WJ Clancey — Visualizing Practical Knowledge
the ATVs where they got them, and returning to camp, people tended to pull up again and
again to that power cord.
Now, arriving back in camp, one might find someone sitting on an ATV (another
reinforcement for parking in that spot). When the weather was good the ATV provided a
long seat and convenient place to read or write. Often two or more people would be in the
ATV area, and as a new person joined the group, others would leave. So the grouping of
people was itself an emergent structure, patterned after the organization of the ATVs,
patterned after the organization of the tents, fuel, and power cord, and this was patterned
after the geographic pattern of terraces near the river.
Having observed how people liked to use the ATVs for gathering and talking, I conveyed
this to the group leader, who then exploited that information for arranging a meeting. We
wanted a recent member of the group, a flight surgeon from KSC, to show us his medical
kits and explain what supplies should be available during such an expedition. The mess
tent was far too small for this, so the leader rearranged the ATVs into a kind of ‘campfire
circle’ (thus using another spatial layout familiar to everyone).
This is not a technologically sophisticated example, but the concepts are general. One
design heuristic is to leave flexibility in facilities so objects can be moved and used in
unexpected ways. In this respect, tables and chairs that move are potentially more
valuable than those bolted to the floor or too heavy to move. More generally, people
naturally exploit and rearrange their environment to facilitating talking and working
together. In particular, the use of a “campfire circle” shows how people exploit familiar
design metaphors. Alternatively, we might have arranged the ATVs in rows, as in a
classroom, for a formal lecture. But in this setting, an informal, outdoor talk after dinner
suggested a campfire arrangement.
Study of other expedition activities
During the course of ten days in the field, an ethnographer observes “the rhythm of work
life.” Besides routine scientific activities such as collecting samples—what you expect
scientists in the field to do—there are associated activities for observation and
reconnaissance. For example, at least one day was devoted to flying helicopter surveys of
the crater and investigating the glaciated eastern area of Devon Island. This shift to a
“macro” study of the environment is part of the rhythm of scientific field work. That is,
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