REFLECTIONS ON A WORK-ORIENTED DESIGN PROJECT

This article reports our experiences in developing a work-oriented des ign practice. We sketch our general approach to relating work practice studies and design, including our use of case-based prototypes. We go on to describe our entry into the law firm that was the setting for t his project and our decision to focus our design efforts on two forms of work at the firm. We discuss our experiences in developing a case-b ased prototype to support the work of document search and retrieval. W e then describe our encounters with organizational politics at the fir m in the context of a joint exploration of image analysis technologies in relation to the work of litigation support. We conclude with findi ngs on the practices of working with document collections, the value o f case-based prototypes, and recommendations for combining work practi ce studies and design interventions.