This paper provides a description of designers' work practices in a software company. We describe a participatory analysis of the diversity of working relations and roles of designers of IBM's Lotus software products. Designers are an example of a minority discipline ? that is, a discipline whose members are often isolated in their work teams among coworkers with different training, backgrounds, and career paths. We explore differences between the practices of designers of Lotus software products and the published reports of design practices in group settings. Keywords Work analysis, design techniques, user studies, design, community of practice, knowledge management
Michael J. Muller, Kenneth Carey