Ethnographically-informed systems design for air traffic control
Citation: R. Bentley, J.A. Hughes, D. Randall, T. Rodden, P. Sawyer, D. Shapiro, I. Sommerville (1992) Ethnographically-informed systems design for air traffic control. Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work - CSCW '92 (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1145/143457.143470
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1145/143457.143470
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1145/143457.143470
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Ethnographically-informed systems design for air traffic control
Download: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=143457.143470
Tagged: Computer Science
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Summary
The article opens with a description of the way air traffic control works in the UK, with a framing context of implementing a multi-user and dynamically updated database to disseminate information about flights. The analog approach supports individuals in constantly tracking, fixing, and predicting flight paths---and the anticipating of scenarios that could occur, and shifting schedules while every component is in motion, is quite complex. After they describe the controllers' working process in detail, they go on to talk about how the social research team went about working with the implementation team. They observe that the teams have very different approaches and must adjust to one another in order to collaborate successfully. One important observation they make about technology in this context is the risk that it may make controllers too passive and less engaged with the work. This seems like a difficult tradeoff and one we have not resolved; does anyone really believe that the "driver" of a self-driving car will be as engaged with the road as a driver without the self-driving function? Anticipating that humans will closely monitor machines doing a boring task, with the intention of keeping them from making a very rare error, may not be consistent with the data.
Theoretical and Practical Relevance
This is an early and widely-referenced case study illuminating complex ways of working as part of the development of technology where lives are clearly at stake.
