Steps towards an ecology of infrastructure: complex problems in design and access for large-scale collaborative systems

Authors:
Susan Leigh Star;Karen Ruhleder
Affiliations:
Community Systems Lab, Department of Sociology, 326 Lincoln Hall, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL and Institute for Research on Learning;Department of Management, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MA
Venue:
CSCW '94 Proceedings of the 1994 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Year:
1994

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the initial phases of a large-scale custom software effort, the Worm Community System (WCS), a collaborative system designed for a geographically dispersed community of geneticists. Despite high user satisfaction with the system and interface, and extensive user feedback and analysis, many users experienced difficulties in signing on and use, ranging from simple lack of resources to complex organizational and intellectual trade-offs. Using Bateson's levels of learning, we characterize these as levels of infrastructural complexity which challenge both users and developers. Usage problems may result from different perceptions of this complexity in different organizational contexts.