Heljä Franssila

The formation of coordinative knowledge practices in distributed work: towards an explanatory model

Purpose – The paper proposes a model aiming at the explanation of the formation of coordinative knowledge practices in distributed work. Findings from a pilot study aiming at the preliminary testing of the model are presented and discussed.Design/methodology/approach – The explanatory model was developed by combining concepts and findings developed in studies of social capital, knowledge sharing and computer supported cooperative work. The empirical data were gathered in 2007‐2008 in a multi‐unit Finnish chemical company production site. The methods used were structured observation of work processes, semi‐structured interviews and a web‐based questionnaire.Findings – The model suggested that coordinative knowledge practices are shaped by four major factors: work coupling, social capital, spatio‐temporality and affordances of collaboration technologies. The empirical study showed that these concepts can be successfully applied in empirical research to better understand and support the development of coordi...

Developing measures for information ergonomics in knowledge work

Abstract Information ergonomics is an evolving application domain of ergonomics focusing on the management of workload in the real-world contexts of information-intensive tasks. This study introduces a method for the evaluation of information ergonomics in knowledge work. To this end, five key dimensions of information ergonomics were identified: contextual factors of knowledge work, multitasking, interruptions at work, practices for managing information load, and perceived job control and productivity. In total, 24 measures focusing on the above dimensions were constructed. The measures include, for example, the number of fragmented work tasks per work day. The measures were preliminarily tested in two Finnish organisations, making use of empirical data gathered by interviews, electronic questionnaires and log data applications tracking work processes on personal computers. The measures are applicable to the evaluation of information ergonomics, even though individual measures vary with regard to the amount of work and time needed for data analysis. Practitioner Summary: The study introduces a method for the evaluation of information ergonomics in knowledge work. To this end, 24 measures were constructed and tested empirically. The measures focus on contextual factors of knowledge work, multitasking, interruptions at work, practices for managing information load, and perceived job control and productivity.

Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media

Media in the Ubiquitous Era: Ambient, Social and Gaming Media focuses on the definition of ambient and ubiquitous media from a cross-disciplinary viewpoint. This book is unique in the sense that it does not only cover the field of commerce, but also science, research, and citizens. Through a set of contributions to the MindTrek, a non-profit umbrella organization for societies working in the fields of digital media and information society, this book is a must have for anyone interested in the future of this area.

User Experiences and Acceptance Scenarios of NFC Applications in Security Service Field Work

The goal of the study was to understand how security service personnel experienced the usability, reliability and work performance effects of the current NFC service in use, what were the key development needs related to the information management and communication in their work, and which of the future NFC scenarios were found to be potentially most attractive. The results of the study show that user experiences of the NFC service were moderately positive, though there were mixed results considering the performance effects of use of NFC services. Potential usefulness of proposed future NFC service functionalities was considered quite high.

Email intensity, productivity and control in the knowledge worker's performance on the desktop

Experiencing stress, disturbing interruptions, loss of ability to concentrate, hurry and challenges to meet tight deadlines at work are very common in working life. At the same time, while variety of digital communication channels like instant messaging, video calls and social networking sites are getting more popular in working life, email is still intensively utilized work communication media. The goal of the empirical field study analyzing daily desktop computing of knowledge workers was to analyze association between email intensity in work time spending and subjectively experienced quality of work performance. It was found that while intensive email use does not impair subjectively experienced productivity, it may harm ability to concentrate, may increase forgetfulness and inability to solve problems at work effectively.

Enhancing information interaction as a means for situation awareness maintenance in mobile field work

Maintenance of situation awareness is of critical importance for the safe and productive execution of mobile field work. However, there is scarcity of research considering maintenance of situation awareness in mobile field work settings. The case study analyses information interaction as a means to maintain situation awareness. The empirical data for the study were collected from security service personnel participating in a pilot of guarding service based on NFC (near field communication) technology. NFC enables ubiquitous and location- and context-aware computing. Interviews, on-site observation and a questionnaire were conducted to define situation awareness requirements and to assess both current user experiences and future scenarios of NFC-based information support for security service work. Results of the study show that information interaction challenges were related to non-value-adding information activities when trying maintain situation awareness. Challenges were related to disturbances in information flow between clients, security service back office and field. It was found that maintaining situation awareness in circuit guarding was more challenging than in local guarding. Future NFC functionalities providing information support in particular for maintenance of short-term situation awareness were assessed as promising.

Special Issue International Academic MindTrek2008: Entertainment and Media in the Ubiquitous Era

This special issue is devoted to a selection of papers from the 2nd International Academic MindTrek Conference that yearly takes place in Tampere, Finland. The conference was organized in cooperation between Tampere University of Technology (TUT), University of Tampere (UTA), and the MindTrek Association. The International Academic MindTrek 2008 Conference featured the theme ‘‘Entertainment and Media in the Ubiquitous Era’’ and was organized in three different tracks: ubicom, digital games, and social media. The International Academic MindTrek 2008 Conference was in co-operation with ACM SIGMM, and ACM SIGCHI and attracted more than 800 attendees. MindTrek is special, as it brings together a cross-disciplinary crowd of people discussing media from business, social, technical, and content viewpoints. MindTrek features various activities, such as competition, business conference, and the academic conference. This special issue includes five papers, which are extended versions of their original submissions. The original submissions can be found in the ACM Digital Library together with the other conference papers. The authors origin from Australia, Finland, France, Spain, and Czech Republic, contributing their viewpoint to technological, social, and content aspects of entertainment media in the ubiquitous area. As chairs of the Academic MindTrek Conference 2008, we congratulate the authors of the papers, which made it into the special issue the selection was very competitive. We would like to thank the Program Committee of the MindTrek Conference, as their help made the conference possible. We especially would like to thank Prof. Thomas Plagemann in the position of the MSJ Editor-in-chief for giving us the possibility to publish selected papers within this issue. Special thanks also go to Prof. Brian Bailey for acting as ‘shepherd’ for this issue, thus his advices and help in the process of its creation.

Adjusting the Design Target of Life-Cycle Aware HCI in Knowledge Work: Focus on Computing Practices

The goal of this work-in-progress paper is to consider the utility of current theoretical and methodological HCI and work analysis approaches in understanding and supporting knowledge workers in their coping with contemporary computing ecosystems at work, and pinpoint the limitations of the design target formulation in current HCI approaches. The new approach discussed is to focus the design efforts, instead of technical artifacts, into the observation, understanding and development of computing practices as a resource for knowledge work. Alternative, emerging conceptualizations and methodological options to study and advice the development of everyday computing practices in knowledge work is proposed.