On "technomethodology": Foundational relationships between ethnomethodology and system design

Over the past 10 years, the use of sociological methods and sociological re asoning have become more prominent in the analysis and design of interactiv e systems. For a variety of reasons, one form of sociological inquiry-ethno methodology-has become something of a favored approach. Our goal in this ar ticle is to investigate the consequences of approaching system design from the ethnomethodological perspective. In particular, we are concerned with h ow ethnomethodology can take a foundational place in the very notion of sys tem design, rather than simply being employed as a resource in aspects of t he process, such as requirements elicitation and specification. We begin by outlining the basic elements of ethnomethodology and discussing the place that it has come to occupy in computer-supported cooperative wor k and, increasingly, in human-computer interaction, We discuss current appr oaches to the use of ethnomethodology in systems design, and we point to th e contrast between the use of ethnomethodology for critique and for design. Currently, understandings of how to use ethnomethodology as a primary aspe ct of system design are lacking. We outline a new approach and present an e xtended example of its use. This approach takes as its starting point a rel ationship between ethnomethodology and system design that is a foundational , theoretical matter rather than simply one of design practice and process. From this foundation, we believe, emerges a new model of interaction with computer systems, which is based on ethnomethodological perspectives on eve ryday human social action.