Technology for the humdrum: trajectories, interactional needs and a care setting

We report on a care setting where staff looking after ex-psychiatric patients were supported by mobile and stationery communications technology (e.g. mobile phones, a messaging system) and physical artefacts (e.g. whiteboards and Post-It notes). Building on previous ethnographic investigations, we show that the concept of trajectory (or ongoing course of action) was important to understanding staff’s ongoing care work. We argue that sensitivity to this notion was helpful in describing the key transitions, cycles, plans and management issues in staff’s ongoing work and in generating key interactional needs. We present verified trajectory-informed scenarios emerging from fieldwork and show that these snapshots of work were generative of descriptions of staff’s and residents’ current and potential future use of technology in this setting. Finally we describe issues pertinent to situated display design emerging from this trajectory-informed data and discuss the effectiveness of th...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: OZCHI
• Authors: Connor Graham, Keith Cheverst, Mark Rouncefield
• Keywords: Computer Human Interaction, OZCHI 2005, Staff’s Ongoing Care, Staff’s Ongoing Work, Stationery Communications Technology