Making Space for Stories: Ambiguity in the Design of Personal Communication Systems

Pervasive personal communication technologies offer the potential for important social benefits for individual users, but also the potential for significant social difficulties and costs. In research on face-to-face social interaction, ambiguity is often identified as an important resource for resolving social difficulties. In this paper, we discuss two design cases of personal communication systems, one based on fieldwork of a commercial system and another based on an unrealized design concept. The cases illustrate how user behavior concerning a particular social difficulty, unexplained unresponsiveness, can be influenced by technological issues that result in interactional ambiguity. The cases also highlight the need to balance the utility of ambiguity against the utility of usability and communicative clarity.Comment: 10 page

Revisiting Local Government Auditors’ Burnout upon its Stress Dimensions

Purpose:  This study aims to ‎determine the effect of three-dimensional stress, known as the roles of stress, to predict ‎the likelihood of occupational stress and burnout complication among local government ‎auditors.   Theoretical framework:  This study utilized the Conservation of Resource Theory as a theoretical lens to ‎determine the effect of three-dimensional stress, known as the roles of stress, to predict ‎the likelihood of occupational stress and burnout complication among local government ‎auditors.   Design/Methodology/Approach:  Quantitative non-linear modelling involved three hundred and twenty-six ‎questionnaires from being sent to the regional inspectorate in the Bali area between June - July 2022.   Findings:  The study successfully proved the significant effect of role ambiguity and role ‎overload as influential factor of auditors’ stress. The study also proves the empirical ‎relationship between auditor stress and burnout. Further, this research concludes that various ‎mediation effects of stress exist between dimensional stress and burnout among auditors.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  This ‎study is expected to give strategic recommendations for the respectful government agencies ‎to develop better stress-handling techniques.   Originality/Value: The influential factor of the role of ambiguity which is significantly elevated job burnout, might become a novelty for this research’s finding, the complication of ambiguity in the context of forming the passive level of stress known as burnout stipulates the profound problems of ambiguity in the auditor context

Landscape Analysis and Content Strategy for COVID-19 State Response Websites

There is a massive flow of information about the COVID-19 pandemic from news coverage, daily announcements from local and national political leaders and health authorities, as well as social media. Because of this, a focus on providing clear, honest, and valid information is needed. One way to achieve this goal is through impactful state websites that can act as the main resource for COVID-19 related news. This project will be analyzing three COVID-19 state response websites, kycovid19.ky.gov (Kentucky’s website), oregon.gov (Oregon’s website), and ldh.la.gov (Louisiana’s website) in terms of their use of website design and crisis communication strategies. I will be looking at two aspects of content strategy and website design — usability and impression — and three aspects of crisis communication— ambiguity, complexity, and predictability. This project will define these terms in detail. I then will analyze these aspects through looking at the homepage and a few pages linked from the homepage in detail. It will then offer the most important takeaways as a resource for these websites as well as any future content that may need to utilize both design and crisis communication resources

BSRI (Building Sustainability Rating Index) for Building Construction

Sustainability has been defined by various institutions as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This is a soft qualitative definition. It has also been defined as “taming the exponential growth of resource consumption and emissions generation while maintaining an exponential growth in affluence growth”. This is a quantitative definition. This paper provides a building sustainability rating system (BSRI) to assess sustainability impacts using both prescriptive (qualitative) assessment tools as well as performance (quantitative) rating tools of resource consumption and emissions generation. BSRI is easy to apply and focuses on macro (strategic design mission, vision and objectives) as well as micro (tactical) levels of the building stakeholder’s sustainability perspectives. The criteria and indices in BSRI are defined in order to reduce ambiguity, confusion and misunderstanding and create a standard for future integration of sustainability (GREEN) with BIM and LEAN platforms. The BSRI platform allows for adaptation and growth in knowledge of the sustainability issues such as embedded energy protocols, through the use of Bayesian Equations

Identity ambiguity and the promises and practices of hybrid e-HRM project teams

The role of IS project team identity work in the enactment of day-to-day relationships with their internal clients is under-researched. We address this gap by examining the identity work undertaken by an electronic human resource management (e-HRM) 'hybrid' project team engaged in an enterprise-wide IS implementation for their multi-national organisation. Utilising social identity theory, we identify three distinctive, interrelated dimensions of project team identity work (project team management, team 'value propositions' (promises) and the team's 'knowledge practice'). We reveal how dissonance between two perspectives of e-HRM project identity work (clients' expected norms of project team's service and project team's expected norms of themselves) results in identity ambiguity. Our research contributions are to identity studies in the IS project management, HR and hybrid literatures and to managerial practice by challenging the assumption that hybrid experts are the panacea for problems associated with IS projects

Reducing Causal Ambiguity in Acquisition Integration: Intermediate Goals as Mediators of Integration Decisions and Acquisition Performance

Integration is a difficult process, but one that is vital to acquisition performance. One reason acquirers encounter difficulties is that the integration process exhibits high levels of intrafirm linkage ambiguity – a lack of clarity of the causal link between integration decisions and their performance outcomes. We introduce the construct of intermediate goals as a mechanism that reduces intrafirm linkage ambiguity. Our structural model results, based on a sample of 129 horizontal acquisitions, indicate that the achievement of two intermediate goals (internal reorganization and market expansion) fully mediates the relationships between four integration decisions and acquisition performance

Invisible design: exploring insights and ideas through ambiguous film scenarios

Invisible Design is a technique for generating insights and ideas with workshop participants in the early stages of concept development. It involves the creation of ambiguous films in which characters discuss a technology that is not directly shown. The technique builds on previous work in HCI on scenarios, persona, theatre, film and ambiguity. The Invisible Design approach is illustrated with three examples from unrelated projects; Biometric Daemon, Panini and Smart Money. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of data from a series of workshops where these Invisible Designs were discussed. The analysis outlines responses to the films in terms of; existing problems, concerns with imagined technologies and design speculation. It is argued that Invisible Design can help to create a space for critical and creative dialogue during participatory concept development

Using data visualization in creativity workshops: a new tool in the designer's kit

Creativity workshops have proved effective in drawing out unexpected requirements and giving form to participants' novel ideas. Here, we introduce a new addition to the workshop designer's toolkit: interactive data visualization, used as stimuli to prompt insight and inspire creativity. We first describe a pilot study in which we compare the effectiveness of two different styles of data visualization. Here we found that a less ambiguous style was more effective in supporting idea generation. Following this, we report a case study in which we employ data visualization within a service design workshop, where participants gain insights that are later realized in design ideas