Methods for eliciting user experience insights in workplace studies: spatial walkthroughs, experience curve mapping and card sorting

Purpose Drawing on a user-centred design perspective, the purpose of this paper is to (i) provide an overview of three contextual user research methods, namely, spatial walkthroughs, experience curve mapping and card sorting, (ii) exemplify their applications in different case studies and (iii) compare the methods according to their contributions for the study of users’ workplace experiences. Previous workplace studies with qualitative approaches mainly rely on methods such as interviews and observations. Although these methods provide rich data, the understanding of office users, their use situations and finding more fitting workplace designs can benefit from deeper user experience insights. Design/methodology/approach Three methods and their variants were tested in studies of user experience in flexible offices: spatial walkthroughs, experience curve mapping and card sorting. The methods were tested during workshops and interviews in four case studies with a total of 114 participants. Findings Spatial walkthroughs were more immersive and provided the most insights on the actual context with respect to spatial design qualities, while experience curve mapping enabled understanding the temporal aspects of the user experience and card sorting enabled exploring user experiences with respect to predetermined spatial qualities and contextual aspects. Originality/value Spatial walkthroughs, experience curve mapping and card sorting methods have not previously been applied in workplace studies. They facilitate dialogue, participation and user involvement and provide insights for making evidence-based recommendations for designing or redesigning office environments that fit users’ needs and preferences.

Cognitive load in processing ELF: Translators, interpreters, and other multilinguals

Many factors can affect the translation and interpreting process, but the quality of source texts has been explicitly identified as an issue in surveys of professional translators and interpreters as well as in recent workplace studies. If translators and interpreters encounter resistance in carrying out their tasks, for example by difficulties in extracting meaning from non-native English input, then flow can be interrupted and performance affected. In this paper, we explore how English as a lingua franca (ELF) input could potentially increase the cognitive load not only for translators and interpreters but also for other multilinguals. We describe the range of methods that can be used to measure the cognitive effort and stress associated with processing ELF input and explain the challenges that can be encountered when researchers are committed to using authentic ELF material to make comparisons under relatively controlled but ecologically valid conditions. One of the driving motivators for this type of research is to understand how interpreters and translators deploy their expertise to deal with ELF input in work settings in order to draw inferences about strategies for other segments of the population.

Theoretical understanding of sociomateriality in workplace studies

Purpose This paper aims to propose a theoretical framework for workplace research based on sociomateriality. Sociomateriality is a theory to explain the effects of social practice and materiality in an organization. Workplace studies in facility management (FM) can adopt this theory to understand the complex relationships between physical work environments and human factors. Design/methodology/approach Review of sociomateriality was conducted to understand the connection to existing workplace studies in FM. This study addresses the components of the workplace through the sociomateriality perspective. Findings The main focuses in sociomateriality theory are materiality and social practice. For workplace concepts specifically in FM, workplaces and their components are a material agency, and work and workers are a social practice agency. By considering both materiality and sociality in workplace environments, researchers can understand office dynamics and interrelationships. Lastly, two statistical analysis methods are suggested to analyze the framework: structural equation modeling and multilevel analysis. Originality/value To understand the human–environment relationship, it is essential to consider both materiality and social practice perspectives simultaneously. The proposed framework can be a foundation to explain the complex interactions between the physical environment and human factors of workers in individual organizations.

Methodological Awareness in Feminist Research: Reclaiming Experiences of Hostility in Workplace Studies

This article extends contemporary debates on gender, sexuality, and power by exploring how power relations play out through the researcher–researched relationship in male-dominated workplaces. Drawing on short-term ethnography, this article discusses the utility of analyzing the researcher’s embodied field in feminist research and advances our knowledge of body politics through the exploration of workplace performances. Specifically, it draws upon the author’s research encounters with 33 men working in an Australian metropolitan fire service. The analysis demonstrates the strengths of using reflexive bodily accounts as forms of data and makes suggestions toward greater methodological awareness around the intersection of masculine authority, heterosexuality, and embodied feminist research.

Expertise acquisition through deliberate practice

In his influential 2006 publication, Shreve, in citing Ericsson (1996, 21), outlines a series of fundamental conditions that must be met in order for the translator to acquire expertise. While expertise research on professional translator performance in authentic contexts has only recently started to gain traction in earnest, these conditions for expertise acquisition, while well-suited for academic contexts involving formal translator training, may not be as readily realizable within the language industry. In an attempt to complement recent workplace studies on translation (Risku and Windhager 2013; Ehrensberger-Dow 2014), our questionnaire-based explorative study sets out to gain a better understanding of how expertise in translation is conceptualized and fostered from within the language industry. By gauging how professional translators, as well as the project managers for whom they work, regard expertise from the perspective of the requisite conditions outlined by Shreve, we hope to establish greater clarity as to how expertise is envisioned, practiced, and valued along emic lines.

Ideology at work: reconsidering ideology, the labour process and workplace resistance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider existing debates within the sociology of work, particularly the re-emergence of labour process theory (LPT) and the “collective worker”, in relation to resistance at work. Through presentation of primary data and a dialectical discussion about the nature of ideology, the paper offers alternative interpretations on long-standing debates and raises questions about the efficacy of workplace resistance. Design/methodology/approach The design of this methodology is an ethnographic study of a call centre in the North-East of England, a covert participant observation at “Call Direct” supplemented by semi-structured interviews with call centre employees. Findings The findings in this paper suggest that resistance in the call centre mirrors forms of resistance outlined elsewhere in both the call centre literature and classical workplace studies from the industrial era. However, in presenting an alternative interpretation of ideology, as working at the level of action rather than thought, the paper reinterprets the data and characterises workplace resistance as lacking the political potential for change often emphasised in LPT and other workplace studies. Originality/value The original contribution of this paper is in applying an alternative interpretation of ideology to a long-standing debate. In asking sociology of work scholars to consider the “reversal of ideology”, it presents an alternative perspective on resistance in the workplace and raises questions about the efficacy of workplace disobedience.