Text Exploration
In this article, Suchman argues that the way work can be considered and analyzed is always from a perspective of bias and always with an agenda: there is no real objective view of any work process, as it always exists in a context and is used or considered through the lens of an individual. This is true in the work content (how different “users” see the same things in their jobs), and also in the ethnographic methods used to study the work content and in how those researchers then depict and present that work. Diagrams like maps are not neutral, and workflow process diagrams are maps of work. They characterize observations in a certain way and from a certain perspective.
The author describes that, “to a large extent, representing work is the stuff of which organizations are made,” as any given personal account “counts” but the representation of the work encapsulates one view as normative. She concludes that “a map or other representational device is a piece of craftwork, crafted in the interest of making something visible. Things are made visible so that they can be seen, talked about, and potentially manipulated.” The thing manipulated in an organization is often people, and so designers who leverage modeling as a method of proposing change need to consider the lasting human, and subjective, nature of any work visualization.