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Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright Author's personal copy Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma Collaboration in web design: Sharing knowledge, pursuing usability Francesca Alby *, Cristina Zucchermaglio Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy Received 2 May 2004; received in revised form 21 August 2007; accepted 29 October 2007 Abstract This article analyzes how and why collaboration is useful in web design. Through an analysis of interactions in an Italian Internet company, the article shows that collaboration is the system used by designers to improve organizational functioning and the quality of products. In particular, it shows that collaboration supports certain crucial work activities, such as the planning of new products and the pursuit of interface usability. To perform these activities, designers draw on specific interactive resources, such as a repertoire of skills shared by groups of different professionals and their overlapping identities as designers and users. These resources are made visible by the article’s epistemological and methodological approach to the study of web design as a collaborative activity. # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Collaboration; Web design; Knowledge repertoire; Interface usability; Distributed cognition; Situated learning 1. Introduction Web design is a relatively new form of work. Initially, it was considered to be solely a technical activity performed by an individual. Indeed, it was assumed that correct design carried out by a skilled technician was all that was necessary to ensure the functionality and usability of products. Recently, however, this technical-individualist view has been replaced by an interpretation that highlights the importance of the social and collaborative practices enacted among designers. Recent studies, in particular, have described technical design as a composite social activity situated in specific work contexts (see Bødker and Christiansen, 1997; Suchman, 2000; * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: francesca.alby@uniroma1.it (F. Alby), cristina.zucchermaglio@uniroma1.it (C. Zucchermaglio). 0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2007.10.008 Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 495 Newman, 1998; Henderson, 1999; Bucciarelli, 2002; Aakhus and Jackson, 2005; Alby and Zucchermaglio, 2007). The conviction that social skills are crucial is also widespread among practitioners. These skills are, for example, the ability to translate technical questions into non-technical language, to understand the requirements of customers and users, to know how to collaborate with other professionals (for example commercial managers with engineers) in the creation of products. Such skills are considered useful for the construction of good products and to maintain an agile and rapid work process (see for instance the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, www.agilemanifesto.org). But exactly why is collaboration beneficial? And in what way does collaboration support an effective design process? This paper seeks to answer these questions by illustrating the ways in which collaboration among designers supports the quality of work and its products in an Italian Internet company. It will examine two aspects in particular –briefly described below – which are particularly important for the functioning of the organization and of the technology produced. 2. Talking at work In the history of social psychology, the interactionist tradition maintains that the distinctive psychological-social feature of the group resides in its nature as a set of individuals-inrelationship: sharing of the same field is the necessary condition for interaction to take place and for joint actions to be carried out (Lewin, 1948; Asch, 1952). This system of shared meaning and joint actions therefore resides neither in single individuals nor externally to them, but in the relations among them. The space for individual action is considered to be connected to that of others: in order for actions to be performed, they are negotiated and publicly discussed with the other members of the group (Wenger, 1998). Over time, these actions form a repertoire of shared practices that organize the daily lives of the groups and constitute a set of resources that can be drawn upon to pursue the ‘common enterprise’ and a process of collective learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Orr, 1996; Boden, 1994; Wenger, 1998). A recent strand of interdisciplinary research has studied interactions in organizations, highlighting that, in order for people to be able to work, they must constantly agree amongst themselves on who will do what, when it will be done, how it will be done, and so on (see Luff et al., 2000; Engeström and Middleton, 1996). This collaboration is so pervasive that it is often impossible to distinguish between collective action and individual action: all activities, in fact, are shared and coordinated to produce joint courses of action. Even apparently individual actions (like reading, writing, working in front of a computer screen) are made publicly visible so as to permit the construction and maintenance of the forms of reciprocal coordination necessary for management of the work. For this reason, too, the unit of analysis used by this strand of research is not the individual but the group in action, and the significant empirical data are interactive practices (discursive, visual and material) among actors. It is through the integrated analysis of discourse, gestures, and body language as well as of the material and technological infrastructure that joint work activities – such as planning (Suchman, 2000), seeing (Goodwin, 1994; Hindmarsh and Heath, 2000), reasoning (Hutchins and Klausen, 1996), decision making (Alby and Zucchermaglio, 2006), and so on – become observable events. Observation-based studies on technical professions (see in particular those by Orr, 1996 and Suchman, 2007) have evidenced that the interpretation of technology-mediated events is an Author's personal copy 496 F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 inevitably problematic and discursive activity, and that it constitutes a crucial component of professional competence. It is in fact through joint accounts and interpretations, within triangular relations which also include the technology itself, that technicians construct a stock of distributed knowledge and pragmatic understanding which is one of the most valuable and enduring outcomes of their collaboration. In the particular case described here, we shall see how this mechanism is used not only to support the organization’s functioning, but also to create user-friendly technologies. 3. Pursuing usability The creation of user-friendly technologies was initially considered to be only a technical issue. Later on, experience and studies on cognitive ergonomics showed that constructing advanced technological products is no guarantee of their usability. For example, it may happen that these advanced technologies are too complicated for some categories of users or, more simply, do not correspond to their needs and habits. Therefore, the idea that also the usability of technologies should be designed, and not just their technical characteristics, began gradually to spread among designers. To this end, once products had been finalized, it became common practice to test them with ‘experimental’ users in laboratory-simulated situations. These usability tests led to great improvements in the design of technological interfaces, but they also had many shortcomings: (1) the users recruited for the simulations often had characteristics, skills and motivations very different from those for the technology had been designed; (2) the social, organizational and technological practices of the communities of end users were not considered to be important, as demonstrated by the fact that they were absent in the artificial laboratory settings; (3) the interaction between user and technology was considered to be individual and mental, so that no account was taken of the complex phenomena involving local social and organizational mechanisms; (4) furthermore, although these usability tests often formed part of the design process, they were too often conducted only during the final stage, when the product had already been finalized. The next step was that of greater integration between the design phase and use situations. This shift was made possible by the research tradition which developed in Scandinavia during the 1970s and envisaged the use of prototypes and the involvement of ‘real’ users (Kensing and Blomberg, 1998). This tradition was the referent for a series of participatory designs which reversed the conception of users as passive and inexpert. In these cases, the users participated in the design from the initial stages onwards, and used the prototypes created during their daily activities. On this view, in fact, incorporating the products created into everyday work contexts was considered essential for their accurate evaluation. These experiences of participatory design were often preceded by observation-based studies carried out in the workplaces where the technologies were to be used later on a daily basis (see Orr, 1996; Heath and Luff, 2000; Suchman, 2007). These studies showed that: (1) the use of technological instruments is always mediated by collaboration and social interaction among members of professional communities; (2) this interaction is more narrative than cognitive; (3) there is no one technology (for example the most technologically advanced one) which prevails over the others; rather, there is simultaneous and integrated use of heterogeneous old and new technologies. These empirical research studies showed that users talk, not only in a dialogue amongst themselves but also addressing and including the technology, in a kind of three-way conversation aptly defined as a ‘‘trialogue’’ (Suchman, 2002a). In other words, users give voice and body to Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 497 what, according to them, is happening ‘within’ the technology, making it visible to the others (designers and researchers included). This is most evident in certain interactive occasions: for example, when the functioning of the technology is problematic (see Bødker and Grønbæk, 1996; Orr, 1996; Alby and Zucchermaglio, 2006) or when it is not visible to the users (Newman, 1998; Alby and Zucchermaglio, 2007), or when an expert user explains how things work to a less expert user or one with different skills (the case examined in this article). These social situations are essential for designers to be able to ‘outthink the user’, that is, assume the user’s viewpoint and take account of it in the design: an aspect so important and pervasive in their deliberations ‘‘that they must frequently address the question of what the user will do, will be like, or will feel, as an element in arriving at their design decisions’’ (Sharrock and Button, 1997:92). According to Suchman (2002b), the distinction between users and designers – a defect in traditional design, opportunely denounced by participatory design – is never so clear-cut. Instead, there exists a wide range of intermediate roles: ‘‘this simple designer/user distinction obscures the realities of system development in two ways. First, it draws as unambiguous what is in practice a highly shifting and perspectival boundary, missing the ways in which professional designers are themselves among the most intensive of technology users on the one hand, and making invisible the multiple forms of vernacular design-in-use on the other. At the same time, the simple dualism closes off our possibilities for recognizing the many subtle and profound differences that actually do divide us, and for replacing the designer/user opposition with a rich, densely structured landscape of identities and working relations, within which we might begin to move with some awareness and clarity of our various positions’’ (Suchman, 2002b:141). Studied as a daily work practice, design is therefore not characterized by a clear boundary between production and use, or between designers and users. With removal of this boundary, the underlying assumption that technical expertise is the only form of knowledge necessary for the design of technological systems fails as well. But what other skills come into play? To carry out what activity? And what organizational solutions must be found to outthink users? 4. Entering the setting The company (henceforth called ‘Energy’, a pseudonym) in which we carried out our research project manages a portal providing services to a mass audience (personalized homepages, news, e-mail, SMS, thematic channels, e-commerce, etc.). It has around 40 employees, divided into two main work groups: producers and engineers. The former manage the editorial content, the latter the portal systems and applications. The production process is organized so that new projects are planned by the producers and then implemented by the engineers. For the engineers, the producers are therefore internal clients, and often the users of the applications that the engineers build for them. In this article we analyze the interactive practices used to design an advertising banner to be inserted into the homepage of the Internet portal which the company develops and maintains. Creation of a banner is a good example of a type of work activity with certain specific characteristics widespread in Internet companies: it is a brief task, it is an extra (unscheduled) activity, it is urgent, and it requires the collaboration of producers and engineers. This type of activity is not unusual; in fact, it takes up a good percentage of the overall work load and is carried on alongside of projects requiring a longer time-scale, in which the design and Author's personal copy 498 F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 implementation stages are more temporally distant and the activities are undertaken mainly within one’s own professional group (engineers or producers). The data were collected during a three-month ethnography using field observations, video recordings, and interviews. During the first month, we carried out preliminary field observations intended to describe the everyday organization of work practices. Interviews with key informants were also conducted during this phase. In the months that followed, we videotaped about 10 h of interactions, which were transcribed using the Jefferson notation system (Jefferson, 1989). In order to obtain a broader view of the work practices under study, we also collected instant messenger logs (about 3 h), e-mails relating to the interactions (23 items), papers relating to the interactions (10 items), photographs (20 items), print screens of the website and various applications (10 items). The analysis of the entire data corpus enabled us to describe the specific organizational and professional features of Energy. Conversation analysis was applied to the discursive and interactive data in order to reveal the situated and emergent organization of joint design activities. Our interest in the technologies, as well as in the properties of the space and environment and the role of the body in interaction, led us to analyze visual as well as discursive data. Besides viewing videos and analysing the materials collected, we also constructed visual representations of the data. These representations consisted of conversational transcripts and images taken from the video, which were sometimes integrated with graphic representations in order to highlight particular aspects (see Goodwin, 2000, 2003). 5. Shaping semiotic objects In order to create the advertising banner commissioned by one of Energy’s commercial partners, producer Luca goes to engineer Paolo (both names are pseudonyms) with an idea of how this banner should be done and with a suggestion of how it should be created on the computer (i.e. by inserting a slot on the homepage, also called ‘mesp’ or ‘my energy start page’). This suggestion is discussed during the interaction with Paolo (see Extract 1). Paolo’s request to ‘‘look at it together’’ produces a sequence in which the new object is gradually ‘designed’ on the monitor (where the homepage is visible) via the discourses and gestures of both interlocutors. Through this progressive construction Paolo eventually ‘sees’ the new object (as marked by ‘‘m::’’ in turn 10) (see Extract 2). Luca seems to know what product he wants to achieve, but cannot find the words to identify it and communicate it to Paolo: in fact he mainly uses gestures (he moves his hand backwards and forwards in Extract 1 and in frame 4 of Extract 2) together with ‘gestural sketches’ on the homepage to represent a graphical object for which no name yet exists within the historical repertoire of meanings shared by the members of this professional community (see Henderson, 1999, on how this visual modality is typical of interactions among designers). The gestures made on the screen to connect the two semiotic fields of the conversation and homepage are able to give a provisional ‘spatial’ form to the object. A clear example is when Luca says the word ‘‘here’’ while his hand traces a line from one side of the screen to the other (Extract 1, frame 1, turn 5). The meaning of the deictic marker ‘‘here’’ is understandable only through the gesture at the monitor, which locates the object within the homepage. This connection with the homepage on the monitor is essential for the construction of a shared meaning. It enables reference to be made to scenarios and inscriptions present in the environment which are selected and animated by gestures. The form of the new object seems Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 499 Extract 1. to emerge progressively, and it also defines and positions itself in respect to the other objects already present on the homepage (‘‘between this and that’’, turn 6; ‘‘between this and this’’, turn 7). Now that the new object is visible on the homepage in the virtual space created by the gestures and conversation between the designers, the latter begin to plan its agency (its functions) in detail: in turn 8 they realize what the object should do (‘‘a thing that crosses everything’’). Note that this object is no longer what Luca had in mind at the beginning (turn 1), but rather an object progressively built during the interaction with Paolo, who has also given voice and space during the design to specific technical aspects and constraints. With respect to the start of the interaction (when it could have been a slot or an element to add to ‘mesp’, short for My Energy Start Page), the new object, thanks to its discursively and gesturally shaped boundaries, gradually increases its ontological status: it becomes an action (‘‘a thing that crosses everything’’, turn 8), with also an analogical and categorical name (‘‘like zarco’’, turn 9). Paolo’s full comprehension (marked by the ‘‘m::’’ in turn 10) occurs when the object is given a name; this enables him to recognize it as belonging to a category of objects, viz., ‘‘zarco type’’ objects. The utility of this attribution by the designers to a class of objects pertaining to the designers’ shared repertoire shows that no design product is ever entirely ‘new’: its interactive construction Author's personal copy 500 F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 is based from the outset on a historical repertoire of shared professional practices, which enable Paolo and Luca to understand each other, and to actively allocate the current object to a category of other objects (the ‘zarco’) which they have already designed in the past. This anchoring in earlier experiences of designing similar objects is also essential for designing the functionality of these objects. By drawing on what they have already produced during the course of their interactive history, the designers also construct the agency of new Extract 2. Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 501 Extract 2 (Continued ). products (in addition to constructing their agency as designers); thus, they innovate the stock of common professional practices on which their collaboration is based and on which they draw. Collaboration enables the designers (a) to reconcile the requests of the producers and the technical constraints of the engineers, giving shape to a new product resulting from this interaction; (b) to create this new product rapidly (within 10 min). Collaboration also enables them to construct the framework of shared meanings necessary for conceptualizing and progressively realizing new products. This ability to imagine new objects together is particularly important for all design activities, also in particular for professions in which the object of the work is not visible (as in the case, for example, of physicists, neuroscientists, archaeologists, chemists, architects, etc.; see Ochs et al., 1996; Lynch, 1985; Goodwin, 1994, 1997; Murphy, 2004).. In this way, design can be jointly produced through the use of semiotic resources, including the participants’ discourse, their gestures, and the material environment around them. Thanks to these semiotic resources, designers jointly transform the physical world into accountable ‘future’ phenomena in relation to the aims of the design action (see also Fasulo and Zucchermaglio, in press). Author's personal copy 502 F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 6. Constituting future and current agencies This joint imaginative ability is also supported by the presence of the different professional skills of Luca and Paolo, as evidenced by the following interaction, in which the designers are constructing the text trailer, an essential part of the advertising banner mentioned in the previous section. Paolo is writing the program required to create the space dedicated to the text trailer on the homepage. This will allow Luca to later insert and change the text autonomously whenever required. As he writes the program, Paolo describes what he is doing to Luca in order to construct and maintain a common reference to the design activity (see Extract 3). Paolo is talking about the shape of the text trailer, which is ‘‘as wide as it is high’’ (turn 17). From Luca’s question (‘‘you mean it’s full width?’’, turn 18), Paolo understands where he lost Luca and, in turn 19, stops speaking about the text trailer and starts talking in terms of the actions that Luca must perform in order to write it down (‘‘it has no effect on how many characters you can put it’s just that this is inconvenient if you have to fill a’’, turn 19). From Luca’s response, (‘‘ah:: (I‘ve) got it- got it- got it’’, turn 20) we see that this was precisely what Luca did not understand. Extract 3. Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 503 Extract 3 (Continued ). What Paolo manages to do – and Luca does not – is to see, through the shape of the text trailer, the designer’s actions that produce it. This ability pertains more to engineers than to producers because it is linked to the different nature of the activities of the two professional groups: while producers are concerned with the graphical aspects and content of the site, engineers are concerned with how to translate these objects into the commands and programs needed to carry them out. Paolo’s effort to show to, and share with, a producer the specific professional practices of his professional group (that of the engineers) through what we could call ‘translation practices’ serves to achieve various working and organizational objectives. The first outcome of these collaborative practices is the progressive construction of a stock of knowledge common to both groups and which partially overlaps with the typical and specific professional skills of each. Although the continuous ‘‘online commentary’’ (Heritage and Stivers, 1999) given by Paolo may slow down the activity (as in the case examined), it is nevertheless deemed a good investment, as it supports speed and tacit understanding in future common activities. Author's personal copy 504 F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 The second important outcome of these collaborative practices among designers with different skills is the construction of the program’s usability for writing the text trailer. The participation by producer Luca – as one who will have to use it – allows the end user’s ‘voice’ to be included, from the beginning, in the design of the program’s future agency. This ‘voice’ of the user (represented by Luca) helps organize the technical design activity carried out by Paolo, the engineer. A similar practice is used when the user is absent or difficult to contact, as in the case of the end users of a website being developed by the designers: one of the designers in the group talks on behalf of the absent user, for this purpose making use of his double identity of designer and website user (see Alby and Zucchermaglio, 2007). Collaboration makes it possible to imagine not just the program as a technical product, but also the possible interactions with its user (and the results of these interactions), and to take account of these from the moment that the program is written. This collaborative situation permits voice and representation to be given to the needs of both groups of actors involved, integrating technical needs with those of the users. Usability is here an interactive achievement and is therefore another reason why designers choose to collaborate, rather than carrying out these activities separately or in sequence. 7. Conclusions In this article, we have shown how collaboration enables a group of web designers to produce a series of work outcomes, as summarized in the following: (1) Over time, construct and foster a tested repertoire of skills and common knowledge. This repertoire, although costly in terms of the effort and time devoted to its construction, has the advantage of facilitating future interactions, an essential factor in the efficient and effective functioning of professional groups. (2) Give shape to new products. These arise from joint imaginative activities, to which the professions contribute in different ways: engineers who design programs tend to represent actions (such as the functioning of an application), whereas producers, who plan content and graphics, tend to represent objects (for example, the elements on a web page). If this activity is performed collaboratively, it is more effective in supporting rapid and coordinated design action, as compared to a sequential process, which would take considerably longer because of the multiple revisions to which a product not produced in collaboration must be subjected. (3) Pursue interface usability. Collaboration allows designers to meet the projected needs of potential users, as the designers develop a better understanding of their own ongoing activity. The participation of the user (in this case a differently skilled colleague) in the design serves to constitute both the future agency (what the user will do) and the current agency (what should currently be done for the design). The above are some of the factors that encourage web designers to collaborate. Collaboration for them is a commitment; although it requires specific social skills and is time-consuming, it is worthwhile as it produces good results for both organizational functioning and product quality. In more general terms, studying web design as a collaborative activity has been a particularly effective epistemological and methodological option, precisely because it has enabled us to understand and document how the roles of user and designer represent fluid identities, and how Author's personal copy F. Alby, C. Zucchermaglio / Journal of Pragmatics 40 (2008) 494–506 505 the discursive resources are creatively used by the actors to construct user-friendly products; in addition the study has allowed us to describe how the expertise of a professional community is under constant construction. References Aakhus, M., Jackson, S., 2005. Technology, interaction and design. In: Fitch, K., Sanders, R.E. (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. 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Suchman, L., 2002b. Practice-based Design of Information Systems: Notes from the Hyperdeveloped World in the Information Society 18. Taylor & Francis, London. Suchman, L., 2007. Human–Machine Reconfiguration. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Wenger, E., 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Francesca Alby has done PhD and works as a researcher at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Her main interests are workplace action and interaction, social organization of cognition, and ethnographies of sites of technology production and use. Cristina Zucchermaglio has done PhD and works as a full professor of social psychology at the Faculty of Psychology 1, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Her research focuses on many aspects of social interaction and discourse, including working, learning and communicative practices in organizational settings.