THE METAPHOR IN SCIENCE.

The argument for the involvement of social scientists in dependable socio-technical systems design reasons is that, to be dependable, systems need to be appropriate both for the application domain and potential users. Before designers can solve a design problem they need to understand some basics such as what they are designing, who should use it, how often and in what circumstances (Scherer 2002); social analysis of settings where systems are deployed can expose subtle interactions and practices that are crucial to achieving this understanding but which are not revealed by a more structured, technical analysis. This 'turn to the social' recognises a new kind of end-user, a ‘real time, real world’ human and social scientists can provide designers with insights and sensitivities, to inform design. The use of observational or ethnographic studies has been a feature of our work over the past 10 or so years as we have attempted to inform the requirements and design of dependable, cooperative socio-technical systems through studies of 'real world, real time'