Motivated by the long-standing concern in CSCW with the state of digital coordination technologies and the ensuing accumulated empirical evidence of how the shortcomings of coordination technologies are handled in practice, this paper presents four examples of coordination technologies and coordinative artifacts that show how workers cope with their shortcomings through workarounds and hacks: CAD systems in architectural practice; the medical record in a cardiology clinic and the problem of ICD data; the IMDS database in the car industry; and the problems of making MRP systems work for the purpose of local planning. Concluding with the question what is required to support workers in their cooperative effort to ‘make coordination systems work’, the notion of computer support for ‘peer-to-peer plan management’ is introduced.

Abstract This paper places observational studies of women’s work in historical perspective. We present some of the very early studies (carried out in the period from 1900 to 1930), as well as several examples of fieldwork-based studies of women’s work, undertaken from different perspectives and in varied locations between the 1960s and the mid 1990s. We outline and discuss several areas of thought which have influenced studies of women’s work - the automation debate; the focus on the skills women need in their work; labour market segregation; women’s health; and technology and the redesign of work – and the research methods they used. Our main motivation in this paper is threefold: to demonstrate how fieldwork based studies which have focussed on women’s work have attempted to locate women’s work in a larger context that addresses its visibility and value; to provide a thematic historiography of studies of women’s work, thereby also demonstrating the value of an historical perspective, and a means through which to link it to contemporary themes; and to increase awareness of varied methodological perspectives on how to study work.

This showcase paper describes the research of the Multidisciplinary Design Group, Vienna University of Technology, over the course of more than 20 years. It discusses this research and the contributions to CSCW resulting from it, under four headings: work practices in health care; studies of design practice and development of supporting technologies; coordination work and technologies; and gender studies, identifying the factors that shaped the group's engagement in specific projects and the analytical frameworks they developed in collaboration with international cooperation partners.

In this paper we outline a typology, which will be useful for those engaged in the design and customization of information systems in healthcare. Drawing on ethnographic case studies conducted in six healthcare settings in two countries, the typology outlined here is intended to identify possible sources of local variability of health care work practices, which need to be accommodated in local configurations of generic information systems.

The paper describes the design story of the ColorTable, a tangible user interface in support of urban planners and diverse stakeholders collaboratively envisioning urban change, which was developed in an iterative process of design-evaluation-feedback-redesign in a series of workshops with users in the context of real urban planning projects. It seeks to clarify a number of more general design issues related to tangible user interfaces -- how to make use of material and spatial properties in designing both, physical interface and multiple and simultaneous interactions; how to handle the complexity of urban projects while keeping interfaces and interactions simple and transparent.

This paper seeks to develop a better understanding of the contribution of materiality for creativity in collaborative settings, exploring the ways in which it provides resources for persuasive, narrative and experiential interactions. Based on extensive field studies of architectural design workplaces and on examples from art works, we show: how the variety of material features expands communicative resources and provide border resources for action, in their peripheral, evocative, and referential function; how spatiality supports the public availability of artefacts as well as people's direct, bodily engagement with materiality; and finally how materiality is part of performative action, looking at temporal frames of relevance and emergence in specific events. We conclude with implications for the development of novel interface technologies.

This paper discusses technological interventions in support of planners, citizens and other stakeholders in envisioning and nego-tiating an urban project. A set of prototypal tools, including a tangible user interface, has been developed that allow users to create and manipulate visual/auditory scenes and mesh these scenes with the real environment of an urban site. The paper dis-cusses how to support users – different types of stakeholders- in the collaborative creation of mixed reality configurations as an integral part of expressing their ideas about an urban project, dis-tinguishing between different types and levels of cooperation. It also looks into how to use mixed reality tools for enhancing an already highly developed representational culture.

Based on a comparative study of cooperative work practices at two oncology clinics, the paper shows that work practices across these otherwise comparable settings vary significantly. Asking, how can ethnographic studies of local work practices then provide a dependable basis for design, the paper discusses how we may conceive of the relationship between ethnographic studies and systems development and suggests that a way out of the dilemma might be found in developing an analysis of the 'higher-order' practices of endless combination and recombination of artifacts, formats, notations, etc. that are found across such sites.

In this paper we discuss configurability as a form of appropriation work. We suggest that making technology work requires an awareness of the multiple dimensions of configurability carried out by numerous actors within and outside of the organizations in which new technologies are introduced in efforts to support cooperative work. Through discussion of the introduction of a wireless call system into a hospital, we provide an overview of these dimensions -- organisational relations, space and technology relations, connectivity, direct engagement, and configurability as part of technology use and work - and we suggest that in increasingly complex technological and organisational contexts, greater attention will need to be focused on these dimensions of configurability in order to make things work.

The ability to physically change properties of real objects used in augmented reality (AR) applications is limited. Geometrical properties (shape, size) and appearance (color, texture) of a real object remain unchanged during a single application run. However, an AR system can be used to provide a virtual texture for the real object. The texture can be changed dynamically based on user interactions. The developed AR system includes two components, the and the Painter. The 3D Table is a table where real objects are placed. The tabletop is used as a projection surface, making it possible to add a context to the real object. The Texture Painter makes it possible to paint on the real object, using a real brush and virtual ink (texture). ARToolkit markers are placed on the 3D Table tabletop to augment the environment with the virtual objects. Markers are either physical (printouts on the tabletop) or virtual (projections). The scene is recorded with a camera and the composed video is projected in real time. The projection shows a virtual environment, real objects painted with virtual ink, and virtual objects positioned where real or virtual ARToolkit markers are placed. The developed system is used in architectural design applications where, due to the different qualities of real architectural models and rendered architectural models, real models are still used. The system was tested at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna where it is used as a support tool for architecture students.

The article provides a framework and analytical tool for discussing the political and organizational context of design and participation and for identifying some of its central characteristics. Three arenas for participation are distinguished: designing work and systems; designing organizational frameworks for action; and designing the industrial relations context. Drawing upon material from 2 case studies in Germany and Austria, we focus on the evolving network of actors and intermediaries who in various ways contribute to work and systems design, the influence of the political culture and the legal framework on how legitimate agenda are created, and the relations between systems design and other agendas (e.g., organizational development and collective bargaining). We propose to use actor-network theory not just as a sociological exercise but as a tool. It helps to position actors within a larger context and reflect on their specific 'mediating' roles and to formulate appropriate practices of intermediation. Furthermore, the case studies point at the limitations to participation in fragmented political cultures and call attention to the importance of understanding agenda setting. Each arena of action has its own set of legitimate agendas-from questions of user interface design to quality of working life and privacy issues. Participation in design needs powerful agendas that can be established in all arenas and that can be translated notably into work and design questions with obvious relevance to users for everyday work with a computer system.

This paper fwuses on time-management as a cooperative task.Based on an analysis of the ctdtnral complexity of the timing of surgery in a large clinic, possibilities of using computersupport for strengthening the sharing of information and resources as well as participation in decision-making rue diwussed.