Coherence : an approach to representing ethnographic analyses in systems design

Viller, Stephen and Sommerville, Ian (1999) Coherence : an approach to representing ethnographic analyses in systems design. Human-Computer Interaction, 14 (1-2). pp. 9-41. ISSN 0737-0024

Abstract

This article is concerned with how to represent in system design the kinds of features of work settings as reported by ethnographic studies of work. Various researchers and practitioners have found that ethnomehodological analyses of work settings can provide useful insights to the work processes and settings in which system design is interested. Previously at Lancaster University, we examined ways in whisk ethnography can be used in h e design process and how the results of ethnographic analyses can be presented in such a way as to be useful components of the design process. This article reflects an effort to approach these methodological issues from a different perspective. It examines how the lessons learned from ethnographic studies can be reflected in the design process itself and in particular how standardized design artifacts (e.g., models, documents) can express the type of information that ethnographic studies produce. The article focuses on how ethnographic analyses can influence the main representational artifact in systems design—the model of the system being developed. We examine how the Unified Modeling Language for object-oriented design can be used to express information about awareness in cooperative systems.