Alison Crerar

Ethnography, theory and systems design

The idea for this paper came from a debate at the 1998 ISCRAT conference in Denmark on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). A leading activist in the movement to bring CHAT into systems design, Bonnie Nardi, asked the question; would design not benefit more from training better ethnographers than from burdening them with such a complex set of theoretical concepts and debates as CHAT? This paper seeks to answer that question on the basis of our experiences applying CHAT concepts in a long-term design ethnography at a UK newspaper. It examines the history of the often controversial triadic relationship between ethnography, theory and systems design and argues that the CHAT framework provided us with the opportunity to move from ethnographic intuition to design insight, and that therefore the answer to Nardis question is no?simply training good ethnographers is unlikely to be enough for a number of reasons (not least of which is the problem of how inexperienced fieldworkers become design ethnographers). The explicit use of theoretical frameworks, at least those such as CHAT which are particularly suited to design issues, discourages the tendency for ethnographers to see themselves as “proxy users” by encouraging greater reflexivity about the researchers role in constructing the object of study. At a more pragmatic level, it helps the fieldworker navigate the apparently never-ending mass of “potentially interesting material” any field experience throws up.

Integrating usability into systems development.

This chapter is aimed at project managers and software developers who are new to the concept of user-centred design and may be unsure of what resources are required and what impact such efforts will have. Of course, if an organization is thinking of adopting a user-centred approach to systems development, it must expect to invest. However, this investment does not mean that each organization has to reinvent the wheel. There are many principles, guidelines and standards which can be easily and cheaply adopted. There are consultants, educationalists and experts ready to provide expertise and advice. There will often be “in-house” resources in the form of quality assurance functions, active and interested end users or system designers who are ready to take on usability issues.

Interfaces to Data Models: Taking a Step Backwards

This paper is concerned with data modelling and the question of how to improve the quality of software tools to provide more effective support for the modeller. With the increasing interest in building intelligent interfaces to databases and associated support tools, we thought it instructive to embrace human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts, particularly ideas of user needs analysis and methods of interface evaluation. In the pilot study reported here, we step back from implementation issues to learn more about what goes on during the modelling process. Three competent student modellers were filmed giving a spoken commentary as they tackled an on-line modelling task. Two subjects, ST1 and ST2 used a software tool developed in-house, while subject FC modelled the same scenario using a flip-chart. Analysis of the resulting video film yielded a number of interesting insights into how the three subjects approached the task, and in particular, about how their medium helped or hindered. In this report we concentrate mostly on subjects ST1 and FC who proved to be well matched in ability, neither evidencing any conceptual difficulties. The observations made from this preliminary experiment confirm the untapped potential of this technique among the database community. Moreover, on the basis of the findings, it seems that we have much to learn from going back to pen and paper, about the features a successful data modelling tool should provide.

A Question of Realism

We present the results of an exploratory study investigating the feasibility of using multimedia software to teach life skills to adults with learning difficulties. As a precursor to determining whether the clients would benefit from the software, we needed to address the issue of realism in visual displays, to discover if photorealistic images of a familiar kitchen and utensils were essential, or if the clients would be able to abstract and apply information from generic cartoon-like representations. The level of realism was varied in two sets of tasks: object recognition exercises and problem-solving scenarios. Realistic versions of each task contained photorealistic images, and the problem-solving scenarios used images and speech of a support worker known to the participants to supply feedback and prompts. Unrealistic versions used clip art images and a cartoon-style character instead of the support worker. Contrary to expectations, measurements of errors and reaction times revealed the level of realism to have a negligible effect upon user performance in both sets of tasks. What has emerged is the overwhelming effect of individual differences on the design and evaluation of learning software.