| 1. |
- Rönkkö, Kari, et al.
(författare)
-
Bad Practice or Bad Methods Are Software Engineering and Ethnographic Discourses Incompatible?
- 2002
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Organizational problems in industry have evoked increased interest in empirical methodologies in the broader software engineering community. In this article ethnography and its relation to software engineering is addressed. Until now sociologists have performed the majority of ethnographic studies on software development. But how useful are these studies for software engineering? Ethnography emphasizes the members' point of view in order to understand the social. Studies from the members' perspective can be interpreted, as revealing 'bad methods' that do not work in complex work situations. From a software engineering point of view, they are just as easy point to the opposite as 'bad practice', bad application of existing methods. The objective of this paper is to promote ethnography and its contribution to software engineering by revealing the different research attitudes of ethnographers and software engineers. Possibilities how to combine ethnographic studies with software method improvement are indicated.
|
|
| 2. |
- Rönkkö, Kari, et al.
(författare)
-
Inside Information 2 − Usability and User Research : Eight years of research and method development cooperation
- 2009
-
Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report is a follow up to the Inside Information – Usability and User Research at UIQ Technology report that was made available in October 2006. The initial report was written from an industrial point of view aimed to market UIQ Technology through the demonstration of the UIQ usability and user research philosophy. UIQ Technology Usability Metrics (UTUM) was important result here. UTUM was considered an extremely cost-effective method for keeping in focus what is important for users and handset makers. It was a tool for guiding development decisions as well as for validating the worthiness of design concepts. The two parts in UTUM was perceived by the company as an innovation in their software development practice. The first part was the relationship to users and attitude to their participation in the design process. The second part was how the company immediately and directly incorporated this usability understanding into the software development process. UTUM, together with other usability methods and results presented in this report, have been produced in an action research manner. Due to the closure of the company, the main author of the 2006 report, and the same researchers who also supported the writing of the initial report, decided to produce a follow-up and closure version of the initial report; as a way to summarize the results from the academic and industrial cooperation. In this updated version, eight years of joint action research and cooperative method development surrounding usability and user research is concluded.
|
|
| 3. |
- Rönkkö, Kari
(författare)
-
Interpretation, interaction and reality construction in software engineering : An explanatory model
- 2007
-
Ingår i: Information and Software Technology. - : Elsevier. - 0950-5849 .- 1873-6025. ; 49:6, s. 682-693
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The incorporation of social issues in software engineering is limited. Still, during the last 20 years the social element inherent in software development has been addressed in a number of publications that identified a lack of common concepts, models, and theories for discussing software development from this point of view. It has been suggested that we need to take interpretative and constructive views more seriously if we are to incorporate the social element in software engineering. Up till now we have lacked papers presenting 'simple' models explaining why. This article presents a model that helps us better to understand interpretation, interaction and reality construction from a natural language perspective. The concepts and categories following with the model provide a new frame of reference useful in software engineering research, teaching, and methods development.
|
|
| 4. |
- Rönkkö, Kari
(författare)
-
Making Methods Work in Software Engineering : Method Deployment - as a Social Achievement
- 2005
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The software engineering community is concerned with improvements in existing methods and development of new and better methods. The research approaches applied to take on this challenge have hitherto focused heavily on the formal and specifying aspect of the method. This has been done for good reasons, because formalizations are the means in software projects to predict, plan, and regulate the development efforts. As formalizations have been successfully developed new challenges have been recognized. The human and social role in software development has been identified as the next area that needs to be addressed. Organizational problems need to be solved if continued progress is to be made in the field. The social element is today a little explored area in software engineering. Following with the increased interest in the social element it has been identified a need of new research approaches suitable for the study of human behaviour. The one sided focus on formalizations has had the consequence that concepts and explanation models available in the community are one sided related in method discourses. Definition of method is little explored in the software engineering community. In relation to identified definitions of method the social appears to blurring. Today the software engineering community lacks powerful concepts and explanation models explaining the social element. This thesis approaches the understanding of the social element in software engineering by applying ethnomethodologically informed ethnography and ethnography. It is demonstrated how the ethnographic inquiry contributes to software engineering. Ethnography is also combined with an industrial cooperative method development approach. The results presented demonstrate how industrial external and internal socio political contingencies both hindered a method implementation, as well as solved what the method was targeted to do. It is also presented how project members’ method deployment - as a social achievement is played out in practice. In relation to this latter contribution it is provided a conceptual apparatus and explanation model borrowed from social science, The Documentary method of interpretation. This model addresses core features in the social element from a natural language point of view that is of importance in method engineering. This model provides a coherent complement to an existing method definition emphasizing formalizations. This explanation model has also constituted the underpinning in research methodology that made possible the concrete study results.
|
|
| 5. |
|
|
| 6. |
- Rönkkö, Kari, et al.
(författare)
-
Personas is not Applicable : Local Remedies Interpreted in a Wider Context
- 2004
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the major problems with participatory design is that it is extremely difficult to apply it to current developments. Software development for the mass market is one aspect of current developments which has been addressed. The problem of how to apply participatory design invariably leads to questioning its relevance to present-day circumstances. It is suggested that new patterns of dominance must be revealed. The usability method known as 'personas' has been demonstrated to remedy the problems of including social and political issues in mass market software developments. This paper demonstrates how the application of personas to a mass market software development project failed because of patterns of dominance in the telecom branch which were unrecognised at the time. The identifying of these patterns of dominance contributes to a better understanding of some of the new patterns of power and domination in mass-market software developments that PD stands before. Copyright 2004 ACM.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Rönkkö, Kari
(författare)
-
Software Practice from the Inside : Ethnography Applied to Software Engineering
- 2002
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Empirical methodologies have recently attracted increasing attention from the broader software engineering community. In particular, organisational issues and the human role in software development have been addressed. Qualitative research approaches have been identified as necessary for understanding human nature. One qualitative methodology which has become increasingly recognised in the software engineering community is ethnography. It is also the qualitative approach that is addressed in this thesis, i.e. ethnography in relation to software engineering. Ethnography emphasises the members point of view in an effort to understand the organisation of a social, cultural and technical setting. Until now, only a handful of ethnographic studies focusing on software engineering have been carried out in accordance with the original conception of ethnography; these studies have traditionally been performed by sociologists. The understanding and application of ethnography by software engineers differ from that of sociologists as it gives up the studied people's point of view in the analysis of data. The thesis is based on two independent ethnographic studies where the ‘inside’ perspective which complies with the original understanding of the methodology is applied. Using these examples as a basis, the relation between ethnography and software engineering research is explored. The objective of this thesis is to promote ‘ethnographic knowledge’ by giving an overview of ethnographic work within software engineering, presenting an original understanding of ethnography, comparing software engineers' understanding of ethnography with the original understanding of ethnography, demonstrating how the different implicit research attitudes of ethnographers and software engineers produce different research discourses, and finally pointing to an opportunity to combine ethnography, which contributes an ‘inside perspective’, with software engineering's need for constant improvement.
|
|
| 9. |
|
|
| 10. |
|
|
