Studies of work and the workplace in HCI [electronic resource] : concepts and techniques / Graham Button, Wes Sharrock.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.

Part of: Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science.

Series from website.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93).

Motivation -- Overview: a paradigmatic case -- Scientific foundations -- Ethnography -- The tradition of British social anthropology -- The Chicago school of sociology -- Interactionism -- Work and occupations -- Redefining organizations -- Subcultures -- Conclusion -- Ethnomethodology -- Conversation analysis -- Situated action -- Detailed description -- Critique -- Evaluation -- Requirements -- Foundational relationships -- Case study -- How to conduct ethnomethodological studies of work -- Maxim 1: keep close to the work -- Keep company with the participants -- Do not mediate the work through documents -- Work in real time -- Follow the work -- Work and organizational structure -- Maxim 2: examine the correspondence between the work and the scheme of work -- Reading off the procedures is not sufficient for design purposes -- Maxim 3: look for troubles great and small -- Troubles are instructive -- Do not measure troubles according to an external standard -- How do people distinguish between normal troubles and major hassles -- Work in its own terms -- Not theory-driven -- Tell-it-like-it-is -- Maxim 4: take the lead from those who know the work -- Maxim 5: where is the work done -- Making context more telling -- Setting the context -- Where is this work in the division of labor -- A working division of labor -- Work is an organizational matter -- Making observations -- Open your eyes -- It is not about you -- There is always something going on -- You get what you get -- A little goes a long way -- Current status -- References.

Abstract freely available; full-text restricted to subscribers or individual document purchasers.

Compendex

INSPEC

Google scholar

Google book search

This book has two purposes. First, to introduce the study of work and the workplace as a method for informing the design of computer systems to be used at work. We primarily focus on the predominant way in which the organization of work has been approached within the field of human-computer interaction (HCI), which is from the perspective of ethnomethodology. We locate studies of work in HCI within its intellectual antecedents, and describe paradigmatic examples and case studies. Second, we hope to provide those who are intending to conduct the type of fieldwork that studies of work and the workplace draw off with suggestions as to how they can go about their own work of developing observations about the settings they encounter. These suggestions take the form of a set of maxims that we have found useful while conducting the studies we have been involved in. We draw from our own fieldwork notes in order to illustrate these maxims. In addition we also offer some homilies about how to make observations; again, these are ones we have found useful in our own work.

Also available in print.

Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on April 7, 2009).