The goal of this paper is to relate theory to invention and application in the design of systems for organizational communication and management. We propose and illustrate a theory of design, technology, and action that we believe has been missing in the mainstream of work on office systems. At the center of our thinking is a theory of language as social action, which differs from the generally taken-for-granted understandings of what goes on in an organization. This approach has been presented elsewhere, and our aim here is to examine its practical implications and assess its effectiveness in the design of The Coordinator, a workgroup productivity system that is in widespread commercial use on personal computers.
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