Cast as a manifesto, this chapter presents a set of foundational principles for doing video analytic work in support of design-based research. Our approach draws predominantly upon the literature and methodology of ethnomethodology (EM). EM is centrally concerned with practical reasoning and the procedures (i.e., “methods”) participants (i.e., “members”) employ in making sense of their own acti...

Ethnomethodology is an established method of research in technology related fields. In work settings, ethnomethodology has helped researchers to deepen their understanding of how collaborative activities unfold in a social context. While much collaboration is now carried out online, through distributed teams for example, ethnomethodology, as a method of analysis, has not received considerable i...

Over the past ten years, the use of sociological methods and sociological reasoning have become more prominent in the analysis and design of interactive systems. For a variety of reasons, one form of sociological enquiry, ethnomethodology, has become something of a favoured approach. Our goal in this paper is to investigate the consequences of approaching system design from the ethnomethodologi...

The incorporation of ethnomethodology in professional systems development has prompted the call for the approach to move from design critique to design practice and the invention of the future. This has resulted in the development of a variety of mixing pot hybrids that have had marginal impact upon product-based development, whose needs the approach has been configured to meet. This paper sugg...

Social norms are integral to the success of online communities. This success is predicated on social norms reinforcing accepted community behaviour, marshalling effective communication and, from a semiotic perspective, providing a foundation for the interpretation of signs. Accepting Stamper’s ontological position, we propose ethnomethodology as a theoretical basis for community-centred design....

The paper reviews recent publications in ethnomethodology (EM) from sympathetic but critical perspective. It is agreed that EM has made major contributions to sociological theory and to the empirical investigation of everyday life. A number of major reservations are made, however. The author suggests that some contemporary versions of EM---conversation analysis in particular--have an unduly res...