The contextual evaluation framework (CEF) is a requirements engineering technique that incorporates a particular sociological orientation, Ethnomethodology, in the development of a rigorous and systematic approach for requirements elicitation. This qualitative approach examines how well a system may be aligned with the endogenous organisation of work within a community of practice. Assessing how well a system supports the knowledge, skills and practices that already exist within a community is equally as important as developing solutions that will eventually reconfigure those practices, create new ones and extend modes of collaboration. The aim of this thesis is to address the absence of a systematic approach to quasi-naturalistic prototype evaluation which may be useful to a broader community such as requirements engineers, computer scientists and others not familiar with the details of sociological approaches. Such an aim is in line with the ways in which prototype evaluation approaches, particularly in HCI, have successfully been disseminated throughout the computer science research community - with the provision of guidelines. Likewise, the CEF is conceived of to be implemented in a similar manner. Its focus is on the analysis of a prototype’s relevance as a tool that is in some manner familiar to those who might use it. Specifically, professionals within a discipline share complex skills and knowledge where they learn to use similar tools, instruments and processes necessary for their work. Implicit in these social practices, practitioners gradually acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become full members of a community of practice. In this way, the processes, objects and artefacts of practice come to possess specific meaning and significance. The CEF examines how this complex architecture of meaning is supported, constrained or transformed when using a prototype and makes possible an assessment of the ways in which participants interpret its usefulness and usability.

Notre travail de recherche s’intéresse à l’usage des technologies dans les interactions professionnelles, et en particulier dans des centres d’appel. Nos analyses s’appuient sur trois champs disciplinaires que sont l’Ethnométhodologie, l’Analyse Conversationnelle et les Workplace Studies. Notre étude cherche à contribuer à la réflexion sur des interactions médiées par les technologies en milieu professionnel afin de rendre compte des pratiques émergentes des participants et comprendre l’organisation séquentielle complexe des interactions entre conseiller/opérateur et patient/client s’appuyant sur l’utilisation de ressources technologiques. La thèse s’articule en une partie introductive et trois parties analytiques. La première étudie les modifications de cadre participatif en tenant compte du dispositif technologique comme point d’ancrage de l’activité des participants. Nous avons distingué deux configurations: i) soit le dispositif est ajusté par l’opérateur ; ii) soit l’opérateur s’ajuste au dispositif. La modification du cadre participatif peut être initiée de façon verbale ou non verbale, ou par l’un ou l’autre des participants.Dans une seconde partie, nous analysons l’intégration de l’écran comme artefact interactionnel dans l’activité des participants. Nous avons remarqué qu’ils rapportent à l’oral des informations écrites sur un écran, en employant des verbes introductifs du type « il dit que », que nous retrouvons dans les travaux sur le discours rapporté à l’oral. Nous avons voulu montrer le lien entre le cours d’action dans lequel sont engagés les participants et l’émergence de ces discours rapportés où la référence aux messages écrits peut transformer les écrans et les systèmes informatiques en « agents interactionnels ». La troisième partie se focalise sur un type d’appel où un client s’adresse au service pour résoudre un problème, et après vérification par l’opératrice, elle lui notifie un état a-problématique de son compte. Nous avons remarqué que l’activité de diagnostic opérée ici par l’opératrice dépend étroitement des informations du compte client indiquées sur l’écran. Ce sont ces données qui permettent à l’opératrice d’établir le diagnostic et de notifier l’état a-problématique du compte. / Our research focuses on the use of technology in interactions at work, particularly in the context of call centres. Our analyses draw on three theoretical domains: Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis and Workplace Studies. Our research seeks to contribute to current investigations on interactions mediated by technology in the workplace to reflect emerging practices of participants and to understand the complex sequential organization of interactions between councillor/operator and patient/user, based on the use of technological resources.The thesis comprises an introduction part and three analytical parts. The first part examines changes in participation framework taking into account the technological device as an anchor for the participant’s activity. For this, we distinguished two different configurations: i) the device is adjusted by the operator, or ii) the operator adjusts the device. The adjustment of the participation framework may be initiated through verbal or multimodal way, or by one or the other participant.In the second part, we analyze the integration of the screen as an interactional artefact in the participant’s activity. We noticed that they report oral information’s displayed on a screen, using introductory verbs such as "he said", which we found in the studies on reported speech in spoken interactions. We wanted to show the link between the course of action in which participants are engaged and the emergence of reported speech when referring to written messages that can transform the screens and the computer systems in “interactional agents”.The third part focuses on one type of call where a user call the service to solve a problem, and after verification by the operator, she notifies a status of his account. We noticed that the diagnosis activity reported by the operator is closely related to the user’s account information shown on the screen. These are data that allow the operator to diagnose and report the non-problematic status of the account.

Many changes have occurred in the United States trucking industry over the last thirty years. This study examines the effects of these changes by looking at three related themes: life on the road and life at home, body image and bodily health, and the experiences of women and sexual minorities in the industry. This research is based on a discourse analysis of interviews conducted with truck drivers and trucking industry leaders. Most truck drivers say that they value the independent nature of their workplace. Yet the independence that is a part of the trucker mystique is challenged by increased surveillance and the availability of more invasive surveillance technologies to motor carriers and the United States government. At the same time drivers face long periods of time away from home and they experience disconnection from their families. Families must learn to adapt to the absence of their trucking loved ones which is a difficult task. However, sometimes these adaptations can result in positive changes for partners at home, such as increased independence and more authority in the home. The bodies of truck drivers are also examined. Many drivers believe that their image as workers has taken a turn for the worst and the bodily presentation plays an important role in image. Drivers seek to set themselves apart from drivers who they think perpetuate negative images of their industry through sloppy dress and a lack of professionalism. At the same time, there is increasing evidence that the working conditions of this industry lead to unhealthy bodies that are diseased and worn out. Finally, very little has been written about women or gays and lesbians in this workplace. Women represent only five percent of this industry and they face significant barriers to surviving in this occupation because many male workers seek to marginalize them through exclusionary practices like sexual harassment. Members of the LGBT community are represented in the industry and find both comfort and exclusion in trucking. This work also examines the sexual subcultures in trucking such as sex workers and truck chasers.

Over the past two decades, translation workplaces have been substantially transformed by technological developments (Drugan 2013; Risku et al. 2013), and by the emergence of production networks in which a language service provider (LSP) acts as an intermediary between translator and client (Abdallah and Koskinen 2007; Abdallah 2012). However, there is little research into how technologies are integrated in the various translation workplaces found in production networks. My research aims at enhancing our understanding of translation project management and translation quality in production networks by conceptualising project management as a practice (Shove et al. 2012). For this empirical study, a data set was collected based on 60 hours of workplace observations within a UK-based LSP and 10 semi-structured interviews with four project managers (PMs) and one vendor manager (VM). Drawing on concepts from practice theory, the study analyses routinised enactments of the practice by PMs, their integration of information technologies into such enactments, their understanding of translation quality, and their strategies to achieve quality in the translation production process. I propose that the practice of translation project management is deeply embedded into a larger complex of interdependent translation production practices. A practice-theoretical framework emphasises the socio-material and collective nature of the practice. My study demonstrates that project management is a joint effort between PMs and other actors in translation production. Based on an analysis of how PMs use CAT tools and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system when they are managing translation projects, I argue that technologies are inextricably linked with enactments of production practices, and that they form part of the social structures surrounding the practice. The application of practice theory affords a new understanding of skills, or competence, in which the engagement in professional activities is vital, and in which building competence is an ongoing process. Finally, I suggest that buyers of translation products, i.e. clients, substantially contribute to translation quality, as PMs carry out project management based on the notion of translation as a service.

The research problem addressed in this thesis is the lack of understanding of dentistry in practice, and the limited amount of work from a HCI-perspective in dental informatics. The aim of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of the area as a socio-technical domain from a Distributed cognition-perspective using workplace studies. Dentistry is a complex socio-technical domain where humans, technology, tools and artifacts together form a system. The ubiquitous presence of computers has made a mark on the dental profession with e.g. record systems and digital x-ray, and the integration of IT-system in the dental field may inform how dentists make decisions for their patients and how they perform their work. The problem is that not much work has been done in the dental informatics field from a HCI-perspective. This thesis applies workplace studies and Distributed cognition as an approach to HCI to gain an understanding of dentistry in practice and also draw conclusions how Distributed cognition could be applied as a method in HCI. This thesis presents a detailed account of work in dentistry regarding the propagation of information through representational stages and the roles, tasks and artifacts that are present in the complex socio-technical domain of dentistry. The thesis also provide implications for Distributed cognition regarding how it could be developed to fit into today’s complex socio-technical domains both as a method in HCI and as a theoretical framework. Key words: Dental informatics, Human-computer interaction, Distributed cognition, Workplace studies.

Notre travail de recherche s'intéresse à l'usage des technologies dans les interactions professionnelles, et en particulier dans des centres d'appel. Nos analyses s'appuient sur trois champs disciplinaires que sont l'Ethnométhodologie, l'Analyse Conversationnelle et les Workplace Studies. Notre étude cherche à contribuer à la réflexion sur des interactions médiées par les technologies en milieu professionnel afin de rendre compte des pratiques émergentes des participants et comprendre l'organisation séquentielle complexe des interactions entre conseiller/opérateur et patient/client s'appuyant sur l'utilisation de ressources technologiques. La thèse s'articule en une partie introductive et trois parties analytiques. La première étudie les modifications de cadre participatif en tenant compte du dispositif technologique comme point d'ancrage de l'activité des participants. Nous avons distingué deux configurations: i) soit le dispositif est ajusté par l'opérateur ; ii) soit l'opérateur s'ajuste au dispositif. La modification du cadre participatif peut être initiée de façon verbale ou non verbale, ou par l'un ou l'autre des participants. Dans une seconde partie, nous analysons l'intégration de l'écran comme artefact interactionnel dans l'activité des participants. Nous avons remarqué qu'ils rapportent à l'oral des informations écrites sur un écran, en employant des verbes introductifs du type " il dit que ", que nous retrouvons dans les travaux sur le discours rapporté à l'oral. Nous avons voulu montrer le lien entre le cours d'action dans lequel sont engagés les participants et l'émergence de ces discours rapportés où la référence aux messages écrits peut transformer les écrans et les systèmes informatiques en " agents interactionnels ". La troisième partie se focalise sur un type d'appel où un client s'adresse au service pour résoudre un problème, et après vérification par l'opératrice, elle lui notifie un état a-problématique de son compte. Nous avons remarqué que l'activité de diagnostic opérée ici par l'opératrice dépend étroitement des informations du compte client indiquées sur l'écran. Ce sont ces données qui permettent à l'opératrice d'établir le diagnostic et de notifier l'état a-problématique du compte.

Elderly care is currently undergoing a phase of development in which new technologies are anticipated to increase efficiency, secure quality of services and give care assistants more time with the elderly people. This thesis reports on a study of how people involve technologies in everyday home care work. It focuses on assimilation processes associated with people’s use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and other technologies. The main problem addressed in the thesis is how do care assistants assimilate new emerging technologies in their work practice? The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of assimilation processes and the ways that people learn and select different features of technologies in practice. Technology assimilation processes are in this work assumed being part of people’s everyday use and exploration of the technologies they have at hand. The underpinning fieldwork commenced 2001 and ended 2006 and comprises ethnographical workplace studies in three different home care organisations. When new technologies are brought into an organisation they are not introduced into a vacuum; the thesis shows they are introduced into an existing ecology of work, where links between technologies and resources are tightly associated with ways people deal with contingencies and coordination. The result of the study show that when individuals and workgroups configure their own web of supporting technologies they also reconfigure their workplace. In this work it is revealed that the home care geography holds two main activity domains which provide radically different conditions for technology use. How people effectively manage to balance their work in the two domains is seen as a crucial component in how we can understand use of new technologies. It is also concluded that the involvement of new technologies effect the structure of work as the care assistants either loose or are given a strengthened autonomy and control in their work. This is a relationship that is effected by and dependent on the different ways new technologies are involved and used. Assimilation processes are in this work understood as an ongoing orchestration of tools and technologies. They are catalysed through the conflict between new and established routines and the provision of a social space of innovation, which call for the ability to detect aspects in current practices that could be sorted out, retained and selected to be part of innovation. In home care, an example such innovation is found in innovative ways managing technologies and their involvement in practice. The challenge is to grasp how everyday assimilation processes can strategically advance practice as a whole. The perspective offered by - using technologies with care - suggests a different view on innovation. Such a view focuses on innovative use and workplace configurations, as it is aware of novel technical configurations.

Workplace studies in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a research field that has expanded in an explosive way during the recent years. Today there is a wide range of theoretical approaches and methods to choose from, which makes it problematic to make methodological choices both in research and system design. While there have been several studies that assess the different approaches to workplace studies, there seems to be a lack of studies that explore the theoretical and methodological differences between more structured methods within the research field. In this thesis, a comparative theoretical and empirical analysis of three methods for workplace studies is being conducted to deal with the following research problem: What level of theoretical depth and methodological structure is appropriate when conducting methods for workplace studies to inform design of complex socio-technical systems? When using the two criterions descriptive power and application power, to assess Contextual Design (CD), Determining Information Flow Breakdown (DIB), and Capturing Semi-Automated Decision-Making (CASADEMA), important lessons are learned about which methods are acceptable and useful when the purpose is to inform system design.

Diese Arbeit beleuchtet die wichtigen Komponenten des Habitus indischer Arbeitsplätze von Organisationen des privaten und öffentlichen Sektors in Delhi und zeigt auf, wie tief die in beiden Arbeitssektoren vorherrschenden geschlechtsspezifischen Ungleichheiten in ihren Habitus eingebettet sind. Der Zusammenhang zwischen Habitus und geschlechtsspezifischen Ungleichheiten wird durch im Rahmen dieses Projekts durchgeführte Forschungen und Feldstudien aufgezeigt, die zeigen, wie sich das Ausmaß, die Wahrnehmung, die Reaktion und der allgemeine Ansatz zur sexuellen Belästigung am Arbeitsplatz zwischen den Bereichen des öffentlichen und des privaten Sektors stark unterscheiden. Sexuelle Belästigung und unangemessenes Verhalten am Arbeitsplatz werden als Indikatoren für die Aufdeckung von Ungleichheiten zwischen den Geschlechtern im öffentlichen und privaten Sektor verwendet. Daher stellt diese These die Erforschung zweier zentraler Konzepte dar, d. H. Habitus- und Geschlechterungleichheiten, indem das Verständnis und die Herangehensweise an sexuelle Belästigung in beiden Sektoren untersucht werden und somit die Verbindung zwischen Habitus und Geschlechterungleichheit am indischen Arbeitsplatz begründet wird. / This thesis highlights the important components of the habitus of Indian workplaces of private and public sector organisations in Delhi and establishes how gender inequalities prevalent in both work sectors are deeply embedded in their habitus. The connection between habitus and gender inequalities is demonstrated by research and field studies conducted within this project that exhibit how the scale, perception, reaction and overall approach to sexual harassment at the workplace differs extensively between fields of public and private sector. Sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour at the workplace are used as signifiers for the exposition of gender inequality in public and private sectors. Therefore, this thesis constitutes the exploration of two central concepts i.e. habitus and gender inequalities by studying the understanding of and approach towards sexual harassment in the two sectors and thus, substantiate the linkage betwixt habitus and gender inequality at the Indian workplace.

This is the story of how four people invented a whole new world and way of life - and how they attempted to establish it across the globe. Copass, a Parisian startup consisting of four cofounders, aimed to connect hundreds of the world's shared workspaces under their new global federation. But the main objective of this startup, in contrast to most, was not to build capital. It was to build a universe: a future where white-collar workers would be liberated from the shackles of office life to work anywhere in the world, to meet exciting people and to have amazing experiences. Here, workdays were permanently mixed with holidays. Work was fun, workplaces were play-places and workers were adventurers. The ambition of these four cofounders was to turn the way they wanted things to be for them into the way things ought to be for everyone else. To turn their desired lifestyle into a global social movement that enrolled, as they saw it, hundreds of cities and thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of people. In short, they created a company to fulfil a dream. This is an ethnography of that one startup's dream, analysed at length to demonstrate innovative ways of worldmaking employed by an ambitious tech company seeking success. A company dissatisfied with the world that, instead of changing it, decided to create a new one.