Introduction

Auctions provide an institutional solution to the pricing and exchange of goods and services of uncertain value. In turn, auctions raise a number of social and organisational issues and problems that have to be resolved by participants themselves in and through interaction (Maynard 1988). For example, an auction of fine art and antiques consists of a gathering of a large number of people, in some cases several hundred, all of whom may have an interest in purchasing the goods on sale if the price is right. The lots in which participants are interested and the price they are prepared to pay is largely unknown, both to fellow buyers and to sale room personnel. The auctioneer has to deploy an organisation that enables the potential contributions of multiple participants to be identified, elicited and co-ordinated so that the price of the goods can be maximised in a transparent manner and sold to the highest bidder. The success of the auction, the valuation and exchange of goods, is dependent upon the participants' belief and trust in the process – that no personal interest or connivance, on behalf of or by the auctioneer, vendor or buyer, has falsely influenced the price and the eventual ownership of the goods. In other words, the neutrality of the auctioneer and the auction house and the integrity of bids – that they are real bids representing actual demand – are critical to the process being, and being seen to be, fair (C. W. Smith 1990).

In the past few years we have witnessed extraordinary pronouncements concerning the ways in which new technologies will transform the ways we work together. In both the popular press and in academic debate, an interest principally focused on extensions to existing computer networks, new forms of telecommunications and the potential of faster and cheaper systems, all have suggested that we are soon to be faced with a very different workplace. Workers will be more mobile when all the technological support they need can be provided wherever they are located and it may even be no longer necessary for individuals to travel to a particular site when they can work from home. The actual ‘organisation’ for which they work will become fragmented, geographically dispersed and possibly ‘virtual’, being transformed into a business with no physical location and little organisational structure.

Such pronouncements may seem curiously reminiscent to those familiar with the predictions associated with the microchip in the 1970s, or the motor car in the 1940s, or even earlier with the potential afforded in the nineteenth century by the telegraph, telephone and electricity (cf. Evans, 1979; Hall, 1988; Marvin, 1988). It is certainly the case that in the last few years the personal computer (PC) and electronic mail (email) have greatly transformed the way that work is accomplished in a large number of organisations. However, despite the grand intentions of proponents of novel technologies it is frequently the case that their impact is more modest. Indeed, it is not unusual for new systems once they have been introduced to be ignored, used to only a small degree of their capabilities or worse to be the cause of some great disaster.

It is widely recognised that new technology has had a profound impact on our working lives. It is argued that the so-called digital revolution has transformed the ways in which we communicate with each other, how we store and handle information, the ways in which we classify people and events, how we calculate products and value, and how we market goods and services. Social scientists discuss new forms of organisation, the transformation of contemporary culture and, among many other things, globalisation and emergence of the network society. Despite our attempts to remain optimistic in the face of the inevitable pursuit for more advanced and sophisticated technologies, often at the expense of employment, there is a growing recognition that complex systems may not necessarily enhance work practice, human relations or even efficiency within organisations. Poor performance, mishaps and technological failures are encouraging those within industry to begin to reconsider the advantages of technology for technology's sake, and to recognise that there is more to the design and deployment of complex systems than simply identifying new functionalities for computer systems. There is also a corresponding change within academia, a recognition that for all our discussion of technology we actually know very little as to how ordinary people in their daily working lives go about using the tools of their trades.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of research projects concerned with the ways in which new tools and technologies feature in everyday organisational conduct. These investigations have come to be known as ‘workplace studies’.

Introduction

Over the past decade or so some of the most interesting technical innovations have involved the integration of telecommunications and computing. The videotelephone and the videoconference suite are the rudimentary precursors to these innovations, innovations which attempt to reconfigure the work space, and provide a rich and flexible environment for work and collaboration amongst distributed personnel. These innovations attempt to go well beyond conventional file or document sharing. They attempt, in various ways, to build environments which provide individuals not only with (vocal and visual) access to each other, but to the variety of tools, artefacts and objects on which work ordinarily relies. One need, however, go no further than consider character of work and interaction found in the settings discussed earlier to envisage the difficulties in developing technologies to support the distribution of such activities, and, as yet, these technical innovations have largely failed to provide satisfactory domains for collaboration.

At the cutting edge of innovations to support real-time interaction and collaboration, at least a few years ago, were systems generally known as ‘media spaces’. Media spaces consist of audio-visual and computing infrastructures which provide individuals with ‘multimedia’ real-time access to one other. For example, at PARC, Xerox Research Laboratories in Palo Alto, a video-window was established which provided scientists with audio-visual access to a common area in a related laboratory 600 miles away in Portland (Olson and Bly, 1991). A similar video-window facility was established at Bellcore (Fish et al., 1990).

Introduction

As Weber pointed out in his classic theory of bureaucracy, files and documents are an essential part of the modern organisation, in both the public sector and the ‘advanced institutions of capitalism’. The modern medical organisation is no exception. Both time and money are devoted to documenting information concerning the activities of organisational personnel, especially in their dealings with the general public and, more particularly, patients. Perhaps the most important of these files and documents is the medical record.

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a significant change in the nature of the technology which is used to support command and control in rail and rapid urban transport. Electromechanical displays, public announcement systems and mechanical signalling designed in the 1950s have been increasingly replaced by computer and telecommunication systems which can schedule trains automatically, set the appropriate signals and generate the relevant information for the travelling public. In the control room, rather than seeing the state of service through a set of lights on a fixed line diagram, augmented by screen displays as in the Bakerloo Line Control Room, the railway is viewed solely through visual display units and controlled through keyboards and mice. In this chapter, we wish to consider work and interaction in such a control room, one which is perhaps one of the most sophisticated, technologically, in the London area, if not the United Kingdom.

Introduction

One of the most noticeable developments in personal computers in recent years has been the widespread deployment and use of graphical user interfaces. Rather than typing commands and instructions, users are presented with a range of devices, such as windows, icons, menus and cursors, through which they operate the system. Particular activities on the computer, like word processing, organising electronic files, navigating around the system and switching tasks have been considerably transformed by the introduction of interfaces on which graphical objects are displayed and are manipulated around the screen. Although graphical interfaces appear to be easier to use, it is not clear what the reasons for this might be. Hence, these systems have been a focus of interest for researchers in HCI; research which has sought to explain the ways different kinds of interfaces are used in terms of the cognitive capabilities of the user and the semantic qualities of the system (e.g. Ankrah et al., 1990; Hutchins et al., 1986; Norman and Draper, 1986; Schneiderman, 1992). Of particular concern has been to develop an analysis of an individual's direct interaction with, or manipulation of, the system and how screen objects are perceived and understood.

Though each generation is startled by some innovation which they fear will change a familiar world, for many of us the digital revolution has indeed transformed our working lives.