To browse Academia. The metaphysical assumptions of cognitive science are explored with the goal to develop a problem-centered science relevant to the design and engineering of effective products and technologies. Radical Empiricism is suggested as an ontological foundation for pursuing this goal. This ontology poses a single reality where mind and matter come together to shape experience. Peirce's triadic semiotic system is suggested as a framework for parsing this reality in ways that reveal important aspects of the dynamics of communication and control.
Rasmussen's three analytic frames of the 1 Abstraction Hierarchy, 2 the Decision Ladder, and 3 Ecological Interface Design are suggested as important tools for achieving insight into the dynamics of this triadic semiotic system.
These ideas are offered as a challenge to both scientists and designers to reassess the basic assumptions that guide their work.
The hope is that by facing these challenges we can take the first tentative steps toward a coherent science of what matters. The work domain of operative emergency response has been studied by extensive ethnographic fieldwork at several different fire and rescue services in Sweden. Prototypes have been design and used by fire crews in field experiments in order to probe for potential future use of information technology and to study its consequences.
By using sensemaking as an analytical lens, new aspects in emergency response work have been identified that influence the design of information technology support. The results from the extensive fieldwork and the field experiments presented in this thesis suggest a new conceptualization of response work as patterns of practice where the collective efforts of making sense is fundamental for successful response work.
