The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements and Technical Feasibility
Mark S. Ackerman | HCI 2000
In a Nutshell 🥜
Ackerman1 presents the "social-technical gap" as the central challenge of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) research, arguing that because human activity is inherently flexible, nuanced, and contextualized, it is hard to design CSCW systems that are capable of handling the fluidity of human social activity.
The paper first presents an overview of past CSCW findings and several case studies as evidence that such a gap does exist. The paper then proposes that by reconceptualizing CSCW as a Science of the Artificial2, CSCW will still be able to advance as an intellectual field, despite the social-technical gap.
Some Thoughts ðŸ’
I've personally learned a lot from this article and benefited the most from the summary of past CSCW findings.
Several findings that I find most relevant to me include: (1) augmenting a technical system with social mechanisms (e.g., chat functionality) is a simple and useful way to increase a system's flexibility, (2) without a sufficient number of users (critical mass), people will not use a CSCW system, and (3) people not only adapt to their systems, they also adapt their systems to their needs. I've also added Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial to my list of books to read.
Ackerman, M. S. (2000). The intellectual challenge of CSCW: The gap between social requirements and technical feasibility. Human–Computer Interaction, 15(2-3), 179-203.
Simon, H. A. (2019). The sciences of the artificial. MIT press.