Paper short abstract:

One important role of situational scenarios is to guide engineers in developing new technology. We propose that the basic mechanism behind this is a cognitive drive for mutual specification of technical and social requirements.

Paper long abstract:

Situational scenarios of future technology imagine new socio-technical situations in which the interplay between the technical and the social is sketched in some detail. In an empirical project we are investigating how such situational scenarios are guiding engineers in developing new technology. Our findings rely on case studies in the field of ubiquitous computing from Japan, USA, and Europe. In our talk we argue that the basic mechanism behind this guiding role of scenarios is a cognitive drive for mutual specification. Either an imagined context of use defines technical requirements to be met, or the working of an imagined technology defines promising contexts of use, including social requirements like type of usage and users or larger institutional setting. We show that and how this mechanism works for different types of scenarios: For narrative scenarios which exist in texts, videos, pictures, or comics, and for prototype scenarios which consist of technological prototypes and testbeds realized in labs. Astoundingly, we found that specification not only goes from abstract ideas to more concrete ones but also in the other direction. This can be shown from cases where concrete scenarios are forcing or at least nudging the engineers to change their overall approach.