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9 - Seeing the Right Color
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- By Tommaso Colombino, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, David B. Martin, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Jacki O'Neill, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Mary Ann Sprague, Xerox Research Center Webster, USA, Jennifer Watts-Englert, Xerox Research Center Webster, USA, Jutta Willamowski, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Frederic Roulland, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Antonietta Grasso, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France
- Edited by Margaret H. Szymanski, Jack Whalen
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- Book:
- Making Work Visible
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2011, pp 160-178
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Summary
This chapter presents the findings of a series of cross-continental, cross-research-centre ethnographic studies of Xerox customer print shops and design agencies. This was undertaken to examine the technical challenge of reproducing colour consistently across different devices (such as digital cameras, computer screens, and printers), and how that challenge is differently addressed by professionals involved on one side in the creation of colour documents (designers), and on the other side their (re)production (digital printers).
The studies were prompted by Xerox Voice of Customer (VOC) feedback that indicated that while our digital production presses are capable of excellent colour quality, achieving it can require extended effort in document preparation and printer adjustments. Given that the major competitive advantage of digital print technology is the ability to print short-run and on-demand at an affordable cost and with a quick turn-around, any excess time and labour involved in achieving acceptable print quality is perceived as a problem.
While the VOC complaint was clear, the reasons behind it were less so. Professional printers have at their disposal hardware and software tools which should, in theory, allow users to manage the issue of colour consistency across devices in a digital production print workflow. These tools rely on the industry-standard technical system of Color Management. Color Management (CM), was developed by The International Color Consortium (ICC), to enable translation between different colour spaces and colour devices (monitors, printers, etc.).
12 - Ethnographically Informed Technology for Remote Help-giving
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- By Jacki O'Neill, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Peter Tolmie, University of Nottingham, UK, Stefania Castellani, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Antonietta Grasso, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France, Frederic Roulland, Xerox Research Centre Europe, France
- Edited by Margaret H. Szymanski, Jack Whalen
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- Book:
- Making Work Visible
- Published online:
- 05 August 2012
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2011, pp 225-239
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Ethnomethodological ethnographies have played an important role in design since Suchman's (1987) seminal work revealed that the cognitive models used as a basis for system design failed to take into account situated use and thus could lead to systems behaviour, which was incomprehensible to users. Ethnomethodological ethnographies aim to reveal the situated accomplishment of action. This in turn makes the social organisation of action visible and available to design reasoning (Button, 2000). The idea is to enhance design by enabling designers and ethnographers to explore “the practical implications for design of the incarnate social organisation of human action and how it may be supported, automated, or enhanced by a system” (Crabtree et al., 2009).
The exact role to be played by ethnography has been subject to a long, and, at times heated, debate – whether used for advancing the research field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) or requirements engineering (e.g., Viller and Sommerville, 1999). However, there is a strong consensus that ethnographies provide invaluable insights into how the orderliness of work is achieved. As Schmidt put it:
“[to] understand how orderliness is accomplished in cooperative endeavors; we need to uncover the practices through which the myriad distributed and yet interdependent activities are meshed, aligned, integrated, because it is the very practices through which such orderliness is accomplished that must be supported”
(Schmidt, 2000).