Domestic service robots have long been a staple of science fiction and commercial visions of the future. Until recently, we have only been able to speculate about what the experience of using such a device might be. Current domestic service robots, introduced as consumer products, allow us to make this vision a reality. This paper presents ethnographic research on the actual use of these products, to provide a grounded understanding of how design can influence human-robot interaction in the home. We used an ecological approach to broadly explore the use of this technology in this context, and to determine how an autonomous, mobile robot might “fit ” into such a space. We offer initial implications for the design of these products: first, the way the technology is introduced is critical; second, the use of the technology becomes social; and third, that ideally, homes and domestic service robots must adapt to each other.

This essay compares activity theory (AT) with distributed cognition theory (DCOG), asking what each can do for CSCW. It approaches this task by proposing that theories – when viewed as conceptual tools for making sense of a domain – have four important attributes: descriptive power; rhetorical power; inferential power; and application power. It observes that AT and DCOG are not so different: both emphasize cognition; both include the social and cultural context of cognition; both share a commitment to ethnographically collected data. Starting with a description of the distributed cognition approach, it uses an example of a DCOG analysis to ground a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of AT and DCOG as an approach to issues in CSCW. Finally, the essay considers what theoretical work is being done by the attributes of the respective theories, and whether AT, DCOG, or any theory developed outside the context of group work, will work for CSCW.

Despite significant existing empirical work, little is known about the specific kinds of questions programmers ask when evolving a code base. Understanding precisely what information a programmer needs about the code base as they work is key to determining how to better support the activity of programming. The goal of this research is to provide an empirical foundation for tool design based on an exploration of what programmers need to understand about a code base and of how they use tools to discover that information. To this end, we undertook two qualitative studies of programmers performing change tasks to medium to large sized programs. One study involved newcomers working on assigned change tasks to a mediumsized code base. The other study involved industrial programmers working on their own change tasks to code with which they had experience. The focus of our analysis has been on what information a programmer needs to know about a code base while performing a change task and also on how they go about discovering that information. Based on a systematic analysis of the data from these user studies as well as an analysis of the support that current programming tools provide for these activities, this research makes four key contributions: (1) a catalog of 44 types of questions programmers ask, (2) a categorization of those questions into four categories based on the kind and scope of information needed to answer a question, (3) a description of important context for the process of answering questions, and (4) a description of support that is missing from current programming tools.

collaborations

This paper investigates how interface design can help to overcome the proclaimed `lack of trust' in e-commerce sites. Based on existing social science knowledge on trust, and our own exploratory study using Grounded Theory methods, we developed a model of consumer decision making in online shopping. Due to the separation in space and time when engaging in ecommerce, there is an increased need for trust, rather than the oft-proclaimed lack of trust. Based on this model we then review design guidelines through empirical tests. We focus on approaches that aim to increase trust by increasing the social presence of an interface. We identified cues in the user interface that help to build trust to some extent (trustbuilders), and some cues that have a great potential for destroying trust (trustbusters).

Software development is typically cooperative endeavor where a group of engineers need to work together to achieve a common, coordinated result. As a cooperative effort, it is especially difficult because of the many interdependencies amongst the artifacts created during the process. This has lead software engineers to create tools, such as configuration management tools, that isolate developers from the effects of each other’s work. In so doing, these tools create a distinction between private and public aspects of work of the developer. Technical support is provided to these aspects as well as for transitions between them. However, we present empirical material collected from a software development team that suggests that the transition from private to public work needs to be more carefully handled. Indeed, the analysis of our material suggests that different formal and informal work practices are adopted by the developers to allow a delicate transition, where software developers are not largely affected by the emergent public work. Finally, we discuss how groupware tools might support this transition.

In this paper we describe a model of the process by which people solve problems using information visualization systems. The model was based on video analysis of forty dyads who performed information visualization tasks in an experiment. We examined the following variables: focused questions vs. free data discovery, remote vs. collocated collaboration, and systems judged to have high and low transparency. The model describes the stages of reasoning and generating solutions with visual data. We found the model to be fairly robust across task type, collaborative setting, and system type, though subtle differences were found. We propose that system transparency can support some stages of the process, and that support is needed in the last stage to help users translate their findings from visual to written representations. 1.

In CSCW, there has been little or no attention given to how people use technology to restore collaborations when there is a major environmental disruption. We are especially interested in studying resilience in collaboration–the extent to which people continue to collaborate with work groups or to socialize despite prolonged disruption. We conducted an empirical study of people living in two countries that experienced prolonged disruption through war in their work and personal lives. We describe how technology played a major role in providing people with alternative resources to reconstruct, modify, and develop new routines, or patterns of action, for work and socializing. People created new assemblages of technological and physical resources. We discuss how the use of new resources in creating new routines led to more of a reliance on virtual work and in some cases to deeper structural changes. Author Keywords Collaboration, disrupted environments, resilience, routines

We introduce grounded evaluation as a process that attempts to ensure that the evaluation of an information visualization tool is situated within the context of its intended use. We discuss the process and scope of grounded evaluation in general, and then describe how qualitative inquiry may be a beneficial approach as part of this process. We advocate for increased attention to the field of qualitative inquiry early in the information visualization development life cycle, as it tries to achieve a richer understanding by using a more holistic approach considering the interplay between factors that influence visualizations, their development, and their use. We present three case studies in which we successfully used observational techniques to inform our understanding of the visual analytics process in groups, medical diagnostic reasoning, and visualization use among computational linguists.

New products, made feasible by advances in technology, allow people to create social relationships with or through them. The home is an interesting place to study the adoption and use of these products. The home provides challenges from both technical and interaction perspectives. In addition, the home is a seat for many specialized human behaviors and needs; it has a long history of what is collected and used to functionally, aesthetically, and symbolically fit the home. This paper presents an ethnographic study of robotic products in the home. The experience of floor cleaning was studied with six families. Each family was then given a robotic vacuum or a stick vacuum that offered the same vacuuming functionality. The robotic vacuum affected significant change in the families, while the stick vacuum did not. Families cleaned more often, more members of the family cleaned, and people made social attributions when using the robotic vacuum. In addition, the robotic vacuum affected generational difference in how elders as opposed to non-elders cleaned. Design implications for social robotic products in the home and next steps for understanding their contexts of use are presented based on the findings from this study. Author Keywords Ethnography, interaction design, robots, robotic products