Developing Digital Records: Early Experiences of Record and Replay

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper we consider the development of 'digital records' to support ethnographic study of interaction and collaboration in ubiquitous computing environments and articulate the core concept of 'record and replay' through two case studies. One focuses on the utility of digital records, or records of interaction generated by a computer system, to ethnographic inquiry and highlights the mutually supportive nature of digital records and ethnographic methods. The other focuses on the work it takes to make digital records support ethnography, particularly the work of description and representation that is required to reconcile the fragmented character of interaction in ubiquitous computing environments. The work involved in 'making digital records work' highlights requirements for the design of tools to support the endeavour and informs the development of a Replay Tool. This tool enables ethnographers to visualize the data content of digital records; to extract sequences of relevance to analysis and remove non-relevant features; to marry recorded content with external resources, such as video; to add content from internal and external resources through annotation; and to reorder digital records to reflect the interactional order of events rather than the recorded order of events.

Living Avatars Network: Fusing traditional and innovative ethnographic methods through a real‐time mobile video service

“…We believe that the move from everyday, personalized consumption to everyday co-production through new Web 2.0 technologies means additional opportunities for investigating social life, especially as this 'social life' is lead through the digital. This marks a distinct progression from the tools proposed by Crabtree et al (2006) to tools that support unsolicited, naturalistic production of data about social life. We have examined some of such 'co-produced' material here to explore what work it can do for the ethnographic enterprise, suggesting it can produce unique, individual views on a setting, a multisensory experience of being in a place, insights on extended sequences of actions and interactions and unfolding narratives.…”

“…Plummer (2001:28) also emphasizes the role of the listener in gathering "researched and solicited stories" that "do not naturalistically occur in Living Avatar Network everyday life…they have to be seduced, coaxed and interrogated out of subjects". Crabtree et al (2006) have developed 'life documents' through 'the digital record' or the "natural extension and evolution of the ethnographic record, where technologies of production have progressed over time from paper and fieldnotes to incorporate a veritable host of new computational media to record social life" (ibid:284). In such a view new, ubiquitous and emerging technologies proffer insights into the situated character of social interaction in a way that is mutually supportive of 'traditional' ethnographic approaches.…”

“…Yet through the interaction offered by LAN these views become less voyeuristic than participative, pulling the audience into the movement, sensuality and even the emotions of experience. Such a rich, experiential view suggests the importance of 'reconciling fragments' (Crabtree et al, 2006) that are not only visual but auditory and tactile to access the experience in such settings. LAN also acknowledges the physicality and embodiment involved in moving through a place, to "sensually extend human capacities into and across the external world" (Urry, 2002:152) to experience a "multi-dimensional rush and the fluid interconnections of places, peoples and possibilities".…”

Motivating mobility

“…The converse was true for Solomon whose logs showed low use but who became highly motivated to start exercising more generally. This necessity of additional data sources in understanding the full picture of use and everyday activity reflects [8].…”

Lessons from failure

“…Given that participants were, through the study, continually generating these documents as a part of their everyday lives, this seemed an ideal approach. We also drew on the notion of the 'digital record' [2] that text messages, voice data and photos etc. and the various forms of metadata (e.g.…”