Experiences using situated and non-situated techniques for studying work in context

Abstract

In this paper, we draw a distinction between situated techniques and non-situated techniques for studying work context. We define a situated technique as one in which the data collection takes place in the normal working environment of the person being studied. We describe our experience of a case study in which we applied a combination of situated and non-situated techniques to analyse work practice in context. To co-ordinate these different types of technique, and to provide adequate validation, we adopted an iterative model building approach.Our case study demonstrates the feasibility and the value of combining these different techniques, and emphasises the value of model building and validation.

Capturing user requirements and priorities for innovative interactive systems

“…because they are so commonplace within the domain as to be subliminal for the surrogate user. Our experience with SSM concurs with [11] who report on the usefulness of soft systems techniques, and in particular rich pictures, as methods for eliciting information about the context in which users work that may be beyond the scope of purely situated methods of studying work. The soft systems techniques provide an abstract description of the activities that are essential to the working context of the hypothesised opportunity.…”

“…Rich pictures are cartoon like depictions of the primary stakeholders in a system, their interrelationships and their concerns [10]. The use of rich pictures allows the analyst to explore activities and tasks within the work context, even when those activities do not occur very frequently, or take place over an extended time, or involve multiple distributed participants [11]. The elements of the picture developed also provide cues for further questioning by the analyst.…”

“…The reason for our departure is that the needs and desires of users are not necessarily independent of the technologies that are available [8] or of the awareness of the users of those technologies [11]. Given the hypothesised opportunity, the analyst must identify and obtain access to a set of surrogate users who will participate in the process of eliciting and creating requirements.…”

Bridging Global Divides with Tracking and Tracing Technology

“…promise between methodological intentions (following many of Andrew Dearden and Peter Wright's processes 9 ) and the practical business of itting in with a working organization. We recorded the workshops in video iles and most of our other exchanges in audio files, though we captured some sensitive speculative meetings only in written note form.…”

“…9 Without these identifiers, no automated system can attach metadata to products. Moreover, producers lack the budget to introduce the hardware, software, and training needed to use spreadsheets to make data capturable throughout production.…”