Prototypical Work Situations: A Robust, Flexible Means for Representing Activity in a Work Domain

Representing the results is a key component in the analysis of cognitive work. Many structures have been developed for representing the results of Cognitive Work Analysis, but the representation of activity through “prototypical work situations” is less commonly utilized. Prototypical work situations, initially described by Rasmussen, convey summaries of actual activities that represent the key properties of work in a domain. This study illustrates the utility of prototypical work situation representations through a demonstrative case example. Specifically, representations of prototypical work situations were utilized to summarize and compare communication with patients in the emergency department across multiple situations. Via the case example, we demonstrate how representations of prototypical work situations can be leveraged to summarize results, elicit feedback, and design and test new tools to support cognitive, collaborative work. We also provide a revised structure for creating prototypical representations of work that can be adapted and utilized in future studies.