
issue? I hope to raise a few questions against which to assess how
far ethnography might actually be what design might need and be
able to use - Anderson
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- Motivating the papers topic CSCW as Point of departure Paradigm
arena for design-oriented ethnographic work (Moran & Anderson
1990) Reasons for its emergence Replacing of the mainframe paradigm
by the distributed computing paradigm Convergence of communication
and computational technology Emphasis on (co-located or
distributed) work groups Productivity paradox (Strassman 1990)
Expectations Overcome the productivity crisis and the failures of
using computer technology in practice Designers interested in
augmenting or replacing current artefacts... do well to understand
how they work, as well as what their limits are. In addition, those
interested in supporting the design of modifiable artefacts do well
to understand the everyday processes of modification.... Design
realism can be achieved, we believe, through new methods for
understanding the organization of work practice in detail. -
Suchman & Trigg 1991 Designers interested in augmenting or
replacing current artefacts... do well to understand how they work,
as well as what their limits are. In addition, those interested in
supporting the design of modifiable artefacts do well to understand
the everyday processes of modification.... Design realism can be
achieved, we believe, through new methods for understanding the
organization of work practice in detail. - Suchman & Trigg 1991
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- Motivating the papers topic Re-orientation of social science in
design Several approaches have (some) affinity to qualitative
methods Participatory Design and socio-technical system approaches
(i.a. Greenbau, & Kyng, 1991) Social studies of technology and
science (i.a Button, 1993) Organizational Theory (i.a Sproull &
Kieser, 1991) Re-orientation is generally welcome, yet often
produces unnecessary confusion: working with users came to mean
doing ethnography almost no distinction between fieldwork,
participant observation and ethnography neglecting the kinds of
analytic outputs which can be derived from or legitimated by them
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- Motivating the papers topic Fieldwork, ethnography and design
Fieldwork Umbrella term utilize many different ways of data
collection techniques, among them participant observation.
Ethnography Analytic strategy for assembling and interpreting the
results of fieldwork gathered very often by participant observation
Designers have, by and large, been more likely to be interested in
fieldwork in general than in ethnography in particular as
methodology to enhance current ways of understanding and
representing the end user requirements for interactive systems
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- THE ETHNOGRAPHIC HERITAGE To decide if ethnography is what
systems design ought to call upon, we need first to get straight
what ethnography is and where it came from - Anderson
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- European thread Inventing the Professional Stranger 1915:
(Modern) Ethnography is invented by Malinowski before him it was
mainly speculative histories with a taste of exotic reading Living
and working with the Trobianders (Island of New Guinea) for several
years Field study published in a series of detailed monographs
Becoming familiar with a culture by learning the language,
participating in day-to-day life and activities Collecting stories,
narratives, myths for the subjective understanding (verstehen
instead of erklren) and how the society represents itself
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- European thread Post-hoc representation and the bedrock of
given accounts An ethnography is a post hoc representation of what
has been seen, heard and found in the field. Writing the
ethnography is not just writing up the field notes. It involves
their interpretation and analysis. Functional explanations and
interpretations Activities as practical solutions of general
problems of societies (E.g. the Kula Ring in its function solving
the social cohesion problem) Yet, other theoretical frameworks are
possible (E.g. Barth 1967, Harris 1978, Levi Strauss 1969)
Ethnographic practice is a particular form of legitimation.
Ethnographers know in ways others dont and cant. And what they know
derives in part from personal experience. Things are not what they
seem, and appearances are certainly not the whole of the story.
This need to look behind appearances in careful, detailed and
systematic ways is, of course, the common inspiration of all
scientific and investigative work. It is also why ethnography
insists that the native, the participant, the actor, the person on
the Clapham Omnibus, is not necessarily the best judge and their
views the final arbiter on what they are doing. Of course we must
ask them. But we must also colligate their answers with many others
forms of evidence - Malinowski by Anderson
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- American thread Beyond the banana boat Born 1921: Franz Boas
and his studies of the native Americans of the Pacific North-West
Coast Interdisciplinary outlook Draws e.g. on psychology (M. Mead),
cognitive science (Bateson) No rigid separation between
Anthropology and Sociology or (commercial) System Design (like in
Europe) Studying a pre-industrial or certainly non- western culture
close to hand Comparative focus, e.g. what they found over there
with what was left at home. Oriented towards the subjective
experiential in contrast to the European focus around objective
institutional matters
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- Post-modernism All I want is the facts, Maam is no longer a
defensible position 1970s: adoption of Deconstructionism, taking
into account that writing culture is shaped by the socio-political
contexts of the author Once the authority of the ethnographers
experience had been undermined, to what else could they turn? Weak
implications Accepting that no Archimedean position exist, from
which a single, overarching, description to end all descriptions
can be derived The foreign appears in relation of the own
attitudes, values and orientations of its author and audience Weak
implications Accepting that no Archimedean position exist, from
which a single, overarching, description to end all descriptions
can be derived The foreign appears in relation of the own
attitudes, values and orientations of its author and audience
Strong implications Ethnographies always follow dominant
ideological structures (either affirmative or in resistance)
Representations are no more than the ideological epiphenomena of
such interests Strong implications Ethnographies always follow
dominant ideological structures (either affirmative or in
resistance) Representations are no more than the ideological
epiphenomena of such interests
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- Newer strands and topics Re-discovery of culture as communities
of practice Boys in White (Becker et al. 1961): Tracking the career
of medical students Eckert (1989): Focusing on unofficial aspects
of school and becoming a member of a culture in knowing the
distinct categories, symbols, codes and practices Situatedness of
action / workplace studies Garfinkel (1967): Instead that social
actors are programmed by culture, stability of social life is a
result of the actors mundane competence to make the situation
accountable for each other Machines can offer a number of accounts
of their own state, yet they are incapable of monitoring how those
representations are interpreted by the user.
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- RAISON DETRE OF BRINGING ETHNOGRAPHY TO DESIGN While Suchmans
work marks a turning point, it cannot really be thought of as
initiating a social science interest in advanced information
systems. [...] What it did more than anything else was to
contribute to the strengthening of design interest in social
science - Anderson 12
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- Relationship between ethnography and design Integration
Ethnographer is seen as a member of the design team including the
conceptual stage, the design requirements analysis stage, and at
the evaluation stage of the design Objectives of the studies are
primarily design oriented Complementarity Far the largest grouping
Questions not set by the design team but oriented towards what the
ethnographer perceives their needs to be raising designers
awareness or sensibilities with regard to particular aspects of the
setting within which the technology under consideration has to be
deployed Independence Primary not interested in direct and concrete
design implications Findings are positioned relevant to ongoing
debates within or between the social sciences (and sometimes with
design itself) 13
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- Set up an agenda of paradigmatic problems What ethnography
bring to design In Andersons view, the most important topics that
need to be discussed with regard to the role of ethnography in
design are: the character of the method the relationship to theory
the scope of findings the politics of intervention and the
recurring question of ethnographys capacity to cope with change Yet
Anderson remarks that this would express both a deep lack of
understanding of ethnography and a surprising lack of
sophistication concerning the processes of technologically inspired
change 14
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- Methodology The gift of writing Ethnography a gift of writing
up - not a methodology of finding out write with a voice and from a
point of view refer to hermeneutic disciplines for guidance,
instead than to the natural sciences. importance of (unique)
fieldwork experience, not the fieldwork findings Replications of
findings Some ethnographers do indeed see themselves producing
findings of the same logical order (but vastly different in style)
as experiments. Others would deny this entirely, stressing the
importance of voice, perspective and genre 15
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- Epistemology and Constitution theory The constitution of the
worlds we life in Proposal of a unified science of HCI following a
heuristic divide-and-conquer methodology (Newell and Card, 1985)
technical engineering-style of theory of a psychological form
Analyze pieces of the complex problem in isolation Ethnographers
rationalism (in a Kantian sense) with idiosyncratic tendencies
denial of the realism which underpins divide and conquer the worlds
of the social, the psychological, the physical, etc. are
theoretically constituted and hence the disciplines listed may well
be incommensurable. general scheme into which the various
disciplinary conceptual structures can be translated The tolerance
of ecumenism considered harmful mask the impossibility of
integrating incommensurable approaches (e.g. ethnography versus
experimental research) leave such integration to the wit and
ingenuity of the individual researcher 16
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- Scope of findings Context matters What the designer needs, it
is said, is generality generality is held to reside in
summarization or abstraction moves beyond the specifics of the
individual case use of notations or formalisms of some kind Common
misunderstanding With ethnography emphasis on particularity common
reservation against taxonomies are formalizations Manifold empty
and unusable generalizations in literature Cooperation is
important, work is complex, context matters, Ethnography can
provide abstractions but at the price of giving up on something
else 17
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- Politics of intervention Which Side Are You On? Traditional
stances Ethnography eschews intervention Designers see themselves
as technological, not social engineers Deconstructionism and
studies on the social construction of technology: When designing
technology, we are designing social relations Forms of argument are
not to be grounded in pure reason, but in social interests Raises
tough questions What could be the bases on which to evaluate
arguments, conclusions and the decisions derived from them? Whose
interests should be put first? The company? The users? The
discipline? 18
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- Coping with change Relative stability of social practices
Prejudice about the conservatism of Ethnography Any intervention is
bound to be devastating for existing practice Neglects the
evolutionary stance of Ethnography change is still part and parcel
of the phenomena under analysis What ethnographers like Suchman
refuse the inadvertent butchery of fine grained and complex
practices solely in the name of technologically driven change not
the fact of change which is in question but what is changed and
why; and in whose interests; and at whose behest Drawing on
implications for explicitly engineered change, it are ethnographers
not their ethnographies who are cautious. 19
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- DISCUSSION 20 The social turn began with a disillusionment with
prevailing ways of understanding use and users and with ways of
drawing on such understandings as there were through to the design
of systems - This still remains the challenge