Jon O'Brien

Patterns of home life: Informing design for domestic environments

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Mar 1, 2000

This paper considers how we may provide support for the development of general design principles ... more This paper considers how we may provide support for the development of general design principles in domestic environments. In particular we examine the potential for using design patterns as a means of presenting ethnographic material and outlining design solutions. The paper reports on the development of an initial pattern language based on our studies of a number of domestic environments and offers a general structure for presenting these patterns. Finally, we briefly reflect on our experiences of developing an on-line set of patterns for this class of environments.

Download

“They’re Supposed to Be Fixing it”: Requirements and System Redesign

Computer supported cooperative work, 1996

Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design... more Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design, when it is essential for designers to obtain as clear a statement as possible of the intended purpose and function of a system. The process of requirements capture and presentation is highlighted by the software engineering community as error-prone, and one where even the simplest error can have significant and costly implications. Numerous methods have been proposed to facilitate this process (see, for example, McDermid 1994, Sommerville 1992). These methods focus on both the development of techniques to elicit requirements from users and notational approaches to allow these requirements to be presented to systems developers.

Organisational memory and CSCW: supporting the 'Mavis Phenomenon

Organisational Memory is concept which has gained some currency in recent years. The aim of this ... more Organisational Memory is concept which has gained some currency in recent years. The aim of this paper is to query the conceptual underpinnings of the notion. An alternative and more social conception of the kind of phenomena `organisational memory&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27; points to is offered one which connects more thoroughly with `remembering activities&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27; as practical accomplishments of organisational life

Talk and embodiment in collaborative virtual environments

This paper presents some qualitative, interpretative analyses of social interaction in an interna... more

The organisational politics of meetings and their technology — two case studies of video supported communication

Springer eBooks, 1996

This paper reflects on the introduction of video based communication systems, using empirical stu... more This paper reflects on the introduction of video based communication systems, using empirical studies of two large commercial organisations: a national high street bank and a technical research centre in a multinational manufacturing company. The study suggests that although corporate philosophy and politics can create a drive towards exploring a set of technologies, they can simultaneously encourage a way of organising and managing work that conflicts with that particular implementation. The need to resolve conflicting political and social contingencies throughout the implementation, introduction and evaluation of new technology must be recognised. Precise requirements and design implications are hard to formulate, and our proposal has important implications in that it points beyond the traditional requirements engineering and work study approaches to systems design and introduction.

Download

At home with the technology

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Sep 1, 1999

The rapid growth and development of the Internet and the resulting growth in interest in access t... more The rapid growth and development of the Internet and the resulting growth in interest in access to network facilities highlight an increasing prominence of computer technology in the home. In this article we report on a study of the social organization of a number of domestic environments in the northwest of England and consider the ways in which an understanding of the nature of the home is of interest to the developers of future interactive technology. Thus, in the first half of the article we consider the everyday nature of home life, and in the second half we report on an ethnographically based evaluation of a prototype set top box for the provision of digital services to the home. In addition to reflecting on the nature of activities in the home we conclude by considering the design implications that can be drawn from an examination of these activities.

Download

Ethnography, communication and support for design

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 15, 2000

This paper reflects on our experiences in supporting communication between fieldworkers and the d... more This paper reflects on our experiences in supporting communication between fieldworkers and the designers of cooperative systems. We have investigated the nature of this communication by using a tool orginally designed to support the representation of software designs to present emerging results of ethnographic material. In this paper we discuss the tool used (the DNP) and the experiences of using the toolkit in the context of design. Our particular focus is on the use of the tool to represents results from a study of a UK financial institution where a series of prototyping exercises was underway.

Download

Practically accomplishing immersion

pycockj @?hera.psy.man. ac.uk Collaborative virtual environments (CVES) employ virtual reality te... more pycockj @?hera.psy.man. ac.uk Collaborative virtual environments (CVES) employ virtual reality technology to support cooperative work. Building on ethnographic and interaction analyses of CVES in use, we argue that many and varied activities are required to set up, maintain and troubleshoot CVES. These activities cross-over between virtual worlds and the real, physical environments which meeting participants inhabit. Thus, art understanding of CVES must attend to the relations between cooperation within a CVE and for it to be established as an arena for intelligible social action. These findings suggest a social scientifically informed respecification of what it is to be 'immersed in a CVE.

Download

On the Social Organization of Space and the Design of Electronic Landscapes

Techné, 2000

This paper reports ongoing work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) d... more This paper reports ongoing work in the eSCAPE Project (Esprit Long Term Research Project 25377) directed to the research and development of electronic landscapes for public use. Our concern here is to elucidate a sociologically informed approach towards the design of electronic landscapes or virtual worlds. We suggest-and demonstrate through ethnographic studies of virtual technologies at a multimedia art museum and information technology trade show-that members sense of space is produced through social practices tied to the accomplishment of activities occurring within the locations their actions are situated. Space, in other words, is socially constructed and shaped through members' practices for accomplishing situated activities. We explicate, by practical examples, an approach to discovering social practices in and through which a sense of space is constructed and outline how such understandings may be used to formulate requirements for the design of electronic landscapes. In explicating our ethnographically informed approach, we outline how future technologies may be developed through the situated evaluation of experimental prototypes in public use.

Download

Extending CSCW into domestic environments (workshop session) (abstract only)

This half-day workshop will aim to build a community of interest and research agenda around exten... more This half-day workshop will aim to build a community of interest and research agenda around extending CSCW methods and technologies to home settings. Relevant issues include the coordination of activities in public and private spaces; shared resource technologies; distributed coordination in and between households and the role of technology in everyday life.

Interactive systems in domestic environments

This paper considers the nature of interactive systems design for domestic environments. As part ... more This paper considers the nature of interactive systems design for domestic environments. As part of this work it highlights @e methodological issues faced in the design of systems for the home. The shortage of detailed knowledge of activities in the home is highlighted. A series of studies of domestic environments is presented alongside the design challenges they raise.

Download

Understanding Technology in Domestic Environments: Lessons for Cooperative Buildings

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1998

... These existing methodological approaches rely upon a certain degree of 'schemati-sation&... more ... These existing methodological approaches rely upon a certain degree of 'schemati-sation' of social ... than the more prolonged periods of study of even the briefest ethnographic enquiries within ... the technology that finds it character within it might provide important lessons for the ...

Some real problems of virtual teams

“They’re Supposed to Be Fixing it”: Requirements and System Redesign

Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 1996

Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design... more Much of the literature on the requirements process focuses on the initial stages of system design, when it is essential for designers to obtain as clear a statement as possible of the intended purpose and function of a system. The process of requirements capture and presentation is highlighted by the software engineering community as error-prone, and one where even the simplest error can have significant and costly implications. Numerous methods have been proposed to facilitate this process (see, for example, McDermid 1994, Sommerville 1992). These methods focus on both the development of techniques to elicit requirements from users and notational approaches to allow these requirements to be presented to systems developers.

Collaboration in the Digital Library (Workshop)

��He��s Behind You��: The Experience of Presence in Shared Virtual Environments

In this chapter we seek to develop an understanding of the nature of presence in virtual environm... more In this chapter we seek to develop an understanding of the nature of presence in virtual environments from a real-world exploration of first, how presence is manifest in practice within virtual environments and second, the means by which everyday users experience virtual environments. The ethnographic study presented in this chapter is part of a multidisciplinary approach to the design of online large-scale collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) undertaken by the authors in a range of projects. Over the last few years a large number of systems to support online virtual worlds and CVEs have emerged. These include 3D environments: MASSIVE (Greenhalgh and Benford, 1995), DIVE (Dix, 1997), AlphaWorlds, Blaxxun, VWWW; 2D graphical systems: ThePalace; and textual environments: MUDs (Edwards, 1994).

Focus Issue on Legacy Information Systems and Business Process Change: Banking on the Old technology: Understanding the Organisational Context of 'Legacy' Issues

Communications of the Association for Information Systems

The role of information systems in influencing and enabling organisational design is widely ackno... more The role of information systems in influencing and enabling organisational design is widely acknowledged. Yet limited attention is paid to the theoretical legitimacy and conceptual basis of IS-enabled organisational change i.e., business engineering. In this paper we review business engineering's reference disciplines critically: process-based organisational design, IS development, and IS evaluation. Findings from a case study of business engineering provide empirical support to the theoretical analysis. Synthesis of the conclusions of the review and the case study lead to a number of propositions and potential avenues for further research into the theoretically attractive and practically important field of aligning the design of organisational structures with the design of Information Systems intended to support them.

Download

Practically accomplishing immersion

Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '96, 1996

ABSTRACT

Talk and embodiment in collaborative virtual environments

Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems common ground - CHI '96, 1996

This paper presents some qualitative, interpretative analyses of social interaction in an interna... more

Interactive systems in domestic environments

Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems processes, practices, methods, and techniques - DIS '97, 1997

... Jon O'Brien and Tom Rodden Sociology and Computing Departments Lancaster University Lanc... more

Uploads

Papers by Jon O'Brien

Log In