Reflection on: Fraser, C. A., Grossman, T., & Fitzmaurice, G. (2017, May). WeBuild: Automatically distributing assembly tasks among collocated workers to improve coordination. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1817-1830). ACM.
Summary:
The paper sets out a goal to improve group efficiency and coordination by developing a system that automatically distributes subtasks to collocated workers. The paper presents initial observation of 4 groups (of 4) at work to assemble two types of crafts. Based on the observation, the paper presents design goals and describes the WeBuild system. They conduct a user study with 8 groups (of 5) who complete a custom assembly task. WeBuild supported faster startup time and it was rated positively. However, it did not result in overall faster completion time and the participants reported that they were less aware of the overall context.
My Reflection:
I liked the paper in that it has encouraged me to think about coordination and, by extension, collaboration. The finding in the paper explicitly mentions that people want to be aware of the broader context in which they do their work. This has been found to be true elsewhere as well (e.g. gig workers make meaning of their work as reported in Gray and Suri’s work). In the following discussion, I will try to think of a wider range of work (rather than assembly work) to further my thoughts on collaboration.
I agree that efficiency is important but there are other things that would be of value especially when we think of people coming together to work. The recent revolt in Google and Microsoft against the company’s ties with defense research and development suggests that people want to be connected to something more than their own, individually assigned tasks. We are a meaning-making animal. Devoid of mean, work becomes daunting labor for us. Tatar, Lee, & Aloula (2008) capture this well when they discuss playground games where older children opt to lose when playing with younger kids. The most important thing is not the efficiency but rather the overall values of sociality where factors such as identity, equality, and fairness all come to forefront.
As for groups, the complex social and cultural aspects of their interaction meaning-making are critical. I feel it would be interesting to extend the second study to see the kinds of interaction that happened in both the control and the treatment group. Tools such as these change the nature of the task and afford conditions of identifying newer values related to group work. Another reason why I feel this is necessary is that to ask for help from some collocated member of the group, users have to press “I’m stuck, get help!” button (Figure 7b). I agree that the tool enables help-seeking but I wonder if is it necessary, and more importantly, better, to seek help through a button click than by approaching a collocated member? It certainly would be interesting to see how the dynamics of the interaction changes when help is sought through a click as opposed to face-to-face approach.
Furthermore, the system requires that the users confirm when they complete a subtask. I understand that it is done so that the system could assign another subtask. However, given the collocated nature of the work, I wonder if the validation changes the way people approach the group work. Work in Psychology posits that collective work promotes a sense of trust and a strong bonding. Evidence of this include army regiments, sport teams, and even office workers who are subjected to team-building outdoor activities. I wonder how much of togetherness and trust, and a sense of belonging to an entity greater than oneself is promoted when groups come together to work collectively using systems like WeBuild.
I side with Don Norman’s argument that collaboration comes first, computing second. Although I have reservations in making tasks as mechanical as one participant reported (“… you just focus on the task and assume it all works in the end“), this paper certainly encourages us to think more about collaboration and the role of technology in enabling (or undermining) it.