Luiz,
I agree with you. Lucy Suchman' s paper concerning boundary crossing
"Working relation of technology production and use" appeared in CSCW
is very related to the approach of participatory design and activity theory.
In this paper, she wrote her struggling with designers as you described
above and how they have attempeted to reorganize 'working relation'.
I think Suchman' s critique to Winograd was done from the view point
of this participatory design that is still under construction.
Yrjo also wrote the relevant paper to the issue of boundary crossing.
Here, around the issue of boundary crossing, all approaches are overlapped.
Regarding the book "Participatory Design" edited by Schuler and Namioka,
it seems to me that, so far, many things are remaining for the future
research and practice although the direction of this approach looks nice.
For example, some papers in this book would tend to introduce just
know-how of organization of participation.
As the result, it looks like "the top down organization of participatory
desgin" without any ethnography or without learning of organizer' s side.
In ISCRAT, I will be able to see the recent development of this approach.
On the other hand, the dichotomy of top down and bottom up
is nesessary to reconsider, that was also pointed out by some commentaters
in this CSCW special issue although I have used this dichotomy without any
additional description.
That is another story of the issue of boudary crossing.
>To conclude, there are several new developments and issues that have been
>raise since the mid eighties, but the field of HCI still does not have a
>stable theoretical and practical ground. But comparing to other
>perspectives in Computer Science, both Winograd's and Suchman's work have
>been important steps for moving the field forward.
>
>There is still a lot to do, but that is why we are here.
Again, I agree. The argument about the Coordinator *in context* was
interesting. I have read this special issue in the context of Julian Orr
and Etienne Wenger' s doctorial dissertations, that is ethnography of
workplaces.
For example, the Coordinator is very similar to the copy machine repair
manual prepared by the management side in Xerox researched by Orr
in various senses. You can guess the destiny of the Coordinator in use
by these ethnographies.
If so, why don' t you go to the field of designing?
Without engaging in the fieldwork of workplace, and colloborative design
of artifacts, it must be very difficult to understand "the differences and the
benefits of each solution or school of thought".
Further, the dichotomy of theory and its use is also a kind of problematic
dualism, isn't it?
Naoki Ueno
NIER, Tokyo