Enhancing Cooperation for Nomadic Workers : New Possibilities in Traditional Mobile Work Environments

Abstract

This thesis focus on design requirements for ICT-applications supporting mobile cooperative work. Mobile computing is often concerned in making traditionally stationary workers more flexible by increasing their mobility, while the problem domain in this thesis is the work environment of blue-collar workers and customer consultants, professions that traditionally have been mobile. Making these workers more mobile and flexible would require other means than increasing their geographical mobility. Cooperation supported by mobile ICT is proposed as a solution for performing assignments and deal with mobility more efficiently.

The theoretical framework is primarily based on research from the CSCW-field, and gives concepts for discussing cooperative work, mobility, and both contextual and technical perspectives on ICT. Activity Theory is used as a tool for analyzing the empirical material gathered in six case studies. By discovering potential breakdowns in an activity system, this analysis results in four categories of requirements that should co-exist in the design of CSCW-applications. Some of the results are examined in a prototype.

The categories of usability and technology address individual requirements, which is important in order to support each user's appliance of the system. The categories of mobility and cooperation address contextual requirements, which is important in order to understand how a CSCW-application will influence the existing work practices, organization of workers and division of labor.