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Clay Spinuzzi

Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design (Acting with Technology)

by Clay Spinuzzi (Author), Bonnie A. Nardi (Series Editor), Victor Kaptelinin (Series Editor),

4.2 2 ratings

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A sociocultural study of workers' ad hoc genre innovations and their significance for information design.

In Tracing Genres through Organizations, Clay Spinuzzi examines the everyday improvisations by workers who deal with designed information and shows how understanding this impromptu creation can improve information design. He argues that the traditional user-centered approach to design does not take into consideration the unofficial genres that spring up as workers write notes, jot down ideas, and read aloud from an officially designed text. These often ephemeral innovations in information design are vital components in a genre ecology (the complex of artifacts mediating a given activity). When these innovations are recognized for what they are, they can be traced and their evolution as solutions to recurrent design problems can be studied. Spinuzzi proposes a sociocultural method for studying these improvised innovations that draws on genre theory (which provides the unit of analysis, the genre) and activity theory (which provides a theory of mediation and a way to study the different levels of activity in an organization).

After defining terms and describing the method of genre tracing, the book shows the methodology at work in four interrelated studies of traffic workers in Iowa and their use of a database of traffic accidents. These workers developed an ingenious array of ad hoc innovations to make the database better serve their needs. Spinuzzi argues that these inspired improvisations by workers can tell us a great deal about how designed information fails or succeeds in meeting workers' needs. He concludes by considering how the insights reached in studying genre innovation can guide information design itself.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tracing Genres through Organizations offers communication designers and information architects a fresh and important perspective on users in organizations. Moving deftly between theory and practice, Spinuzzi suggests methods for designing communication spaces that are not merely used but inhabited, adapted, and extended by their users. A must-read.

―Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Director, Eastman Kodak Center for Excellence in Communication, and Professor of Technical Communications, Clarkson University

About the Author

Clay Spinuzzi is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Texas, Austin.

Bonnie A. Nardi is Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and Cofounder of Center for Research in Sustainability, Collapse-preparedness, and Information Technology there. She is the coauthor of Acting with Technology (MIT Press).

Victor Kaptelinin is Professor in the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden, and Professor in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is coeditor of Beyond the Desktop Metaphor: Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments (MIT Press, 2007).

Kirsten A. Foot is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, and lead author of Web Campaigning (MIT Press).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press (September 26, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262194910
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262194914
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,002,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,236 in Human-Computer Interaction (Books)
- #23,375 in Computer Science (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 2 ratings

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Clay Spinuzzi

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Clay Spinuzzi is a professor of rhetoric and writing at The University of Texas at Austin. Spinuzzi's interests include research methods and methodology, workplace research, and computer-mediated activity. He has written four books: Tracing Genres through Organizations (MIT Press, 2003); Network (Cambridge University Press, 2008); Topsight (via Amazon CreateSpace, 2013; Topsight 2.0, second edition, Urso Press, 2018); and All Edge (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

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John Benson

Great content, horrible formatting

Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2012

Verified Purchase

I'm a few chapters into this book, and I'm finding that while I enjoy reading Spinuzzi's work, the poor formatting of the Kindle edition makes it very difficult to read. I've tried it on a number of different devices (Kindle 3, iPhone, Mac), and all of them display an extreme amount of spacing--huge chasms--between each word. Regardless of any adjustments I make to the type size, the problem persists, so clearly whoever typeset the Kindle edition did so carelessly.

I find it disheartening when stuff like this happens to books that are important to the field of technical communication. Hopefully they can push out an updated version, but until then I'd recommend grabbing a print copy instead.

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