skip to main content
10.1145/1394445.1394458acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesdisConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Cognitive partnerships on the bench top: designing to support scientific researchers

Published: 25 February 2008 Publication History

Abstract

There has been a growing interest to develop technologies for laboratory environments. However, existing systems are underdeployed in real research labs. In order to create more successful technologies for the creative laboratory setting, we need a deeper understanding of the values of the researchers we are designing for and the unique roles of technology in the research laboratory. Our three-year ethnographic study of a biomedical engineering (BME) lab contributes to building this foundation for future design. Drawing form a distributed and situated cognition framework, our analysis highlights the ways in which technology is integrated into the researchers' daily practices. This study is one of the first deep ethnographies of a laboratory culture with a central focus on technology and provides several insights for the design community.

References

[1]
Arnstein, L., Hung, C., Franza, R., Zhou, Q. H., Borriello, G., Consolvo, S., and Su, J. 2002. Labscape: A Smart Environment for the Cell Biology Laboratory. IEEE Pervasive Computing 1, 3 (Jul. 2002), 13--21.
[2]
Bell, G., Blythe, M., and Sengers, P. 2005. Making by making strange: Defamiliarization and the design of domestic technologies. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 12, 2 (Jun. 2005), 149--173.
[3]
Clark, A. 2003. Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence. Oxford University Press, New York.
[4]
Crabtree, A., Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C., Tennent, P., Chalmers, M., and Brown, B. 2006. Supporting ethnographic studies of ubiquitous computing in the wild. In Proceedings of the 6th Conference on Designing interactive Systems (University Park, PA, USA, June 26 - 28, 2006). DIS '06. ACM, New York, NY, 60--69.
[5]
Dix, A., Finlay, J., Abowd, G., and Beale, R. 2004. Human-Computer Interaction. Pearson, Harlow.
[6]
Dourish, P. 2003. The Appropriation of Interactive Technologies: Some Lessons from Placeless Documents. Comput. Supported Coop. Work 12, 4 (Sep. 2003), 465--490.
[7]
Frøkjær, E., Hertzum, M., and Hornbæk, K. 2000. Measuring usability: are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction really correlated? In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (The Hague, The Netherlands, April 01 - 06, 2000). CHI '00. ACM, New York, NY, 345--352.
[8]
Greenberg, S. and Fitchett, C. 2001. Phidgets: easy development of physical interfaces through physical widgets. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Orlando, Florida, November 11 - 14, 2001). UIST '01. ACM, New York, NY, 209--218.
[9]
Greeno, J. 1998. The situativity of knowing, learning, and research. American Psychologist, 53, 1, 5--26.
[10]
Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., and Kirsh, D. 2000. Distributed cognition: toward a new foundation for human-computer interaction research. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 7, 2 (Jun. 2000), 174--196.
[11]
Hughes, G., Mills, H., De Roure, D., Frey, J., and Moreau, L. 2004. The semantic smart laboratory: a system for supporting the chemical eScientist. Organic Biomolecular Chemistry 2, 22, 3284--3293.
[12]
Hutchins, E. 1995. Cognition in the Wild. MIT Press, Cambridge.
[13]
Knorr-Cetina. K. 1999. Epistemic Cultures: how the sciences make knowledge. Harvard University Press, 1999.
[14]
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. 1998. Philosophy in the Flesh. Basic Books, New York.
[15]
Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Social Facts. Sage.
[16]
Lave, J. 1988. Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life. Cambridge University Press: New York.
[17]
Nersessian, N. J. 1992. How do scientists think? Capturing the dynamics of conceptual change in science. Cognitive Models of Science 15, 3--45.
[18]
Nersessian, N. J. 2005. Interpreting Scientific and Engineering Practices: Integrating the Cognitive, Social and Cultural Dimensions. Chapter in Scientific and Technological Thinking. Earlbaum. 17--56.
[19]
Nersessian, N. J., Kurz-Milcke, E. and Davies, J. 2005. Ubiquitous Computing in Science and Engineering Laboratories: A case study from biomedical engineering. Chapter in Knowledge in the New Technologies. Peter Lang Publishers, Berlin. 167--198.
[20]
Norman, D. 2002. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York.
[21]
Osbeck, L. and Nersessian, N. J. 2006. The distribution of Representation. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 36, 2 (Jun. 2006), 141--160.
[22]
Shore, B. 1997. Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture and the Problem of Meaning. Oxford University Press, New York.
[23]
Suchman, L. 1987. Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication. Cambridge University Press.
[24]
Tomasello, M. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
[25]
Wu, C. A., Robinson, S. J., and Mazalek, A. 2007. WikiTUI: leaving digital traces in physical books. In Proceedings of the international Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (Salzburg, Austria, June 13 - 15, 2007). ACE '07, vol. 203. ACM, New York, NY, 264--265.
[26]
Wyche, S., Sengers, P., Grinter, R. 2006. Historical Analysis: Using the past to design the future. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (Orange County, CA, USA, September 17 - 21, 2006). Ubicomp '06. ACM, New York, NY, 31--51.

Cited By

View all
  • (2017)User studies in cartography: opportunities for empirical research on interactive maps and visualizationsInternational Journal of Cartography10.1080/23729333.2017.12885343:sup1(61-89)Online publication date: 24-May-2017
  • (2017)Critical moments in participatory design: Engaging NASA astrobiology researchers via scientometric visualizationsProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.2017.1450540101354:1(112-118)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
  • (2012)The eLabBench in the wildProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2207676.2208718(3051-3060)Online publication date: 5-May-2012

Index Terms

  1. Cognitive partnerships on the bench top: designing to support scientific researchers

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    DIS '08: Proceedings of the 7th ACM conference on Designing interactive systems
    February 2008
    487 pages
    ISBN:9781605580029
    DOI:10.1145/1394445
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 25 February 2008

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. appropriation
    2. creativity
    3. distributed cognition
    4. ethnography
    5. research laboratory
    6. values

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Funding Sources

    Conference

    DIS08
    Sponsor:
    DIS08: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2008
    February 25 - 27, 2008
    Cape Town, South Africa

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

    Upcoming Conference

    DIS '25
    Designing Interactive Systems Conference
    July 5 - 9, 2025
    Funchal , Portugal

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)4
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2
    Reflects downloads up to 20 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2017)User studies in cartography: opportunities for empirical research on interactive maps and visualizationsInternational Journal of Cartography10.1080/23729333.2017.12885343:sup1(61-89)Online publication date: 24-May-2017
    • (2017)Critical moments in participatory design: Engaging NASA astrobiology researchers via scientometric visualizationsProceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/pra2.2017.1450540101354:1(112-118)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017
    • (2012)The eLabBench in the wildProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2207676.2208718(3051-3060)Online publication date: 5-May-2012

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media