Framing the (in)visible
Insights into Visibility Practices of Remote Knowledge Workers
Mahan Mehrvarz (TU Delft - Human Technology Relations)
D.S. Murray-Rust (TU Delft - Human Technology Relations)
Himanshu Verma (TU Delft - Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence)
Ben Wagner (TU Delft - Organisation & Governance)
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Abstract
Remote collaboration technologies shape how workers are perceived by colleagues and managers, influencing career progression, trust, and workplace dynamics. This study examines visibility practices—also known as self-presentation or impression management—by exploring interactions through which remote workers establish and maintain visibility. Through 16 semi-structured interviews with remote knowledge workers across various roles and regions, we identify key visibility practices: participating in meetings, leaving traceable links to quality work outputs, and reappropriating miscellaneous features to become visible for others. However, these practices are deeply intertwined with negative psycho-social externalities such as internal pressures, fears, mistrust, and privacy concerns that endanger workers’ overall well-being. Our contributions include (1) empirical insights into workplace visibility and its entangled psycho-social complexities, (2) visibility ecosystem as a socio-material frame, capturing human-technology interactions in when visibility is at stake, and (3) design implications for collaboration technologies that support visibility practices while mitigating associated psycho-social externalities.
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