THEORETICAL CONCEPTS FOR WORK DOMAIN ANALYSIS, THEFIRST PHASE OF COGNITIVE WORK ANALYSIS

摘要

Cognitive work analysis (CWA) is gaining recognition as a promising approach for the analysis,design, and evaluation of complex, sociotechnical systems. However, the successful and widespreadapplication of work domain analysis (WDA), the first phase of CWA, is limited by the lack of acoherent theoretical approach. This paper addresses a number of theoretical issues relating to WDA,including differences in the approaches of Rasmussen, Pejtersen & Goodstein (1994) and Vicente(1999), and it illustrates these theoretical issues with a work domain of a home – a 'system' that willbe highly familiar to everyone. This research will help to: make WDA more accessible to researchersand practitioners who were not involved in the development of WDA or who cannot be apprenticed toexperts in WDA; reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to perform WDA even for experts inthe area; and facilitate the application of WDA to large-scale, industry projects.