Computer systems can only deliver their purported benefits if functionality, users and usability are central to their design and deployment. This book encapsulates work done in the DIRC project (Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Dependability), bringing together a range of disciplinary approaches - computer science, sociology and software engineering - to produce a socio-technical systems perspective on the issues surrounding trust in technology in complex settings. The book moves beyond 'field studies' to show how the DIRC project has utilised field study data in an interdisciplinary fashion, involving computer scientists, software engineers and psychologists, as well as sociologists. Chapters draw on the empirical studies but are organised around analytical themes related to trust which are at the heart of the authors' socio-technical approach which shows the nuanced ways in which technology is used, ignored, refined and so on in everyday settings.

Brings together a range of disciplinary approaches in the Social Science, Computer Science and Informatics, and Software Engineering Examines the dependability aspects of technical systems by focusing on particular aspects of 'trust' in technology, and how trust in technology is achieved as an everyday, practical matter Focuses on the practical use of technology in a wide range of settings

Inhalt
Trust and Organisational Work.- When a Bed is not a Bed: Calculation and Calculability in Complex Organisational Settings.- Enterprise Modeling based on Responsibility.- Standardization, Trust and Dependability.- 'Its About Time': Temporal Features of Dependability.- Explicating Failure.- Patterns for Dependable Design.- Dependability and Trust in Organisational and Domestic Computer Systems.- Understanding and Supporting Dependability as Ordinary Action.- The DIRC Project as the Context of this Book.