Abstract
Two interrelated topics that have been of enduring interest to researchers in studying cooperative work practices and the design and use of technologies to support those practices are workflow and, to a slightly lesser extent, infrastructure. Workflow systems are a classic form of technology employed to coordinate cooperative work along a process of production where different workers (potentially in different companies and locations) complete different tasks along a ‘line’ of production. The workflow and the technologies that embody or enforce it are designed to maintain adherence to procedure and coordination across time and place. The central issues surrounding the treatment of workflow in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and related disciplines have been the problem of getting workflow systems to mesh with the particularities of local flows of work among people. Since Suchman (1983, 1987), at least, there has been a presiding concern with the ways in which workflow models fail to take into account the local, embodied, non-prescriptive and emergent manner (responding to dynamic local circumstances) in which people organise their work. Workflow systems have been criticised for being designed from ‘elsewhere’ – with an inadequate, overly idealistic or abstracted understanding of the work they are meant to assist. People end up having to organise or translate (potentially after-the-fact) their work, so it fits with the workflow system or workaround or ignore the technology completely (see Bowers et al. 1995) for an example from the print industry).
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- 1.
As an example of the relational (rather than absolute) features of infrastructure one can see how the CM infrastructure for graphic designers’ work is the topic of research and development for colour scientists rather than being an infrastructure that supports their work.
- 2.
The range of colours – gamut – a device can produced are defined mathematically in a multi-dimensional space. Colour spaces both overlap and diverge. Translating colours from one space to another involves mapping colours in one space to the other according to various algorithms. Various compromises are made for mapping colours that occur in one space but are outside the gamut of the other.
- 3.
- 4.
This number can vary considerably depending on the specific technology in question and the nature of the print job, but is generally considered to be around 2,500 copies.
- 5.
Calibration is a process where the colorimetric response of a device (the way the device reproduces specific colours) is measured using a spectrophotometer. The resulting measurements are used to adjust the device and maintain consistency in colour reproduction over time. Calibration needs to be performed regularly on all devices (monitors and printers) in a CM workflow.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to all of the staff of the graphic design agencies and print shops that allowed us to study their work for this project.
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Martin, D., O’Neill, J., Colombino, T., Roulland, F., Willamowski, J. (2010). ‘Colour, It’s Just a Constant Problem’: An Examination of Practice, Infrastructure and Workflow in Colour Printing. In: Randall, D., Salembier, P. (eds) From CSCW to Web 2.0: European Developments in Collaborative Design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-965-7_2
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