VDM Verlag Role, Identity and Work: Extending the design and development agenda

In order to make technology easier to handle for its users, the field of HCI has recently often turned the environment and the context of use. In this book the focus is on the relation between the user and the technology. More specifically, this book explores how roles and professional identity effects the use and views of the technology used. The exploration includes two different domains, a clinical setting and a media production setting, where the focus is on the clinical setting. These are domains that have strong professional identities in common, in the clinical setting neurosurgeons and physicists, and the media setting journalists. The data collection includes interviews, observations and participatory design oriented workshops which was analyzed qualitatively. The outcome of the process turned out to be oriented towards the objectives that were inline with the users identity, more than with the task that were to be preformed. At some level, even the task was defined from the user identity.