Today we have computers in all kind of work places, and it is a fairly common artefact in many homes. What becomes an interesting topic when computers end up in everyday occasions and used by people who are not necessarily computer experts is how the user interface should be designed to be rendered practically useful. This thesis explores part of this problem by looking into the details of how we use technology and artifacts in our everyday activities and utilizes the insights for developing design concepts. Of particular interest is concept development for user interfaces that goes beyond the traditional desktop computer setup with a screen, keyboard and mouse as tools for interaction. The work relies on an ethnographic approach to get an understanding of moment-by-moment use of technology. Fields like Ubiquitous Computing and Computer Supported Cooperative Work are great sources for inspiration when it comes both to theoretical insights and visions about future use of computers.

It has been recognised that there is a need to get a better understanding of the user of technology in work as information technology progressively saturates users' everyday working environments. One motivating force has been a perceived need to link the design of new technology with the work actually being done. One way to do this has been to turn to ethnography as an analytic approach when studying work, and then try to relate the results to design in different ways. The main question in this thesis is precisely how technology is being used in everyday work activity. The individual papers include discussions about what the resulting analyses can do for design. The contributions from the analyses do nog guide design in any 'linear' way but can be brought to the 'design table' and serve as points of departures for design considerations.

The traditional desktop computer have a tendency to drag users to the desk, away from their object of work. Within fields covered by the term tangible computing, researchers try to find ways to integrate computer technology in a more radical way, and minimising the desk gravitation. In this paper we argue for different interactional features that are connected to a design idea for monitoring of remote hemodialysis treatment sessions. We show how a non-traditional computer interface can come into play in a highly mobile work environment.

Tagging physical objects to get a link from the physical world into some kind of technology has been done for a long time. The most commonly known is probably the barcodes that is used in five billion scans every day. During a project at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Cambridge, we came across the concept of Glow Tags. It is partly an expansion of the more traditional tags by, from a user perspective, making them more active. In many ways it is a logical next step in the development of tags. This paper will present the original conception of Glow Tags and illustrate what implications it could have for users. Further different forms of interaction styles such as playful, purposeful, and supportive will be considered in relation to the use of Glow Tags.

This paper is about technology in use and its possible relation to future design. The paper presents three cases taken from an ethnographic study at a dialysis department in Sweden.The observed methods of the participants in the work practices are in different ways related to the development of a remote dialysis system.In addition to giving an understanding of how technology is used in the work practice,the paper also concludes how these different cases can relate to,and inform,design in different ways.

This paper presents an analysis of an experimental setting where video-mediated communication between a nurse and a patient was used. The focus of the analysis is on the communication between the nurse and the patient and the role of the video conference system being used. The emphasis is on how video technology can support interpersonal communication, and thus the patient?s orientation not only to his nurse, but also to the knowledge that he is visible to his nurse, that is of interest here. This is done by referential practices which are directly analogous to those used in co-located situations. As a concluding discussion, the observations will be related to current and future design ideas.

This paper is an attempt to take artifacts seriously. In the light of some basic questions ? How do humans and nonhumans ?connect?? How do they ?interact?? How do they ?work together?? ? we are detailing two cases of medical work activity. Both cases deal with the practices of keeping patients ?fluid balance?. One of the cases is from an ongoing dialysis project at our department. The other case is a revisit of a case described in literature. Our main conclusion is that the symmetry principle of Actor-Network theory does not hold true in our cases; on an operational level humans and nonhumans may be able to replace each other, but in work practices they do not. The second conclusion is methodological, namely that the level of description of the cases are decisive for what you may find out.

This paper describes a project aiming at developing a new alarm system for the dialysis department in Karlskrona, Sweden. We?ll present the approach we used in order to understand how the alarms was perceived and how the alarms influenced the nurses work practice. Our understanding of the alarm was used as a basis for the design process of creating a new alarm system together with the nurses. The alarm system we will present should not be thought of as the final system to be implemented, but rather as being used for further discussion about how to deal with alarms. The main audience for this paper are those who are interested in what you can learn from a narrow analysis of technology (alarms) in use and how an alarm might effect the way people act. Although we talk about design, that is not the key issue.