Cognitive work analysis: New dimensions

Abstract

Cognitive work analysis (CWA) originated in the late 1970’s and 1980’s through the work of Jens Rasmussen, being collected and built into an effective methodology through the 1990’s work of Kim Vicente, and culminating in his book Cognitive Work Analysis [1]. Since that time, CWA, and in particular its derivative design approach Ecological Interface Design (EID), has been widely applied in a vast range of complex, control-oriented systems. Since the 1990’s however, there has been an explosion of a new type of system – networked and distributed systems. These systems are characterized by their highly social dimension, resulting in new challenges in team problem solving, community building, and trust allocation across distributed teams. Our recent work in CWA has focused on adapting CWA to face these new challenges and provide a solution that fits a truly social technical system.