Representing the Users in Systems Design. Challenges in Mediating Knowledge from One World to Another

Representing the users in systems design. Challenges in mediating knowledge from one world to another Understanding the social character of work has increasingly been accepted in systems design as a necessary part of the design process. In some design approaches, such as computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), the need for a detailed understanding of how work is performed, how workers cooperate and communicate and what resources they draw on, is seen as vital and integrated as part of the design process. As a consequence of this increased focus on social aspects of work, social scientists have become important participants in system design projects, conducting ethnographic studies as a basis for design. The social scientist may hold several roles in such a project, and are often politically dedicated to giving users a voice and developing more democratic technologies. Social scientists may be assigned the role of a spokesperson for users, or at least acting as a mediator of the users� world to the designers� world. In this paper I want to elaborate on what use ethnographic data may have in system design and what the social scientist�s role may be in a design project. Furthermore, I want to discuss challenges of communicating knowledge, gained through ethnographic studies, to system designers. The discussion is based upon own experiences as a participant in a multidisciplinary group, aiming at developing a technological tool for supporting communication and information storage and retrieval in hospitals. As part of this project I have conducted an ethnographic study in the Neurological dept. in a University Hospital in Norway. The primary focus of this study is doctors� use of information. Considering myself as partly a spokesperson for the users and partly a �neutral� intermediary, I want to communicate the doctors� world to the others in the group, as correct and truthful as possible. Previous research in this field does neither pay very much attention to the collaboration itself between social scientists and computer scientists in design projects, nor does it give any specific advice on how to communicate findings from ethnographic studies. The collaboration and communication in our project is thus constantly evolving and changing, and the paper looks into this process in closer detail.