Locales, social worlds and support for collaboration

Building collaborative systems based on an understanding of work is difficult. We outline work in progress towards the development of a locales framework which is aimed at bridging the gap between social studies of work and systems design. This framework is based on Strauss' notion of social worlds and the implications of individuals being involved in multiple social worlds simultaneously. The locales framework describes the essential characteristics of a collaborative environment interpreting the notion of space from an interaction rather than a simulation perspective.