Abstract
There is a need to adopt a situated design perspective in designing computer-based tools that support knowledge work to better understand what it means for users, developers, and stakeholders to approach and capture the tacit knowing within the work context. The design situation is characterized as explorative and iteratively interpreted, a pursuit of the vision of the future system guided by local circumstances. Formal engineering methods, reducing development work to engineering endeavors based on a rationalistic perspective, are not sufficient. The situated design perspective is presented as a conceptual model of the design practice, highlighting its constituent worlds, processes, and relations. The model depicts designing as an explorative and sense-making process, navigating between what is wanted or envisioned and what may be negotiated and discovered. It emphasizes the importance of the artifact being designed as a means to capture, communicate, and discover what is possible in the work context. The model makes clear that the design process is highly situated, that it cannot take place outside the work context because of interdependent relationships. It is designing within the living work context, not design for an objectified one.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
We’re sorry, something doesn't seem to be working properly.
Please try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, please contact support so we can address the problem.
References
Scarbrough, H.: Knowledge as Work: Conflicts in the Management of Knowledge Workers. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management 11(1), 5–17 (1999)
Scarbrough, H.: The Management of Knowledge Workers. In: Currie, W., Galliers, R. (eds.) Rethinking Management Information Systems: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 474–496. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1999)
Schultze, U.: A Confessional Account of an Ethnography About Knowledge Work. MIS Quarterly 24(1), 3–41 (2000)
Orlikowski, W.J.: Knowing in Practice: Enacting a Collective Capability in Distributed Organizing. Organization Science 13(3), 249–273 (2002)
Nonaka, I.: A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization Science 5(1), 14–37 (1994)
Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H.: The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University Press, New York (1995)
Brown, J.S., Duguid, P.: Organizing knowledge. California Management Review 40(3), 90–111 (1998)
Wenger, E.: Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1998)
Newell, S., Robertson, M., Scarbrough, H., Swan, J.: Managing Knowledge Work. Palgrave, Basingstoke (2002)
Torraco, R.J.: Integrating Learning with Working: A Reconception of the Role of Workplace Learning. Human Resource Development Quarterly 10(3) (1999)
Tyre, M.J., von Hippel, E.: The Situated Nature of Adaptive Learning in Organizations. Organization Science 8(1), 71–83 (1997)
Argyris, C., Schön, D.A.: Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspectives. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1978)
Lave, J.: Situating Learning in Communities of Practice. In: Resnick, L.B., Levine, J.M., Teasley, S.D. (eds.) Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (1991)
Lave, J., Wenger, E.: Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1991)
Brown, J.S., Duguid, P.: Organizational learning and communities of practice: towards a unified view of working, learning and innovation. Organization Science 2(1), 40–57 (1991)
Orr, J.E.: Talking about Machines: An Ethnography of a Modern Job. ILR Press, Ithaca (1996)
Weick, K.E.: Organizational redesign as improvisation. In: Huber, G.P., Glick, W.H. (eds.) Organization Change and Re-design. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1993)
Reffat, R.M., Gero, J.S.: Situatedness: A new dimension for learning systems in design. In: Brown, A., Knight, M., Berridge, P. (eds.) Architectural Computing from Turing to 2000, pp. 252–261. University of Liverpool, Liverpool (1999)
Gero, J.S., Kannengiesser, U.: The situated function-behaviour-structure framework. Design Studies 25(4), 373–391 (2004)
Gero, J.S., Kannengiesser, U.: An ontology of Donald Schön’s reflection in designing. International Journal of Design Science and Technology 15(2), 77–90 (2008)
Schön, D.A.: The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, New York (1983)
Schön, D.A.: Designing as reflective conversation with the materials of a design situation. Knowledge-Based Systems 5(1), 3–14 (1992)
Büscher, M., Gill, S., Mogensen, P., Shapiro, D.: Landscape of Practice: Bricolage as a Method for Situated Design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work 10, 1–28 (2001)
Suchman, L.A.: Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human Machine Communication. University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge (1987)
Lueg, C., Pfeifer, R.: Cognition, Situatedness, and Situated Design. In: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Cognitive Technology, pp. 124–135. IEEE, Aizu (1997)
Eberhagen, N.: Understanding the Designing of Knowledge Work Support Tools as a Situated Practice (Doctoral dissertation). Linnaeus University Press, Växjö (2011)
Berente, N., Lyytinen, K.: The Iterating Artifact as a Fundamental Construct in Information System Design. In: Hevner, A., Chatterjee, S. (eds.) Proceedings of the First International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems Technology (DESRIST 2006), Claremont, CA, USA, February 24-25, pp. 237–266 (2006)
Stolterman, E.: How System Designers Think About Design and Methods. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems 3, 137–150 (1991)
Bratteteig, T., Stolterman, E.: Design in groups – and all that jazz. In: Kyng, M., Mathiassen, L. (eds.) Computers and Design in Context, pp. 289–316. MIT Press, Cambridge (1997)
Stolterman, E.: Designarbetetsdoldarationalitet – En studieavmetodikochpraktikinomsystemutveckling (The hidden rationale of design work – A study in the methodology and practice of system development), RRIPCS: Nr 14.91. Department of Informatics, Umea University, Umea (1991)
Bowker, G.C., Star, S.L.: Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. The MIT Press, London (2000)
Avison, D., Fitzgerald, G.: Information systems development, 4th edn. McGraw-Hill, London (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Eberhagen, N. (2014). On the Situated Nature of Designing Knowledge Work Supports Systems. In: Johansson, B., Andersson, B., Holmberg, N. (eds) Perspectives in Business Informatics Research. BIR 2014. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 194. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11370-8_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11370-8_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-11369-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-11370-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)