Observing Cognitive Work in Offices

Abstract

Original citation: Lahlou, Saadi (1999) Observing cognitive work in officesSaadi Lahlou EDF R&D Division 1, Ave du Gal. de Gaulle. 92141 Clamart Cedex FRANCE Email: saadi.lahlou@edf.fr Abstract.The information revolution has a deep impact on office work. To create better environments for cognitive workers, we designed two observation tools recording office activity. The Subcam (subjective camera) is a miniature, wearable, wide angle video camera, clipped on a pair of glasses ; it records individual activity from a subjective point of view, wherever the user goes. The Offsat (office satellite) takes a picture every minute from the ceiling, showing long term evolution in the spatial distribution of information artifacts (piles, etc.), and measuring the distribution of gross activity (meetings, stand alone computing, etc.). We currently use these tool in a series of new furniture and information artifact design experiments.

Subjective Evidence Based Ethnography: Method and Applications

“…Our practice with SEBE is to consider it as a basic toolbox (first-person collection + replay interview) that should be adapted to each specific topic; therefore the collection and analysis will vary to some degree. a) Collection of overt behaviour Participants wear at eye-level, on a pair of glasses or other support (bandana, helmet…) light and discrete miniature video-cameras called subcams (Lahlou, 1999) which transparently record what they do as they act. Subcams provide a first-person perspective recording of the visual array (wide-angle, High-Definition), sound (especially speech), actions performed with the hands, but also a good sense of motion and attention focus, and to some extent emotional cues such as breathing, voice tone, or fine hand movements.…”

“…So we must study activity, which includes overt and covert behaviour, and the context. Subjective Evidence Based Ethnography (SEBE) captures the overt behaviour through firstperson perspective (FPP) video recording provided by miniature cameras, called "subcams" (subjective camera: Lahlou, 1999), worn at eye-level by the participants; the mental states are reconstructed by the participants in a "Replay Interview" (RIW) where they watch their own tape and explain. Historically, SEBE is a technique designed to analyse work environments in natural experiments and support action research (Lahlou, Nosulenko, & Samoylenko, 2012;Lahlou, 1999Lahlou, , 2009.…”

“…Subjective Evidence Based Ethnography (SEBE) captures the overt behaviour through firstperson perspective (FPP) video recording provided by miniature cameras, called "subcams" (subjective camera: Lahlou, 1999), worn at eye-level by the participants; the mental states are reconstructed by the participants in a "Replay Interview" (RIW) where they watch their own tape and explain. Historically, SEBE is a technique designed to analyse work environments in natural experiments and support action research (Lahlou, Nosulenko, & Samoylenko, 2012;Lahlou, 1999Lahlou, , 2009. It is especially fit for ecological psychology (Barker, 1968;Gibson, 1982;Greeno, 1994;Kaplan, Hooper, & Gurven, 2009;Uexküll, 2010) because it captures the context of situations and its impact on individual behaviour.…”

Charting new territory for organizational ethnography

“…In this vein, anthropotechnologists use ethnography to understand working practices from an emic perspective and suggest improvements that directly benefit their research participants (e.g., Geslin, 2004;Wisner, 2004); micro ethnographers explore how people use technology and other tools at work (e.g., Lahlou, 1999;Streeck, Goodwin, & LeBaron, 2011;Streeck & Mehus, 2005) or the meanings they attribute to it (e.g., Rouleau, 2005). That means, ethnographers no longer just produce reports about participants but also, and sometimes primarily, for them.…”

Social Conventions and Issues of Space for Distributed Collaboration

“…We used two to four fixed cameras in order to cover different angles in the space: one camera for the shared media space, one for the screen that shows the videoconference picture, and finally one or two for the local space (as illustrated in Figure 1). We also used a 360° angle camera and ceiling cameras to position the local participants, and at two of the meetings one of the participants used a wearable camera [23]; however, we do not include data from those cameras in this analysis. The data we analyze here consists of about 18 hours of video recordings.…”