Abstract
The Laboratory of Design for Cognition at EDF R&D (LDC) is a living laboratory, which we created to develop Augmented Environment (AE) for collaborative work, more specifically “cognitive work” (white collars, engineers, office workers). It is a corporate laboratory in a large industry, where natural activity of real users is observed in a continuous manner in various spaces (project space, meeting room, lounge, etc.) The RAO room, an augmented meeting room, is used daily for “normal” meetings; it is also the “mother room” of all augmented meeting rooms in the company, where new systems, services, and devices are tested. The LDC has gathered a unique set of data on the use of AE, and developed various observation and design techniques, described in this chapter. LDC uses novel techniques of digital ethnography, some of which were invented there (SubCam, offsat) and some of which were developed elsewhere and adapted (360° video, WebDiver, etc.). At LDC, some new theories have also been developed to explain behavior and guide innovation: cognitive attractors, experimental reality, and the triple-determination framework.
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Notes
- 1.
Satisficing is one of the “crucial alterations” that depart Simon’s bounded rationality model from the classic rational actor model: “While economic man supposedly maximizes – selects the best alternative from among all those available to him – his cousin, the administrator, satisfices – looks for a course of action that is satisfactory or “good enough.” (…) Administrators (and everyone else, for that matter) take into account just a few of the factors of the situation regarded as most relevant and crucial. In particular, they deal with one or few problems at a time, because the limits of attention simply do not permit everything to be attended to at once” (Simon 1997, p. 119).
- 2.
This includes direct transport costs plus valuation of “improductive” time lost in transportation.
- 3.
- 4.
“Mediation refers to a particular mode of organizing behavior with respect to some task by achieving coordination with a mediating structure that is not itself inherent in the domain of the task. That is, in a mediated performance, the actor does not simply coordinate with the task environment, instead, the actor coordinates with something else as well, something that provides structure that can be used to shape the actor’s behavior (…) Language, cultural knowledge, mental models, arithmetic procedures, and rules of logic are all mediating structures too. So are traffic lights, supermarket layouts, and the contexts we arrange for each other’s behaviors. Mediating structures can be embodied in artifacts, in ideas, in systems of social interaction, or in all of these at once” (Hutchins 1987).
- 5.
Films presenting the RAO room are available at www.tecog.org.
- 6.
Rufae lab members can “troubadour” from one lab to another: visitors pay their transport but are lodged and fed by the hosting lab for as long as they stay; in return, the troubadour must leave “something” to the host lab, usually by installing his own system locally. This helps dissemination between member labs.
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Acknowledgments
The LDC was funded mainly by EDF R&D Division’s IT Program; also by the European IST/Disappearing Computer Initiative “Ambient Agoras” contract IST-2000–25134; the Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris); CNRS collaboration funding with UMR 8177 (EHESS – CNRS, Centre Edgar Morin).
The RUFAE network brought crucial input.
Many researchers and administrators contributed to this large project over the years (apologies for any omissions): Margarita Anastassova, Stéphane Andrieux, Patrick Andujar, Houssem Assadi, David Autissier, Maurice Aymard, Azizan Aziz, Paul Bach-y-Rita, Maribeth Back, Tico Ballagas, Yves Bamberger, Vladimir Barabanchikov, Valerie Beaudouin, André Beillard, Sylvain Bellan, Jean-Yves Berthou, Béatrice Bianchini-Burlot, Nicolas Bielski, Guillaume Billon, Marie-Joëlle Blosseville, René Boillot, Jan Borchers, Clément Boré, Francesca Botta, Pierre Bouchet, François Boulot, Claude Bouquet, Françoise Boutin, Jean-Marc Boutin, Mathilde Boutin, Guy Boy, Philippe Brajeul, Maryse Brinvilliers, Xavier Carcelle, Marie-Thérèse Cerf, Jean-Paul Chabard, Abel Chaibi, Anne-Marie Chemali, Vitaly Chemilis, Milton Chen, Nadia Cheniour, Aaron Cicourel, Brigitte Corde, Antoine Cordelois, Laurent Coudert, Catherine Dassieux, Agnès de Cicco, Lucinda de Cicco, Jean-Paul Delhomel, Yves Denayrolles, Gaetan Derousseaux, Pierre Destang, Catherine Devic, Yves Dherbecourt, Salvator Di Benedetto, Alain d’Iribarne, Evelyne Donnadieux, Sylviane Duchene, Clément-Marc Falinower, Anne-Laure Fayard, Christian Felter, Jaqueline Feuilloy, George Fieldman, Geneviève Filippi, Claude Fischler, Olivier Fergon, Siegfried Frey, Pascal Froment, Colombine Gardair, Vincent Gayrard, Maria Geka, Laure Gioara, Sara Girardi, Jean-Louis Goblet, Charles Godon, Michel Gondran, Pascal Guillermin, Yann Guyonvarc’h, Pierre-Marie Guyonvarc’h, Patricia Guyot, Philippe Guyot, Jean-François Hamelin, Volker Hartkopf, Pascal Henriot, Jean-Marc Herodin, Steve Hodges, Jim Hollan, Kazunori Horikiri, Do Huyhn, Ciro Ibello, Calle Jansson, François Jégou, Raphaëlle Jeune, Pierre Johannet, Nikos Kalampalikis, David Kirsh, Marc Langheinrich, Sophie Le Bellu, Benoît Le Blanc, Anne Le Mouel, Patricia Lecoq, Xavier Lemesle, Tanguy Lemoing, Charles Lenay, Sanna Leppämäki, Nicolas Lesbats, Joëlle Liberman, Christian Licoppe, Vivian Loftness, Eric Lorentz, Jean-Luc Lory, Caroline Luzi, Patrick MacLeod, Yutaka Matsuo, Johann Mattsson, Olaf Maxant, Eric Mathieu, Yves Mayadoux, Roland Melkior, David Menga, Sandro Meneghello, Isabelle Mialon, Martial Monfort, Patrick Morilhat, Patricia Morin-Pagane, Thierry Moreau, Serge Moscovici, Olivier Nadiras, Thierry Nguessan, Pierre Nguyen, Saeko Nomura, Valery Nosulenko, Nicolas Nova, Elisabeth Obe-Guy, Pascal Obry, Joseph Orlinski, Thierry Paturle, Roy Pea, François Peccoud, Régis Petit, Christian Pradelou, Thorsten Prante, Alain Prodhomme, Florence Raud, Christian Raux, Rouzbeh Rezakhanlou, Sophie Richardot, Anne Rocha, Carsten Röcker, Patrick Rojewski, Jean-Yves Romanetti, Joe Rosen, Dan Russell, Jean-Michel Saas, Bertrand Sacepe, Gerard Said, Lena Samoylenko, Bernard Scherrer, Edouard Sikierski, Frédéric Silvi, Luc Simonet, Frank Sonder, Ron Stanonik, Richard Stenzel, Norbert Streitz, Hillevi Sundholm, François-Xavier Testard-Vaillant, Howard Taylor, Arnaud Tarrago, Lidia Tralli, Jean-Louis Vaudescal, Pierre-Louis Viollet, Jean-Louis Vuldy, Françoise Waeckel, Patricia Welinski, Lynn Wilcox, Terry Winograd. Finally, users and volunteer testers brought precious input; space is too short here to list them, but we thank them gratefully.
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Lahlou, S. (2009). Experimental Reality: Principles for the Design of Augmented Environments. In: Lahlou, S. (eds) Designing User Friendly Augmented Work Environments. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-098-8_5
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