Analysing conversation: Studying design as social action

Corresponding author:

Ben Matthewsben.matthews@me.

com

Research into Practice

Analysing conversation: Studying designas social action

Ben Matthews, School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering,

The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

Trine Heinemann, SPIRE Centre for Participatory Innovation,

University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, 6400 Sønderborg, Denmark

Since the ‘empirical turn’ in design studies, many methods drawn from the social

and human sciences have been applied to the study of designers’ activities.

Recently, conversation analysis (CA) has been gaining some attention as one of

these approaches that may offer promise for design studies. In this paper, we

present an analysis of design work informed by CA. Our analysis is intended

both as a means of exemplifying how the approach can be applied to design, and

as empirical groundwork for sketching out what a CA program of research in

design studies could offer the field. We argue that CA can provide an empirical

respecification of central conceptual and theoretical topics in design research.

� 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: design activity, conversation analysis, ethnomethodology, interaction

design, research methods

The early, influential design treatises were fundamentally programmatic,

in pragmatic, analytic or theoretical respects.1 They were not predom-

inantly empirical. The ‘empirical turn’ in design studies postdates the

publication of most of design’s central texts by some years, when design prac-

tice became a topic of investigation in its own right, often coupled with the use

of methods drawn from the human and social sciences. With a few naturalistic

exceptions (e.g. Bucciarelli, 1994, who deservedly is the most widely read of

these), the majority of early empirical design studies were staged experi-

mentsddesigners solving realistic but artificial design tasks set by the experi-

menter, and performed within a specific time limit (e.g. Cross, Christiaans, &

Dorst, 1996). Furthermore, it was not uncommon that the subjects of the study

were design students, rather than professional designers (e.g. as in Christiaans,

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650

1997). It is only in recent decades that the field has increasingly focused on de-

sign as it is actually practised in commercial and industrial settings. Even so,

such naturalistic, in-situ studies are hardly the dominant form of empirical de-

sign research. And even within just the subset of empirical, naturalistic studies

of professional practice, there is a wide range of methodological approaches

that have been adopted. These vary from descriptive studies that also incorpo-

rated quantitative analyses (e.g. Wallace & Hales, 1988) to purely qualitative

studies (e.g. Button & Sharrock, 2003); from longitudinal, large scale studies

over multiple sites (e.g. Bucciarelli, 1994; Eckert & Stacey, 2000) to detailed

analyses of short stretches of social interaction from a series of design meetings

(e.g. Lloyd & Busby, 2001).

In the company of this methodological plurality, conversation analysis (hence-

forth CA) is an approach that has been slowly gaining the attention of re-

searchers in the design studies community. Insights from CA and its general

methodological approach have been selectively drawn upon in a range of stud-

ies of design, perhaps starting with Luff and Heath (1993). More recent exam-

ples include Button and Sharrock (2000, pp. 46e67), Matthews (2007) and

some of the contributions toMcDonnell and Lloyd (2009). CA is a distinct ap-

proach to the investigation of social interaction that has a history of nearly

fifty years in the social sciences (dating to Harvey Sacks’ lectures in 1964).

There exist many high quality introductions to CA and its accumulated find-

ings (e.g. ten Have, 1999; Nofsinger, 1991; Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997; Schegloff,

2007; Sidnell, 2011). These sources exhibit a variety of ‘ways in’ to the ap-

proach, i.e. explanations of how it seeks to analyse data, and why it takes those

particular tacks.2 We begin with some introductory remarks for the explicit

purpose of paving some ground in preparation for the analysis and discussion

presented in sections 2 and 3. Readers interested in better understanding CA

are directed to the sources cited above for more comprehensive introductions.

1 Conversation analysis and the problem of descriptionA central methodological issue in naturalistic studies of human beings (in any

setting) concerns the problem of description. Although every recognisable set-

ting is describable, it is also indefinitely describable. When analysts character-

ise a setting in a certain way, they have chosen a particular description from an

indefinitely large set of possibilities.3 In order to affix a description to any event

or activity, researchers (regardless of their preferred analytic) draw upon ver-

nacular resources, i.e. ordinary language. Whether a particular event is an ‘ar-

gument’, ‘disagreement’, ‘expression of a difference of opinion’, or a ‘lively

debate’ is something decided by the researcher, who employs his or her own

common sense. It is the researcher’s membership in his or her own

language-using community that is deployed as an unexplicated resource for

describing events in this way. For Sacks (1963/2003), this struck a blow to so-

ciology’s ambitions of being a legitimate science of social life. In any science,

the scientist cannot employ an instrument to probe a phenomenon without

Design Studies Vol 33 No. 6 November 2012

Studying design as socia

there first being an understanding (a) of how the instrument works and (b) that

it can be reliably used for the purposes intended. In this way, social scientists

should not expect to simply deploy ordinary language as a resource to describe

the world before the quotidian use of language itself has been examined. This

highlights a number of aspects of the ‘problem of description’ that are inti-

mately related to the nature of language.

First, our ordinary, vernacular language does not present us with neat,

ontologically-distinct, non-overlapping concepts to use as descriptors.

Wittgenstein (1958) demonstrated clearly that our language is not built like

a scientific instrument; he likened it rather to an ancient city, a patchwork

of mazes of roads, plazas, old and new architecture, perhaps with a few newer,

outlying suburbs that have a uniform style and character. Language is not all

of a piece. There are overlapping uses, or ‘family resemblances’, between our

concepts in language. An argument is a kind of disagreement; it may, at the

same time, be a lively debate. At what point does a ‘disagreement’ turn into

an ‘argument’? There is no hard and fast rule.4 Similarly, a single concept

can exhibit in its various uses a multitude of shades of meaning, and there

need be no ‘essence’ or property in common to all of its uses. This is not sur-

prising to many in the design community (Heskett, 2005; Walker, 1988), who

have understood for some time that ‘design’ itself is a family resemblance con-

cept. This general point about language bears important implications for cer-

tain forms of analysis, particularly the coding practices common in design

research (e.g. in protocol analysis, grounded theory, and many others). Coding

practices rely on devices such as ‘inter-coder reliability’; yet such practices con-

ceal rather than reveal the specific criteria that coders employ in order to cat-

egorise a particular episode of data as belonging to a particular coding

category. In such cases, ‘common sense’ is a hidden resource that remains un-

examined in these analytic practices (e.g. Garfinkel, 1967, chap. 6).

Furthermore, language does a great deal more than describe the world. ‘Atten-

tion, March!’ does not describe anything; it is a command. Language insults,

prays, criticises, flatters, implores, promises, implies, exclaims, indemnifies,

and many, many other things that are not strictly (or at all) descriptive of

a state of affairs in the world. This is one of the most enduring legacies of Witt-

genstein’s later thought that has been taken up in a unique way by conversa-

tion analysis and ethnomethodology (CA’s parent discipline). Even ‘neutral’,

‘literal’, ‘objective’ descriptions can instead be seen for the ways they exhibit

methods of ‘doing neutrality’ and ‘doing objectivity’. Indeed, language use

is, and can be analysed as, social action in the world. When understood in

this way, language becomes inseparable from a practice, i.e. language is em-

bedded in, and inextricable from, people’s doings of things with each other.

Therefore, analysis cannot focus merely on language per se, it must rather fo-

cus upon the actions being done (be they physical, gestural, expressive, and/or

linguistic). In this way, conversation analysis can be understood as one

l action 651

652

attempt to describe language itself as a form of practicedto reveal the ways in

which people use language to do things, as opposed to alternative forms of

analysis that offer yet another way of using concepts in language as a resource

for identifying, analysing and describing what people do.5 Therefore, for CA

to identify an action in conversation, it looks not just to the structure of what is

said, but simultaneously to the speaker’s interlocutor. The validity of analysis

is not dependent on what action the analyst claims is in the sequence, but how

the analyst can show, through the data, that the conversationalists understood

each others’ actions in the way being claimed. Analyses are held accountable

to participants’ understandings, as they are exhibited in participants’ turn-by-

turn responses to each other in sequence.

As even some of CA’s critics admit, conversation analysis is a program of re-

search with rather unique accomplishments among the social sciences. For

one, it has demonstrated that social interaction (whether or not language is

used therein) is amenable to formal analysis, i.e. formal structures of social ac-

tions are analytically recoverable (see Segerdahl, 2003 for a critic’s concession

of this). Greetings, invitations, assessments and the like can be shown to have

sequential and structural properties that give an analyst remarkable warrant

for identifying them as those particular actions. This is also precisely how

CA ‘handles’ the problem of description. The identification of formal struc-

tures of social actions permits it to explicate a sequence of interaction in

a way that reveals, rather than conceals, the analyst’s grounds for making

that identification (see Wieder, 1988 for an exposition of this). Secondly, CA

has amassed genuinely cumulative findings. That is, the structures of social ac-

tions identified by CA have been replicable in other studies, and have been

found to exist (with some important, formal variations) in many languages

other than English. Importantly, previous empirical findings (even from other

languages) have been built upon in order to inform subsequent analyses that

identify new structures of new actions. These features mark out CA as a fairly

unique program of research in the social sciences.6

Our analysis of a single design conversation in the following section will draw

on a number of CA’s previous findings of the structures and consequences of

certain social actions performed in talk. We do this as a means of illuminating

what it is the designers in our data are doing, and how. As we hope to show,

CA permits a very detailed, grounded and warrantable analysis to be under-

taken that can illuminate why social interaction unfolds as it does. However,

more than CA’s detailed analytic aspect, it is its unique methodological ap-

proach to the social world that offers particular promise for the study of de-

sign. We aim to illustrate how CA’s particular approach to empirical,

naturalistic research can illuminate topics of classical concern to design re-

search.7 Our purpose is not to fully work out any of these contributions of

CA to design, but rather to be programmatic ourselvesdsketching out some



of the forms that a program of research might take that applies CA to design

studies, drawing illustrative examples from the analysis we present.

2 Data and analysisThe data was recorded during a field study of software developers. The first

author participated in work meetings and followed projects at this particular

Australian R&D consultancy over a total period of 7 months. The two col-

leagues in the following exchange are discussing interaction options for an

application they have been commissioned to develop that will allow users

to purchase time on a parking meter via the SMS capabilities of their mobile

phone. JD is a senior software developer; MT is in the human factors team.

The week prior to this conversation, MT and his supervisor had conducted

a set of user studies on a stretch of beaches in Sydney with a software proto-

type running on one of their own mobile phones. The general idea of the ap-

plication is that users pay for parking with their mobile phone, which then

also allows them to get a SMS reminder 10 min before their parking runs

out and an option to reply to that SMS to buy more timedto ‘top-up’ their

parking.

The data that we investigate consist of an hour of video of the exchange be-

tween JD and MT. We have chosen to focus exclusively on one particular se-

quence within this exchange, where JD and MT are working towards

establishing how the SMS reminder should appear, i.e. what kind of informa-

tion need be on it. As our examples will illustrate, the main contention be-

tween the two is that while JD wants to include the price of the ‘top-up’ on

the SMS reminder, MT finds this problematic. As the sequence develops, it

will become apparent that the reason why MT does not want to include

this information on the SMS is that the price of the ‘top-up’ is too high

and so specifying the price will make users less likely to use the service.

Our analysis is an attempt to illustrate how JD and MT within this sequence

manage this contention, how their discussion develops and in particular how

it is through this discussion that matters of relevance to design are intro-

duced. The data has been transcribed according to the general conventions

of CA (see, for instance Jefferson, 2004), paying particular attention to the

way in which the participants produce turns at talk and the timing of these

turns. Since the two participants throughout the exchange are sitting across

from each other and talking through the design issues we have not tran-

scribed their non-verbal conduct in any detail, but will remark on their use

of gaze at points relevant for the analysis. A list of transcript conventions

used here can be found at the end of the paper.

2.1 Introducing a design implicationWe begin the sequence at the point at which JD proposes a design feature to

include on the SMS reminder, the price of parking (lines 27e35). Here, we will

turn our attention to how JD’s proposal is delivered and received.

l action 653

Extract (1)

27 JD: -2829 (1.4) 30 JD: and the time (0.2) to pri correlation31 between time and price is something only the meter knows,<32 (1.1) 33 JD: so therefore:, (0.5) the >meter is gonna have to< tell us.34 (1.0) 35 JD: ho ost,36 (1.1) 37 JD: Now;38 (0.9) 39 MT: >Bu-< (0.8) >are you telling me on the- on the< top up,40 (0.4) 41 MT: °thingy?°42 (0.6) 43 MT: >is that what you’re saying?< (like/while) we- (1.0) we’ll have 44 to tell users (if) what (0.6) t[he price is gonna be,=45 JD: [.hhhh46 JD: e -=47 MT: =But they- Remember they >they’ve all< have been at 48 the (0.2) 49 JD: °*Yeah.*°=50 MT: =meter to start with, 51 (0.4) 52 MT: so they will know. what the rate is.

654

One of the things worth noting here is that JD does not go ahead and imme-

diately propose the design feature to be implemented. Instead, he describes

a version of the world in which “people are gunna wanna know how much

it costs” (lines 27e28). This statement implies the relevance of including

this information on the SMS, without specifying it. Such indirect preliminar-

ies are typical of actions such as making a proposal in any kind of interaction,

because it allows the recipient to draw the necessary conclusions and agree

with the (unstated) proposal, so that the proposed action can be performed

as a joint decision, rather than a unilateral one (Asmuss & Oshima, 2012).

In extract (1), when JD describes a particular version of the world for which

they are designing he thus allows MT the possibility to provide the upshot of

that in terms of its relevance for the design. This possibility is further emphas-

ised by the (1.4) seconds of silence that follows JD’s description. In interac-

tion, a pause of (1.4) seconds is both substantial and significant (Stivers

et al., 2009), as it is a clear albeit temporary suspension of the turn-taking sys-

tem (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), i.e. a place at which no one appears

willing or able to take the turn. In the example above, this suspension suggests



that JD is withholding further talk to allow MT to respond, something that is

further attested by him gazing directly at MT throughout the silence, as if

waiting for MT to speak. The fact that MT does not speak at a point at which

he has the possibility to do so indicates that the participants are in some way

misaligned, i.e. that there is a “problem”. What that problem may be is not

immediately evident; it could be that MT has not heard what JD said, that

he has not understood it, or not understood the potential implications of it,

or it might mean that he does not agree (either with the version of the world

described by JD or with the design implication thereof). That there is a prob-

lem or misalignment is evident in that JD subsequently attempts to pursue the

point just made, by continuing his talk in lines 30e31. He initiates his turn

with “and”, thus tying together his previous turn with the current, as if he

meant to produce this part of the statement all along (Heritage & Sorjonen,

1994). He thus “deletes” the problematic pause in line 29 and gives MT an-

other first chance at responding. When a response is once more not produced

by MT, (see the pause in line 32, throughout which JD again locks his gaze on

MT), JD himself produces the design relevant upshot in line 33, specifically

marking this as such with “therefore”. What we end up with here is thus some-

thing that comes across as an explicit argument for the implementation of

a specific design feature: people are going to want to know how much

a ‘top-up’ will cost and as this is information only the meter knows, this in-

formation will have to be relayed. What a CA-approach to this example helps

elucidate is that this argument is incrementally delivered as a result of MT’s

lack of uptake, so that his lack of collaboration has, in a way, forced JD to

explicate the design proposal he initially only implied by describing his ver-

sion of the world. A next relevant action would now be for MT to either ac-

cept or reject JD’s proposal, but as the pause in line 34 attest, he does neither,

at least initially. In a similar fashion to his earlier “and-prefaced” turn, JD

seeks to “delete” the lack of response to his proposal, this time by producing

an incremental turn at talk, i.e. a turn that is constructed as an addition to the

previous turn and cannot be understood as being produced in its own right

(Schegloff, 1996) (i.e. to understand “how much it’s gonna cost” one needs

the previous turn “the meter is going to have to tell us”). When this incremen-

tal turn does not result in a response from MT, JD makes a final attempt at

eliciting a response by producing a stand-alone “now” in line 37, which in

a similar way to American “so” works to prompt an action from the recipient

MT, because it projects “.an unstated upshot after a prior turn has been

brought to possible completion, and some silence begins to emerge”

(Raymond, 2004: 192).

Up to this point, JD has provided at least four interactional slots for MT

to collaborate in producing (or at least acknowledging) the already implied

design relevant upshot of the version of the world he initially described in

lines 27e28, but to no avail. Whilst MT has not explicitly rejected either

the design implication or the version of the world described by JD, his

l action 655

656

lack of uptake certainly implies resistance. Looking at what MT does next,

in lieu of directly responding to the design implication, it is evident that he

is indeed not in agreement with JD on this point. In lines 39e44, MT pro-

duces an inquiry, with which he checks his understanding of what JD said.

Understanding checks of course point to some problem with the preceding

turns at talk. However, although they ostensibly indicate that the problem

is one of understanding, they are in fact frequently employed to indicate

disagreement (see for instance Drew, 1997). The linguistic design of

MT’s understanding check corroborates this. His turn is initiated with

the contrasting conjunction “but” (Mazeland & Huiskes, 2001) that is of-

ten employed to challenge the relevance of the talk it is responsive to. The

remainder of MT’s turn also indicates that he has a problem with agreeing

with JD’s point, both through the speed with which parts of the turn is

produced and the high rise in intonation after “thingy” and “saying” which

are indicative of disbelief.

That MT’s understanding check is in fact challenging what JD said is not

just our interpretation, but also appears to be understood as such by the

participants themselves. JD responds first with an emphatic “yeah”, thus

very strongly confirming that MT’s understanding was indeed correct. Im-

mediately after this, however, he initiates what might turn out to be an ac-

count (I mean-) for his position, thus orienting to the challenging potential

of MT’s inquiry by treating it as a question of accountability (Heinemann,

2008), rather than a mere understanding check. MT’s own subsequent be-

haviour also indicates that he is in fact in disagreement with JD. Once he

has confirmation that he understood JD correctly, he contradicts JD’s po-

sition that the user needs to be told what the cost is, by arguing that hav-

ing been at the meter to pay the initial fee, they will already know the cost.

Notably, he does not contradict the design relevant upshot (the price needs

to be on the SMS reminder), but instead contradicts the version of the

world that JD described earlier, by claiming that people already know

the price. As we shall see subsequently, JD and MT continue, throughout

an extended sequence, to produce different versions of the world in talk,

presumably as a way of supporting their differing positions on the design

relevant implications. The only place in which such design relevant impli-

cations are made explicit within this sequence, however, is in lines 33e35

above. In the following, we will look in more detail at how the misalign-

ment between JD and MT is constructed and negotiated, and what conse-

quences it has, interactionally. In doing so, we will pay particular attention

to the way in which many design-relevant matters, such as for instance the

employment of design principles, the construction of use case scenarios and

the concept of value are introduced as part of the two designers trying to

solve this misalignmentdin other words, we shall try to argue that design-

relevant matters are interactionally generated and in this regard are em-

ployed as practices by the two participants in similar ways to how other


Extract (2)

5354 JD: 5556 MT: 5758 JD: 5960 MT: 61 JD: 626364 JD: 65 MT: 66 JD: 6768 JD: 6970 JD: 71 MT: 7273 MT: 7475 JD: 7677 MT: 787980


participants in other interactions employ other practices in order to pursue

and accomplish agreement and other types of social actions.

2.2 The use case scenario as a version of the world anda practice for pursuing agreementThe two participants are now at a point where they have each introduced

different versions of the world, one version (JD’s) being that people want

to know the price of the parking, the other (MT’s) being that they will al-

ready know. How, then, do they resolve this situation, which seems to need

resolution in order for the design to move on, since the design implications

are contingent on what the world in fact looks like. Extract (2) is the direct

continuation of extract (1) above and illustrates how JD, whose version of

the world has just been rejected by MT attempts to counter this position by

introducing a use case scenario.

(0.4)N::ot necessarily. T:hey will probably know >that I< boughtan hour. and it cost me two dollars.= =>Yerh<(0.4) >but it’s a four hour meter,<(0.2)

Right?==>and they goft-< (0.3) I’m being asked totop up. (0.4)>y[ou know< Am I being <asked> to top up (0.2) for

[>yeah< (so you got)

(0.5) or another hour,(0.6)

because[ I only bought an hour to start with,[that’s gotta be user controlled,

(0.7)That’s gotta be user controlled.(0.4)

uhm-(0.3)>and this is where we’re gonna have to work on the< ess em ess,=>Idon’t think there’s< any argument that- >.hhh< (0.3) <what theyshould> (0.4) get- (0.3) i:s >.hh< (0.3) uh: >a message< saying(0.8) uh: (0.8) your parking meter (0.2) at >bay whatever?<

l action 657

658

One of the core findings of CA is that interaction is geared towards social

solidarity (Clayman, 2002), evidence for which can be found in the fact

that a range of less pro-social or dispreferred actions such as rejections

and disagreements are structurally marked or more complex than their pre-

ferred alternatives. Whereas agreement or acceptance for instance is typi-

cally delivered immediately and in the most minimal form possible (for

instance a “yes”), their dispreferred alternatives are typically delayed by si-

lences, inbreaths, hitches and perturbations and when they finally are de-

livered it is done in a more complex and indirect shape (Pomerantz,

1984). This difference between preferred and dispreferred alternatives allow

a participant to quickly gauge whether he has his co-participant’s support

for some action and if not, to try and adjust his own position, pursue sup-

port or in other ways modify what is currently going on to get the partic-

ipants realigned. The extract above is a good example of how this can be

managed. JD’s response to MT’s claim that the users will know the rate is

delayed by (0.4) seconds and is delivered in an indirect and hedged man-

ner, in the sense that JD does not directly reject MT’s statement (for in-

stance with a “no”) but instead claims that the users will “not

necessarily” know. He then concedes that users probably will know the

price of 1 h (lines 54e55), before constructing a scenario (lines 61e70)

in which a user might be worrying about whether he/she is being asked

to top up for 3 h or for 1 h (the implication being that the information

about price would allow the user to know this better). Designing a response

as a concession, as JD does here, is a way of formulating disagreement in

a less socially problematic manner, since such formats at least on the sur-

face accept that parts of the prior speaker’s position is correct, while then

suggesting that this correctness is not relevant to the case at hand (Couper-

Kuhlen & Thompson, 2000). The employment of a use case scenario in this

context is also similar to other practices commonly used by participants to

strengthen their own position. In constructing the use case scenario, JD

thus makes use of the reported speech (or thought) of a user, reported

speech being a phenomenon that is frequently employed to establish hypo-

thetical scenarios (Holt, 2007) that can provide evidence for an assertion

(Galatolo, 2007). JD thus attempts to legitimize his own disagreeing claim

by introducing a use case scenario in which the reported speech or thought

of a user is relayed.

MT now seems to face a potential problem: if he agrees with the use case

scenario and thus with the version of the world described by JD, he can

be heard as contradicting himself in now being willing to accept the im-

plied but unstated design upshot (that price/rate should be included in

the reminder SMS), which he earlier implicitly rejected. On the other


Extract (3)

127 MT:128129130131132133


hand, because JD has constructed a hypothetical situation to relate to,

disagreement with this can be problematic, since the participants in prin-

ciple have equal rights to determine matters that do not really (yet) exist

(Sidnell, 2011). MT’s actual response seems to be designed specifically to

solve this dilemma: in line 71 (and again in line 73), he states a basic de-

sign principle “that’s got to be user controlled”, which it is hard to fash-

ion anyone disagreeing with. With this, he manages both to not explicitly

reject the version of the world described through JD’s use case scenario

and to not agree with the design implication that would follow from ac-

cepting the use case scenario. Instead he effectively deflects the conse-

quence of the hypothetical situation described by JD, i.e. if the user

can control how much to top-up, the question of (or worry over) how

much time he/she is being asked to top-up will not arise.

2.3 Strengthening positions by invoking the user studiesIn the continuation of the extended sequence we are investigating, MT now

turn to convincing JD once more that the information of price need not be

on the reminder SMS. He does so, however, not by explicating this, but by

describing his version of the world, in an attempt to have JD produce the

design-relevant upshot of this, in a similar way to what JD attempteddand

failed to dodin extract (1). Here, we will briefly look at some of the prac-

tices employed by MT to describe his version of the world, practices that get

sequentially upgraded over time, when agreement from JD is not forthcom-

ing. Extract (3) and (4) both illustrate this and we will treat them in con-

junction even though other talk occurs between the two sequences (not

shown here).

>But I- eh .hh< (.) >th- the fact that they’ve been there and the thing is that e- (.) like- this is whereit would have been useful if you could-< >I shouldn’t (talk withmy back you know)< >.hh< ehm: (.) >if you if you can< .hh(0.9) °*ehh*° >if you’d been there watching the trial,<(0.4) the first thing people said was >.hh< (1.0)

expletive expletive f:our dollars fifty an hour? that’s shit.

l action 659

Extract (4)

177 MT: Uh:m >.hh< but I- eh- (.) >t- th- the< point (0.4) of178 what I’m saying is that the (0.3) there’s a direct 179 association here with every single customer (0.4) 180 >of how much it’s gonna cost them.<181 (1.3) 182 JD: °Mm°=183 MT: =and then >.hh< (0.6) >when we started to introduce people<184 using (.) >you know the hand set,< (0.4) to:-185 >use the meter initially to you know key in the 186 information about< (.) the parking, >they need187 to make the call,< (0.9) the first thing they said 188 after the call was (.) Oarh that was easy, (1.3) 189 >but< it’s gonna cost me extra >to do it by my190 phone,<191 (0.4) 192 MT: >So they’re very-< (0.2) ya-ya-y- (0.1) p:rice 193 conscious is-is the point.194 (0.6) 195 MT: Uhm and: (0.1) if: (0.4) they >have to go196 to the meter to make that initial purchase for time,197 which they do.< (0.5) they will know the rate.198 (2.1)

660

Left with the problem of convincing JD that his version of the world (that people

will know the price already) is the correct version, MT in lines 127e133 (extract

3) makes a first attempt, by invoking the voice of the users, like JD did in extract

(2). MT, however, does not create a hypothetical use case scenario as did JD, but

instead does a narration of his actual meeting with users.8 After a short digres-

sion, he then produces the upshot of this narration, which is that users already

know the price (lines 177e180). He does not, however, specifically formulate

what this would mean in terms of design implications. If we lookmore generally

at these turns of talk, then, MT in principle performs the same action as he did

already in extract (1): describes a version of the world in which users will know

the price, hence implying that this is information that need not be on the re-

minder SMS. But the formulation or construction of MT’s second production

of this action is different from the first, in that it is upgraded. Though both in-

stances include the phrase “howmuch its gonna cost them”, the second instance

is produced as an “extreme case formulation” (Edwards, 2000; Pomerantz,

1986), in that it includes items such as “direct association” and “every single cus-

tomer”. Extreme case formulations such as these are typically employed in con-

texts in which speakers seek to legitimize their claims by emphasizing the state of

affairs they portray as believable, obvious and compelling, as is the case here,

where MT is still pursuing agreement from JD. Moreover, MT here enforces

his version of the world as more real than the use case scenario suggested by

JD (in extract 2), by calling directly on what users have said.



Similar to howMT failed to respond to JD’s description of the world in extract

(1), JD here neither acceptsMT’s version of the world, nor does he formulate the

practical design implications of such aworld (that there is no need toput the price

on the SMS reminder). Instead he produces a very minimal response (Mm) after

a significant pause of (1.3) seconds (lines 181e182), thus indicating that he has

heard and understood MT’s utterance, but nothing more (Jefferson, 2002). As

we also argued in our discussion of extract (1), we here see evidence from the par-

ticipants that a more fitting response from JD is relevantly missing, since MT

pursues such a response by entering into another narration of his meeting with

the users, again making use of direct reported speech and formulating the point

of this narration twice (“they’re very price conscious”, lines 192e193 and “they

will know the rate” line 197).When JD still fails to accept the version of theworld

described by MT (see the pauses in lines 194 and 198), MT in the following ex-

tract employs yet another practice for consolidating his own argument, a use

case scenario. In contrast to the use case scenario described by JD earlier on,

this one however is specifying what an improbable case would look like:

Extract (5)

199 MT: S*o:* you won’t find people sitting down >and have200 a cup of coffee,< .hh topping up via ess em ess,201 (0.5) going >*Iah yeah I’ll just have another202 hour and not* (0.9) ai worry or bee >caring how much203 it’s gonna cost them.=they’ll know exactly it’s204 gonna be four dollars fifty if they go [for that.<

MT’s use case scenario focus on what will NOT happen, describing in rather

minute detail the kind of situation that is unlikely to unfold. Notably, the use

case scenario that MT here introduces as unlikely in fact challenges the rele-

vance of the use case earlier constructed by JD (see extract 2), where JD

enacted a user as saying or thinking the following “I’m being asked to top

up. (0.4)>you know<Am I being<asked> to top up (0.2) for thr[ee h[ours?

(0.5) or another hour, (0.6) because I only bought an hour to start with,”.

Though JD there did not describe the user as worrying over the matter of

cost, his enactment nevertheless implied that, as was evident also from the

way JD responded to the scenario. MT now addresses this matter of “worry-

ing” in his use case scenario, to once more claim that while users may indeed

worry about the cost in the sense of caring, they do not worry in the sense of

knowing (which seemed to be the kind of worry JD was introducing), since

they know exactly the price of an hours parking.

2.4 Constructing user values/value propositions from userstoriesWenow turn to a point in the interaction in which the two participants appear to

reach agreement on one point at least: what value the application that they are

l action 661

Extract (

214 JD215216217 M218219 JD220 M221 JD222223 JD224 M225226227 JD228 M229 M230231 M232233234235236237238239240241 JD242 M243244245246247248249250251 JD252

662

designing will have for the user. At this point, JD has suggested that what users

will in fact worry about is the fine they will receive should they let their parking

expire and that seen in this light, the fee of the reminder SMS is not worrisome.

The end of JD’s argument (lines 214e216) and the subsequent talk on this point

is shown in extract (6), below.

6)

: You’re more worried about the hundred and sixtydollar fine you’re gonna get for not pa- fornot topping u[p,

T: [E:xactly right.(0.2)

: *you know*=T: =Exactly right.=: =*so:*

(0.3) : °*e[a*°T: [>because tha- that was what they< said. they (0.5)

>I mean e-< I just wish you could have seen it=becauseit was so cons[istent

: [You should have taken a camer[a alongT: [s::T: so consistent >user to user<.

(0.1) T: It was just Yeah >I mean you could do it role playing

five minutes.< >>and show you exactly how it was with everyone.<< >.hhhh< (0.2) We say >>Yerh they then<< >they make the call,< (0.2) Uhm >.hh Oarh that’s gonnacost me fifty five cents< >>to do that,<< >just withmy phone,< (0.5) >for the convenience, Oarh< I’d Ireally wish it was free. (0.5) Yeah the- the council>wants us to pay for parking< >>they should be able to subsidize the cost of the phone call was the-<< (.) theargument.

: M[m.T: [but then (0.2) >you go to say .hh< Well actually

part of this (0.1) a:nd >you know it won’t actuallyhappen because we’re using a CLIENT phone< so:; (0.2)we’ll actually get the reminder >you won’t get ityourself, (0.1) uhm: >.hh< (0.5) y- you would have if you were using your own handset, .hh eh: >ten minutesbefore your meter’s about< to (.) expire >you get a reminder ess em e Oarh look. Fifty five centsthat’s nothing >t[hat’s gonna save me a fine,<

: [(that’s what’s valuable) Mm,(0.7)


253 MT: That was like that was the complete value 254 proposition=>was .hh< fifty five cents, >as long as< it255 includes that reminder ess em ess, (0.7) >is perfectly okay,<256 (0.7) becaus:- >then there is:< >>you know the convenience257 of being able to use your phone rather than the having to search258 around for coins or of going<< .hh[h walk hundred meters, >go 259 JD: [Mm260 MT: and buy a smart card,< (0.2) >walk hundred meters b*ack,*< (0.2) 261 >you know. there’s-< (0.1) ten minutes of- (0.1) >your probably262 hour that you budgeted to do whatever you were gonna do< gone,263 (0.5) uh:m (0.4) that was really what they saw, and as long as264 the the (.) uhm >.hh< the cost include that reminder, (0.7) 265 >>uh th- they said to us<< >Oarh fifty five cents, Oarh that or266 a fine, I’ll I’ll pay (that any day).< 267 (0.9) 268 JD: Mm.269 (0.7) 270 MT: >°Yeah°<=So being .hh being able to >and then we say wu you271 can top up. (0.6) >you know< >Say you were going for a walk 272 and you run into you mate up on top of the hill, and it’s gonna 273 take you ten minutes to walk back, and you’ve got four minutes 274 left on your meter,< .hhhh You can just reply to that ess em ess,275 >and get another ten minutes,<276 (0.5) 277 MT: Oarh that oarh °that’s fantastic you know,°278 (0.7) 279 MT: Best thing since sliced bread,280 (0.6) 281 MT: Uhm: >.hh< so that’s really the- (1.1) the value >that they 282 see in it,<


In response to JD’s described version of a world where users are more worried

about paying a fine than about a minor fee for getting a reminder that can help

them avoid the fine, MT responds with an emphatically agreeing “exactly

right” (in lines 217 and 220). The way in which MT formulates his agreement

may also say something about the relationship between the two participants,

since this form not just agrees, but lays a claim of MT having epistemic pri-

macy to what was just said. That is, whereas a “yes” would be just as agreeing,

the “exactly right” marks that this position is one that is held independently by

MT (Heritage & Raymond, 2005). Whilst participants in interaction fre-

quently make such epistemic claims (Stivers, Mondada, & Steensig, 2011),

there are various ways in which they may subsequently seek to support such

claims. In this case, MT does so by referring directly to the user studies he

has participated in, by stating that “that was what they said” (presumably dur-

ing the usability testing), before going on to describe through a narrative

l action 663

664

exactly how the users came to realize that paying the fee for a reminder was

worthwhile since it saved them the worry of getting a fine.

MT introduces the narration by stating (in lines 231e232) that it would be pos-

sible to do a role-play in 5 min that would show JD “exactly how it was with

everyone”. Again, he here makes use of extreme case formulation items (exactly

and everyone), though here it seems not to be in the service of convincing JD,

but of supporting his own claim of epistemic primacy over this information.

The beginning of MT’s actual narration is particularly interesting. He begins

with “We say”, but then starts another turn “Yeah they then they make the

call”. We cannot say for sure what would follow “We say” had it been brought

to completion here, but later in the narrative, the same words are used to set up

the contrast between the users’ first and negative reaction (“Oarh I really wish it

was free”) to the application and their subsequent positive reaction when they

realize that the fee will potentially save them a fine (“Oh look fifty five cents

that’s nothing that’s gonna save me a fine”). Here (line 242) MT introduces

what was said to the users once again, but here as if it was delivered in response

to the users’ first objection (this also through his own reported speech “well ac-

tually”). Had MT already in line 233 stated what was said to the user, the con-

trast between the first and the second reaction from the users would not have

been as easily delivered, i.e. he would no longer be able to show in the sameman-

ner that what he later labels the “value proposition” was realized by the users,

a realization that both supports the general claim that users worry more about

the fine than the fee as suggested by JD as well as the fact thatMT had indepen-

dent and primary access to this information. What extract (6) thus illustrates is

that although speakers, here the two designers, may be in agreement over some

matter, they may nevertheless take issue with who has the relative right to

“own” the position they are in agreement over, here what users worry the

most over. That it is in such a context that the matter of value is introduced,

is probably not coincidental. Thus, at the point at which MT has reached the

climax of his story, where the users realized the benefit of the reminder SMS

and thus what they would in fact be paying for, JD collaboratively completes

this narration by producing an upshot of the narrative “that’s what’s valuable”.

Collaborative completions such as the one produced here by MT have been

shown to be a practice with which speakers can show their alignment with

each other. When one comes in early and in overlap with the upshot of some-

thing, it shows to the other that both parties understand and agree with what

they are in the process of saying, so much so that the upshot can in fact be pro-

jected (Lerner, 2004). But for that same reason, collaborative completions can

also be used to claim epistemic primacy, since the projectability of another

speaker’s turn could also be grounded in the speaker already knowing. That

claiming epistemic primacy is part of the action that JD is producing with his

turn in line 251 is evident from the fact that he specifically does not design

this turn as responsive, but instead places the minimal response token ‘Mm’

at the end of his turn (Heritage & Raymond, 2005).



Part of the local work of establishing agreement on which version of the world

should form the basis for determining design is done through the use of use

case scenarios, referencing user studies and by invoking user values and design

principles. In making use of these design relevant matters, participants can be

heard to (attempt to) strengthen their own position, their own version of what

the world and thus ultimately to support the design implications that are rel-

evant for this particular version of the world. Design matters thus become one

set of practices that can be employed in interaction to further particular posi-

tions, along with other more interactionally generic practices like using direct

reported speech, extreme case formulations, concessions and the like. In spite

of the apparent prevalence of disalignment between the two designers here,

they do eventually (another 10 min on in the conversation that are not shown

here) come to an agreement over the form and interaction of the user input re-

quired to access the service. JD and MT come to ultimate consensus on the

proposal that the users will be able to control the number of minutes they

wish to top up, and that the system will not necessarily need to inform them

of the meter rate.

3 DiscussionWe have presented a fairly detailed analysis of an informal design meeting at

an R&D consultancy. Our choice of focus has been on sequences in which

topics of explicit interest to the design research community surface in the

talk. Specifically, these have been the initial proposal of design options, the

construction and reporting of user scenarios, the emergence of the concept

of ‘value’ as leverage in the discussion, and the introduction of design princi-

ples as a means of arbitrating between competing proposals. We will shortly

take each of these in turn. Our intention, however, is not to exhaustively pur-

sue any one of these lines of inquiry, but rather to briefly highlight how a con-

versation analysis of design might offer contributions to these topics in design

research.

Throughout this transcript, one unmistakable observation concerns the indi-

rect, mitigated manner in which different design proposals are handled. We

have to scour the transcript to actually find a suggestion of what form a partic-

ular design feature (such as the text on the reminder SMS) should actually

take.9 Design proposals are certainly on the table, but they are rarely made ex-

plicit. What we see here are design options that are argued for in indirect ways,

such as through claims of the way the world ‘is’. For instance, propositions are

defended through what users ‘are gonna want to know’, or ‘will already know’.

This is done as a means of providing support for an as-yet unarticulated design

proposal. The upshot of the proposition (for the design of the interface) is left

as an exercise for the hearer, who, as we can see through the subsequent turns

in the transcript, certainly grasps the potential design consequences of the

proposition in the ways in which he resists or defers agreement. In this way,

we can see how design proposals can be shaped through introducing and

l action 665

666

negotiating versions of the world, and not necessarily through proposing par-

ticular interface concepts. Designers here are acting as a kind of ‘practical psy-

chologist’, for whom it is imperative to come to a determination of what

people will think, will know, can accept, will expect, will be frustrated by, or

will be aware of. The manner of working on exhibit here is that it is through

determining these issues that the specific features of the interface of the tech-

nology are implicated, and may be subsequently determined.

We can also see how devices such as scenarios of use actually come to be em-

ployed in real-time design activity. It is commonly advocated that scenarios of

use are a means to explore design options and anticipate future problems with

implementation, or understand users’ goals and activities (see, e.g. Rogers,

Sharp, & Preece, 2011). Yet here we have an example of their use in practice,

where we can see they can be used to do quite something else. Use scenarios are

constructed on the fly in service of, or railing against, implicit design directions

that are already on the table. In this case, they are not so much a means of ex-

ploring design consequences or generating alternatives but a device employed

to rhetorical effect in support of particular agendas. This was the case both for

scenarios constructed by JD (presumably) ex nihilo, and for scenarios that MT

reports as having been user reactions to the product from the user studies he

conducted just a week earlier. MT’s scenarios, like JD’s, are produced in re-

sponse to implicit positions with respect to the design, used as a means of pro-

ducing a version of the world that works to problematise that position.

The concept of value explicitly emerges in this conversation. Value has been

a topic of central concern to design, as can be seen in the currency of notions

of design that entail ideas of ‘value creation’. Such an idea is clearly familiar to

these designers, who introduce the ‘value they [the users] see in it’ and ‘the

complete value proposition’ in the talk we have analysed. However, when

we see the term deployed ‘in the wild’, we can see its embedded relations to,

and employment within, the set of competing stakes and versions of the world

that are alive in this conversation. One point then is to recognise how a notion

of value becomes practically ‘operationalised’ in conversation as a means to

very local, interactional ends, that are not entirely circumscribed by the range

of theoretical distinctions or commitments prevalent in the academic discourse

concerning ‘value’ (for a valuable review of the ‘range’ of which we speak, see

Boztepe, 2007). Whatever use the concept of value might have within particu-

lar theoretical discussions, its purchase on design practice can be visible only

here, in conversation, invoked as it is within and for interaction. This is part

of what is meant when ethnomethodological studies claim to ‘respecify’ theo-

retical resources (such as methods and concepts) as topics of inquiry, revealing

the actual workdthe actionsdthey are employed to perform in practice. Im-

portantly, this is not a conversation ‘about’ a concept of value, but a conversa-

tion in which value is introduced in service of some end.



Furthermore, the normativity of design principles (such as ‘it’s got to be user

controlled’) is something indexed by designers in the course of their activity.

MT’s use of a maxim at just this point in conversation (in the place of an an-

swer to JD’s question about what ‘I’, as the user, am being asked in the top-up

message) simultaneously finds fault with JD’s implicit proposal and itself im-

plicitly recommends an alternative that neatly obviates the ambiguity JD’s

proposal was introduced to resolve. As we have shown, it does this in a concise

and skilful manner, one that permits the issue in conversation to focus on the

wording of the message rather than challenging JD’s version of the world.

In each of these latter cases (scenarios of use, user value and design principles)

we can show how, in practice, these are not simply abstracted methods that are

used in service of some universal design ‘good’ such as usability, but are occa-

sioned resources selectively deployed as a means of negotiating social encoun-

ters, in performance of different actions such as the pursuit of consensus. The

methods, concepts and techniques of design become tools in practitioners’ so-

cial armouries. In making this observation we are not claiming that design’s

disciplinary tools serve ‘only’ social ends, as if they have no efficacy on the

forms that the technologies ultimately take. Rather, we are problematising

any social/technical distinction. It makes no sense to distinguish social ends

(such as agreement) from technical ones. The technical is determined through

interaction, consequential within interaction, and emerges among partici-

pants’ resources for interaction.

4 Notes on a conversation analytic program of researchWe want to conclude this paper by sketching out some of the forms that a pro-

gram of research might take that applies CA to studies of design practice.

Most obviously, CA is a means of furnishing design studies with many of the

details of design practice that are often overlooked. It is an unapologetically

empirical form of inquiry that is able to explicate the real-time embodied prac-

tices that constitute design activity. Such a program of CA research could not

only be a means of revealing design practice, but also has the potential contrib-

ute back to the discipline of CA, insofar as it can discover the systematic ways

in which structures of social actions might be uniquely deployed in design with

particular (‘institutional’) consequences (a tack taken in Button & Sharrock,

2000, pp. 46e67).

It is precisely on account of CA’s empirical purchase on practice that it holds

the prospect of a number of theoretical contributions for design research.

Practice is the touchstone of theory. Theories, in their ambition to apply gener-

ically to a host of unforeseen and unforeseeable contingencies endemic to the

world, necessarily gloss over the details of practices they abstract. Arriving on

this scene, CA becomes a means of holding such theories of design accountable

to practice. More than this, however, the methodological position of CA offers

l action 667

668

the promise of ‘respecifying’ any central topic, method, concept in design dis-

course as a matter for practicedas something that designers orient to, invoke,

imply, ignore, and the rest in action, in the course of doing design. This kind of

analytic work can reveal the intricate complexities of practice. For instance,

the notion of value, when it arises in designers’ talk, is not simply consonant

with generic design goals or design research’s discourse about value, but is in-

stead inseparably tied to a host of local, situational particularities relative to its

sequential appearance in our stream of life. Abstracting a notion (in this case

‘value’) away from the context of its actual employment is fatal to an appreci-

ation of the local connections it is embedded in and within which it takes its

particular sensedhow it is, by the participants, made relevant to a particular

issue, in the performance of a particular action, and how it there presents them

a spectrum of immediate possibilities for their next actions. Respecifying an

abstraction (i.e. any theory, concept, rule, principle, or maxim) as a partici-

pants’ matter opens a plethora of possibilities for the pursuit of a program

of empirical study that retraces the tangle of situational relevancies within

which these notions primordially appear. This is how the basic conception

of language as social action, and the methodological orientation of ethno-

methodology and CA, have a foundational potential for design research. At

worst, CA is a grounded means of holding design theory accountable to prac-

tice, identifying possible distortions encapsulated in theories of design, and re-

fining the theoretical precision of the field. At best, it offers the promise of

rediscovering, one by one, many of the cherished conceptual cornerstones of

design research in and through its praxiological examination of design.

Transcription conventions:

Symbol Function

[ point of overlap onset, i.e. where two participants talk at the same time¼ latched talk, either by same speaker or next speaker(1.5) pause/gap in tenths of seconds(.) a short untimed pause, less than one tenth of a secondword speaker’s emphasiswo::::rd lengthening of the preceding soundah- cut-off? intonation: rising, questioning, intonation: slightly rising. intonation: falling (final)[wordY intonation: marked shifts into higher or lower pitch in the utterance�word � low volume, quieter than surrounding talk>word< produced quicker than surrounding talk<word> produced slower than surrounding talk(word) unclear speech, indicates transcriber’s uncertainty about a word.hh in-breath*word* creaky voice

AcknowledgementsWe would like to acknowledge the generous participation of the interaction

designers in the research. This study was conducted in an intellectual



environment established by Margot Brereton, who made possible this work.

An earlier analysis of this data was presented in Matthews (2004). Two anon-

ymous reviewers provided insightful and constructive criticisms of an earlier

draft of this paper.

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Endnotes

1. When we say this, we have in mind the explicitly programmatic (e.g. manifestossuch as the Bauhaus), as well as monographs such as Simon’s (1969/1981) orJones’ (1970). These latter design scholars, active in the 1960s and 1970s, evi-

denced ambitions that were pragmatic, methodological, theoretical, and gener-ally disciplinary. In different ways, they were concerned with establishingdesign as a legitimate field of scientific or systematic practice. These program-

matic aims eclipsed the empirical; what actual designers did, and how they didit, was not a principal focus of these early works. Sch€on (1983) may not havebeen at the very forefront of the empirical turn, but his simultaneous empiricaland theoretical treatment of design as a practice stands in sharp relief to the

approaches of many of his predecessors.

l action 671

672

2. Matthews (2009) offers a way in to CA complementary to the one we takebelow.

3. Granted, this is a ‘problem’ much more clearly evident in the case of anthro-pology than sociology, since for anthropologists it is very much a pressing

problem to figure out ‘what the devil is going on’ (Geertz, 1973, p.27) duringan exotic ceremony or ritual. In contrast, when we study our own society, itseems obvious and to require no justification that our object ‘just is’ a medical

consultation, parliamentary inquiry, stakeholder workshop or whatever (c.f.Schegloff, 1997).

4. Compare Wittgenstein (1958) x18.5. Naturally, the extent to which conversation analysis does this successfully, or

whether this is even possible, is contested. Lynch and Bogen (1994) offer a crit-ical discussion of Harvey Sacks’ ‘scientistic’ aspirations; see also Wieder (1988)

for an informed discussion of a number of these issues. We might tentativelynote that there is some shared philosophical ground here between the notionof ‘speech acts’ (e.g. Austin, 1975) and conversation analysts’ take on lan-guage, although they diverge from each other in practice. An early critical ex-

change between Searle and Schegloff emphasizes some of these differences(Searle, Parret, & Verschueren, 1992). Elsewhere, ethnomethodologists inter-ested in the design of interactive systems have raised other concerns with

speech act theory; e.g. Suchman (1994), Button (1994).6. Though, we are quick to concede, it is not one without distinctive limitations of

its own.

7. In this regard, our ambitions are similar to Oak (2011), who has recently ar-gued for CA to be combined with the theoretical perspective of symbolic inter-action in application to design research. As may become clear from our

analysis and discussion, however, there remain some differences in our respec-tive approaches to CA.

8. It’s possible that the direct experience that MT has had with the users gives himstronger epistemic claims to knowing and that this is why he uses a narrative

rather than a use case scenario, which is after all a hypothetical situation thatcan be challenged with something as simple as “that won’t happen”. The nar-ration, on the other hand gives the appearance at least of being a report of

a real event, an event where JD was not present and hence cannot reallychallenge.

9. Within the 20 min of conversation about this set of issues regarding the service,

we can find very few explicit design proposals, one of which makes its initialappearance in Extract 2, line 80.


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Analysing conversation: Studying design as social action