Showing papers by "Lucy Suchman published in 1999"

Reconstructing Technologies as Social Practice

Abstract: This article provides an overview of a research program developed over the past 20 years to explore relations between everyday practices and technology design and use. The studies highlighted reflect three interrelated lines of inquiry: (a) critical analyses of technical discourses and practices, (b) ethnographies of work and technologies-in-use, and (c) design interventions. Starting from the premise that technologies can be assessed only in their relations to the sites of their production and use, the authors reconstruct technologies as social practice. A central problem for the design of artifacts then becomes their relation to the environments of their intended use. Through ethnographies of the social world, the analyses focus on just how social/material specificities are assembled together to comprise our everyday experience.

Moving document collections online: the evolution of a shared repository

Abstract: This paper reports on a work-oriented design project concerned with the question of how to migrate shared, workgroup document collections currently kept on paper online. Based in a civil engineering work group, the focus of our project is a document collection called the "project files," a heterogeneous mix of documents that serve as an ongoing resource for the group during a project's course as well as an archival record at its completion. We describe the dynamics of the standardized classification scheme in use for the project files, existing practices of document filing including routine troubles, and the prototype developed to move the project files online. The latter includes a configuration of hardware and software along with associated practices of document scanning, coding and search. We conclude with some reflections on the difficulties of maintaining alignment across paper and digital media in the migration to online document collections, and with a summary of the questions posed and answers provided by our project.

Collaborative writing in NoteCards

Abstract: Psychologists have been taking an increasing interest in the writing process over the last decade and models of human cognition and task behaviour during writing are emerging (see e.g., Hayes and Flower 1980, Sharples et al 1989). Though we are far short of a complete model of this process several basic components have been identified and most theorists allude to these at some stage in their description. For example, it is reckoned (as much from common sense as experimental analysis) that most writing proceeds through a basic sequence of actions from a rough plan through a draft to a revision stage which may occur cyclically until the writer believes the document is ready. Plans can be considered as either detailed or vague, influenced by expectations of the reader’s knowledge, the typical form of the document being produced and so forth. The drafts may vary from the extremely sketchy to the almost complete depending on the writer’s experience, knowledge of the subject, preferred writing style etc. and revisions include such acts as minor spell checking, proofreading or complete re-writes.