Abstract
This thesis explores the integration of work practice and system design in deliberating upon how to
increase the sensitivity of system design towards everyday work practice. The attempt to make work practice
visible and intelligible for system design necessarily relates to two very different bodies of knowledge:
the actual work activities and knowledge of practitioners, and what is considered relevant information for
requirements analysis in system design. The strategy of this work comprises the integration of
ethnographically informed study of work practice and participatory design by drawing on the longitudinal
fieldwork of studying technologically mediated radiology work and promoting work practice based
participatory design interventions into technology projects in the clinic of radiology. The adopted
theoretical attitude of interweaving construction and reconstruction necessitates questioning and
reconfiguring some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of disciplinary dichotomies and conventional frames
of reference both with regard to ethnographic traditions focused on current practices as well as
technology-centered and future-oriented system design.
Radiology, with its ongoing and complex transition from film-based to digitally mediated work,
has provided the concrete setting for thinking about the relations between researcher, designer and work
practice practitioner in an attempt to find ways in which to sensitise system design towards everyday work
practice. Establishing the relevance between ethnographic findings of work and design specifications
requires a reformulation of work practice that appreciates the everyday fluency of work practice and
recognises the endogenous change for the needs of system design. The possibilities of extending the
multivoiced expertise prevalent in participatory design with an explicit interest on emic-etic views and
knowledges inherent within ethnographic traditions is explored through reflecting on the changing researcher
knowledge and location. The reflections are also used in developing a tool for work practice oriented
participatory design and in constructing the role of participant interventionist. Through mutual exploration
and constructive collaboration of ethnographic and participatory design traditions as well as scrutiny of
actual design sessions, the dimensions of analytic distance, horizon of work practice transformations and
situated generalisation are put forward as general interactions of work practice sensitive participatory
design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:oulo.fi/oai:oulu.fi:isbn951-42-5955-6 |
| Date | 10 April 2001 |
| Creators | Karasti, H. (Helena) |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Source Sets | University of Oulu |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, © University of Oulu, 2001 |
| Relation | info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pissn/0355-3191, info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/eissn/1796-220X |
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