Environment

The surroundings of, and influences on, a particular item of interest.

Electronic environments can be defined as functional combinations of hardware and embedded software in the real world – that is, circuits, prototypes or products.

In Technology, physical environment commonly refers to the location of the specific practice or the place where a final outcome will be located.

In Technology, social environment refers to the context of a group or groups of people and their interaction with a technological outcome and/or its development. (A subset of a socio-cultural environment.)

In Technology, socio-cultural environment refers to the combination of the social and cultural (including historical) context within which a technological outcome is developed or used.

Socio-technological environment refers to the context(s) created by the interaction of technological outcomes and non-technological entities and systems. Socio-technological environments include such things as communication networks and hospital transport systems. Exploration of these environments shows how technological outcomes (products and systems) and non-technological entities and systems (people, natural environments, political systems etc) interact together.