Locales, social worlds and support for collaboration

Building collaborative systems based on an understanding of work is difficult. We outline work in progress towards the development of a locales framework which is aimed at bridging the gap between social studies of work and systems design. This framework is based on Strauss´ notion of social worlds and the implications of individuals being involved in multiple social worlds simultaneously. The locales framework describes the essential characteristics of a collaborative environment interpreting the notion of space from an interaction rather than a simulation perspective