Designing Collaborative Systems : A Practical Guide to Ethnography

Designing Collaborative Systems: A Practical Guide to Ethnography introduces a new 'ethnographic' approach that will enable designers to create collaborative and interactive systems, which are employed successfully in real-world settings. This new approach, adapted from the field of social research, considers both the social circumstances and the level and type of human interaction involved, thereby ensuring that future ethnographic systems are as user-friendly and as effective as possible.

This book provides the practitioner with an invaluable introduction to this approach, and presents a unique set of practical strategies for incorporating it into the design process. Divided into four distinct sections with practical examples throughout, the book covers:
- the requirements problem;
- ethnographic practices for describing and analysing cooperative work;
- the design process; and 
- the role of ethnography when evaluating systems supporting cooperative work.

"Of the various perspectives that jostle together under the rubric of ethnography, ethnomethodology has often held the most appeal for designers. Yet, surprisingly, there has not been a systematic explication of ethnography and ethnomethodology for the purposes of system design. Andy Crabtree puts this to rights in a comprehensive, informative, and accessible practical guide which will be of great value to not only designers but also the ethnographers who work with them."
(Graham Button, Lab. Director, Xerox Research Centre, Europe)

"Not only is the book a must for those interested in bringing a social dimension to the system design process, it also makes a significant contribution to ethnomethodology."
(Professor John A. Hughes, Lancaster University, UK)

From the reviews:

"The text is emminently readable.  Crabtree is able to synthesize and reflect upon material from a number of areas ... with great clarity of argument.  This makes such complex and diverse subject matter approachable for all types of audiences from the social science to computer science, from research to academia. 

The requirements problem discussions in Chapter1 provide a most coherent and convincing argument about the problems associated with both traditional requirements gathering techniques and more cognitively focused HCI approaches for socially situated software.  This should be compulsory reading for all students of HCI/CSCW/software requirements."

Geraldine Fitzpatrick, University of Sussex - The Computer Journal, Vol 47, No 3, 2004

Fieldwork methods and sociological analysis have become increasingly
relevant for designing interactive systems, but how to bring fieldwork,
analysis and design together is still mysterious. Crabtree provides a
unique insider's perspective and demonstrates the applicability of
ethnomethodological analysis throughout the process of design. As well as
providing valuable lessons to practitioners, his book will also contribute
significantly to ongoing debates about the role, contribution, and
practicalities of these methods.
Paul Dourish, University of California, Irvine, USA

"Of the various perspectives that jostle together under the rubric of ethnography, ethnomethodology has often held the most appeal for designers. Yet, surprisingly, there has not been a systematic explication of ethnography and ethnomethodology for the purposes of system design. Andy Crabtree puts this to rights in a comprehensive, informative, and accessible practical guide which will be of great value to not only designers but also the ethnographers who work with them."
(Graham Button, Lab. Director, Xerox Research Centre, Europe)

"Not only is the book a must for those interested in bringing a social dimension to the system design process, it also makes a significant contribution to ethnomethodology."
(Professor John A. Hughes, Lancaster University, UK)

"This book makes a significant contribution, reflecting the work of ethnography itself, in accounting for the practical work of understanding and design in a coherent and accessible manner. This book could be read equally by ethnographers as a book about applied ethnomethodologically informed ethnography, and by designers or developers as a book about how to apply an understanding of the ‘real world, real time character of work’ ... ." (Geraldine Fitzpatrick, The Computer Journal, Vol. 47 (3), 2004)

"Andy Crabtree’s is a slim, quiet, slightly academic book that somehow manages to bring the airy theoretical concepts to life, and to recommend simple and practical ways of using the ideas ... . Crabtree has produced a fine pioneering essay which sketches, on the basis of a mountainous literature, how in principle ethnography could migrate from the research lab of a university to the research and development lab of a large software or systems corporation." (Ian Alexander, Requirenautics Quarterly, July, 2003)