TITLE: Users and Uses of Synchronous Business Communications Software

AUTHORS(s) & AFFILIATION(s): David G. Novick, University of Texas at El Paso, and Eleanor Wynn, Intel

KEYWORD(s): multimedia, interactive communications, task analysis

PRESENTER / CONTACT PERSON: David G. Novick

CONTACT EMAIL: novick@cs.utep.edu

ABSTRACT:

To help designers and authors understand users' intentions and work practices for synchronous communications in a systematic way, we studied the interactive communications of diverse set of users in the business community. Our study addresses the problem of providing a taxonomy of users and uses of synchronous business communications software that could identify archetypes that could be used by designers and documenters. We use ethnographic and task-analytic techniques to collect, analyze and classify evidence of the activities of potential users as they conducted their work lives. We interviewed 30 subjects and also obtained ten hours of video of the daily work lives of five additional subjects. Based on these data, we classify potential users of synchronous business communications software into a set of "archetypes" that characterize their use; these archetypes were founded on an intensive analysis and classification of the kinds of tasks that users do. We believe that the set of classifications is reasonably complete, as we formed an initial set of classifications based on the first 15 interviews and then found that the data from the second set of 15 interviews fit into the classifications with few exceptions. The users represented a fairly heterogeneous sample of business and professional people, all of whom use computers in their daily work life.

Last modified October 28, 2001 by Scott Tilley.