Showing papers by "Lucy Suchman published in 1988"

Automatically creating a second workspace operation record including history data and a unit ID based on a first workspace operation

Abstract: A data processing system creates a log of operations performed on data units within a data structure, such as on objects corresponding to cards and links in a hypermedia database. The log includes items, each with data indicating an operation and indicating the unique identifier (UID) of each object affected by the operation. In response to a user request, the system scans through the log and includes appropriate data in the object corresponding to a special card called the history card. The data included in the history card's object for an item in the log can include a description of the operation indicated in that item and data for providing access to an affected card through an icon that is presented in the history card. Data indicating the affected card's UID is also associated with the history card's object, either by being included in the object or by being included in a linking data unit or object associated with the history card's object and with the affected card's object. The icon can be a pointer icon that provides one-way access in which case the user can subsequently request that the pointer icon be converted to a link icon that provides two-way access; in response to such a request, the system creates a linking object accessible both from the history card's object and from the affected card's object. The system also provides a user interface through which the user can select the types of events for which data is included in the history card's object.

Beyond the chalkboard: computer support for collaboration and problem solving in meetings

Abstract: Although individual use of computers is fairly widespread, in meetings we tend to leave them behind. At Xerox PARC, an experimental meeting room called the Colab has been created to study computer support of collaborative problem solving in face-to-face meetings. The long-term goal is to understand how to build computer tools to make meetings more effective.

Video: Data for studying human-computer interaction

Abstract: Video is a powerful medium for capturing and conveying information about how people interact with computers. It provides a record of sequential streams of natural observations, some of which are subtle (body language and eye movements) and difficult to capture in any other form. Video also preserves the context as well as the content of a session and provides multi-faceted, qualitative data that can be analyzed on a number of different levels. The price of video equipment has dropped dramatically in recent years, while image quality, portability, and ease of use have all improved.

Designing with the user: book review of Computers and democracy: a Scandinavian challenge, G. Bjerknes, P. Ehn, and M. Kyng, Eds. Gower Press, Brookfield, VT, 1987

Abstract: Anyone who has taken on the task of critically questioning prevailing assumptions about some aspect of the social world knows how much easier it is to mount the critique than to formulate an alternative. The domain of computers in the workplace is no exception to this rule. Many of us have felt deeply dissatisfied with the assumptions that underlie standard representations of human work practices in relation to technology, for example, that such practices are organized normatively by the functional requirements of a given task or are usefully modeled as disembodied data flow. Critical analysts of new technology have pointed to the abuse of computerization by employers who believe that company profitability can be increased by decreasing employee autonomy (see, e.g., [l], [2], [5], and [6]). Expressing our dissatisfaction and articulating such dangers are prerequisite to developing alternative theories and agendas for the design of information technology. But although necessary, such critiques are not sufficient. We need to develop as well a vision of how things could be different-of how, given the necessary time, resources, participants, and perspectives, we might begin to shape a new approach to the design of workplace technology. In Computers and Democracy: A Scandinavian Challenge we begin to see the outlines of what an alternative, genuinely human-centered approach to the design of new technology could be. Notwithstanding the enormous complexity of social relations, professional identities, and conflicting values that characterize the settings described, the prospect of a new way of understanding and negotiating those complexities is, to me, profoundly exciting. The book is the product of a conference held in 1986 at the Computer Science Department of Aarhus University in Denmark on “Computers and the Democratization of Work.” The papers comprise a festschrift or writing in celebration of Kristen Nygaard, professor of computer science at the Institute of Informatics in Oslo, Norway, and the moving force behind the Scandinavian perspective that the book represents. The 22 papers collected here report work carried out over the past 10 years by researchers in Scandinavia, other European countries, and the United States. They include programmatic and empirical discussions of system design; institutional and

Groupware: interface design for meetings

Abstract: A new research area is emerging in human-computer interaction, that of building and studying computer supported meeting environments. These environments contain one or more personal workstations, a large display screen at the front of the room, and a software system which integrates the input from each of the workstations. Beyond these similarities, the computer supported meeting environments differ dramatically, as do the meetings that take place using them.