Abstract

Mediated communication is the way that distributed and proximate work teams communicate, and is structured nearly completely through software. Users request and make commitments, collaborate on and complete projects, and develop new software systems through software-based conversations. Yet, software designers and developers approach designing conversation software as a series of generic submissions, rather than as an iterative and reflexive process of specific and varied types of speech-acts. This paper examines two pieces of software: The Coordinator and the Uber Partner (driver) app, and a summary of the dialog surrounding the release of the Coordinator as an implementation of Language/Action Theory.

Keywords

conversation; Language/Action theory; systems design; behavior shaping

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Jun 17th, 12:00 AM

Uber and Language/Action Theory

Mediated communication is the way that distributed and proximate work teams communicate, and is structured nearly completely through software. Users request and make commitments, collaborate on and complete projects, and develop new software systems through software-based conversations. Yet, software designers and developers approach designing conversation software as a series of generic submissions, rather than as an iterative and reflexive process of specific and varied types of speech-acts. This paper examines two pieces of software: The Coordinator and the Uber Partner (driver) app, and a summary of the dialog surrounding the release of the Coordinator as an implementation of Language/Action Theory.

 

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