King's College London

The paper discusses how visual research methods that draw on
ethnomethodology and conversation analysis can help sociologists to reveal
how optometrists’ assess the clarity of their clients’ distance vision. It argues
that the detailed analysis of video-recorded interactions in optometric consultation
rooms can help reveal the practical organization of the ‘routine’
work through which optometrists examine and assess their clients’ sight.
Save for the contribution of the paper to methodological discussions about
the use of visual data for the analysis of the practical work of optometrists,
the paper also demonstrates how video-based research can add to recent
debates in organizational sociology, workplace studies, and practice theory
as well as to discussions about service quality and quality of care in healthservice
settings.