HCC class lecture 19 comments

1. HCC classlecture 19 comments John Canny4/4/05

2. Administrivia No class on Wednesday – CHI Social networks (next reading) should be online Friday.

3. Knowledge Ecologies • Sometimes bundled as part of “Actor-Network Theory,” draws on a similar tradition to Latour – anthropological and sociological studies of science. • The “ecology” metaphor is used by Susan Leigh-Star, Bonnie Nardi and Vicky O’Day. A different emphasis from Latour – more concern about social groups (communities of practice), centers of power and the boundaries between them. • Another key figure in this line of research is Donna Haraway, author of “A Cyborg Manifesto”.

4. Immutable Mobiles • Kinds of artifacts that convey essentially the same meaning independent of context: • Maps • Math equations • Charts, graphs etc. • Far more prevalent in science than in other realms of human endeavor. • They don’t require knowledge of the writer’s context or background, as do novels or many other texts.

5. Immutable Mobiles Semiotics introduced a number of concepts to think about immutable mobiles. These include: • Realism: the philosophical perspective that things exist in the world independent of words. • Modality: the degree of truth or reality of a sign. I.M.s are at the extreme end of realism – the signifier is supposed to unambiguously denote the thing. • Readerly (vs. Writerly) texts: the meaning of the text is clear to the reader. The discussion of “modality” explicitly separated the “map” from the “territory”. So does Piaget’s work: there is a specific stage when children understand how to navigate the neighborhood first-hand, but not using a map.

6. Layered Representations • Seems to mirror Latour’s idea of “black boxes” • The representations are exposed as one opens up the boxes. • Some are opaque (unopened), while others are exposed.

7. Formalism and Distance • Star’s focus is on what happens at a distance, as immutable mobiles cross social boundaries. • As we saw with Wenger’s readings, many objects intended as “immutable mobiles,” such as insurance claim forms, are anything but that. The desire for formalism apparently faces insurmountable obstacles. • Fortunately, there are still people in the loop to figure out what to do.

8. Formalism and Distance • Any push towards greater formalism should be matched by a greater understanding of the group work context. • i.e. in order to make “mobiles” really mobile, one must understand the resources and conventions at the likely sources and destinations.

9. Freezing Representations • In reality, the layered representations used in a complex organization tend to move by themselves. • A natural strategy to force stability is to “freeze” various parts of the representation with specifications or standards. • Put another way, design is about making progressive commitments. In practice these commitments are not made top-down, or bottom-up, but at arbitrary levels driven by all the constraints in the system.

10. Boundary Objects • Boundary objects are artifacts that mediate the interaction between different work-groups, or communities of practice. • Rather than spanning time and space arbitrarily (as immutable mobiles), they mediate between specific communities. • But otherwise they share similar properties. In general, the more “concrete” they are, the better.

11. Brokering • Boundary objects, as the term suggests, are “objects”. • Boundaries can also be mediated by people, called “brokers.” These people “speak” the language of two or more communities, and it is understood that their role includes mediation between them. • Brokering is a complex role which involves reconciling perspectives and philosophies. It is a difficult political space since the foci of power are in “centers” of discipline or perspective.

12. Brokering • Brokers are often in a difficult situation since they must represent the views of a conflicting or a competing group, but must avoid “taking sides”. • Brokers often form “communities of practice” of their own to address these issues.

13. Discussion Topics T1: List some boundary objects that you routinely work with. What are the communities between which these objects mediate? Are there brokers as well? T2: Suppose you wanted to identify boundary objects or brokers computationally. What kind of data would you need, and what would you do with it?