EthnoModel: An Approach for Developing and Evaluating CSCW Systems

This paper investigates the relationship between the social organisation of working environments and their relevance to system development. The objectives of this paper are therefore twofold. Firstly, it effectively analyses the social aspects of working practices using established techniques of ethnography. Such analysis provides a 'rich' and 'concrete' portrayal of the situation and thus helps systematic design of CSCW systems. Secondly, it uses meta-modelling in order to represent and model the findings of the ethnographic analysis. The value of this approach is considered by means of evaluating the development of a model to which the approach was applied.