Work, Interaction and Technology (WIT) is an interdisciplinary Research Centre at King’s College London. The members of the group specialise in video-based field studies of social interaction and have particular interest in the ways in which tools and technologies feature in conduct and collaboration.
These studies include projects concerned with complex organisational environments, such as operating theatres, control rooms, health care consultations, and auction houses as well as more informal, public settings such as museums, galleries and science centres. Alongside their contribution to contemporary research and debates in the social and computer sciences, many of these studies are also used to inform the design of advanced technologies and organisational practice.
Members of the group have published the first book on using video to analyse work and social interaction (Heath, Luff & Hindmarsh, Sage), edited books on ethnomethodological contributions to debates in organisation studies (Hindmarsh, Cambridge) and communication in healthcare (Hindmarsh, Blackwell), and a monograph on the analysis of auctions and markets (Heath, Cambridge).
The research is primarily naturalistic, informed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, and concerned with the social and interactional organisation of work and everyday activities. It involves fine-grained, video-based studies of social interaction in various environments. It encompasses studies of talk and bodily conduct and the ways in which objects and artefacts, and other aspects of the material environment, feature in conduct and collaboration.
We are currently undertaking studies of settings that include optometry, dentistry, newsrooms, auction houses, control centres, offices, classrooms, museums, galleries and restaurant kitchens. These studies address a broad range of substantive issues and analytic concerns, including training in health care, the management of behaviour in public places, monitoring and intervention during robot-assisted surgical operations, distributed and co-present collaboration in the workplace, the assessment of sight, the interactional constitution of value, and the affordances of paper, body work, sales and service work.
Each of the studies involves extensive fieldwork and video-recordings of conduct and interaction in the various settings. Members of the group are at the forefront in developing video-based field methods for the analysis of situated activity and social interaction.
These projects contribute to empirical research, theory and method in a range of disciplines in the social and computer sciences including sociology, communications, organisational studies, CSCW, HCI and museum studies. They also contribute to the design and development of advanced technologies as well as skills and practice within organisations.
For example, in recent years we have been involved in the development of simulation tools for training in healthcare, image recognition systems for command and control, and augmented paper-digital technologies. Other projects have generated findings that have informed the development of training programmes for the members of particular professional groups, technology deployment strategies and requirement methods for advanced system design.
Members of the group also organise conferences and colloquia, provide research training and specialised short courses. They also serve as consultants to academic, service sector and industrial organisations both in the UK and abroad.
Members of the group have published the first book on using video to analyse work and social interaction (Heath, Luff & Hindmarsh, Sage), edited books on ethnomethodological contributions to debates in organisation studies (Hindmarsh, Cambridge) and communication in healthcare (Hindmarsh, Blackwell), and a monograph on the analysis of auctions and markets (Heath, Cambridge).
Members of the group also help to shape contemporary research agenda. They are regularly on programme and conference committees for international conferences such as ECSCW, EGOS. and the ACM conferences of CSCW, CHI, and Group, serve on a range of editorial boards and edit special issues concerning aspects of work, interaction and technology.
They serve on various ESRC (including Information and Communications, Heath) and EPSRC committees and act as scientific consultants to private and public sector organisations in the UK and abroad. Furthermore the group participates in funded networks in the UK and abroad each of which has a remit to develop research agendas in their different fields.
Our Partners
With our commitment to both scholarship and practical relevance, many of the projects are undertaken in close collaboration with partners in public services and industry. So for example projects have involved close collaboration with various fields and specialisms within healthcare including dentistry, anaesthesia, general practice, obesity, and optometry; and organisations such as the Science Museum, V&A, Natural History Museum, and the Tate museums.
They have also involved close collaboration with organisations such as Christie’s, Peter Wilson, Pearson; and industrial organisations such as Arjo Wiggins, Bosch, Siemens, Anoto; and leading industrial research laboratories at Hitachi, NTT, Hewlett Packard, Thales and Xerox. Projects also involve close collaboration with academic partners both in the UK and abroad.
These have included for example research groups at the Universities of Bristol, City, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading, Aarhus, Brussels, Helsinki, Paris, Siena, Zurich, Trondheim, Hakodate, Tsukuba and Saitama.