User-Centered Technology

User-Centered Technology Chapter Notes

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6

Chapter 1 Highlights:

Most of Chapter 1 is introductory, but it does bring up some key ideas for having a critical understanding of user experiences and situated knowledge. Users do not approach technologies or documentation on technologies as blank slates--they have a priori assumptions.

• Aristotle quotation: 2500 years later and he still has much to offer us. Basically, the passage claims that users judge the products built better than creators of those products (p. 3).
  • How come?
• Mundane activities get internalized (p. 3).
  • Knowledge Authority--"The knowledge of everyday practice has become nearly voiceless: a colonized knowledge ruled by the technology and the 'experts' who have developed the technologies" (p. 5).
  • Users lack authority--"We learn of know-how and use through practice, so that the practice defines the theory of our actions: actions of know how and use" (p. 6).
• Macintrash can icon (p. 8).
• Situated Knowledge: "...users know about technology and the experiences they have with it are always located in a certain time and place that changes from minute to minute, day to day, era to era (p. 9).
  • Reflecting on the mundane: "Users understand technology from a unique perspective constructed from knowledge of practice within certain contexts" (p. 10).
• Democracy and Users
  • "In a society that is perpetually bombarded with new technologies, it is important to reflect on what it means, in terms of the larger social order, to be a user of technology" (p. 11).
  • "Users of a culture...often are the better judges [of technology], but if they are silent or invisible they (we) have little power to affect the decision-making processes" (p. 11).
  • Think about the right to vote and a citizen's voting responsibilities. What is the relationship between voter apathy and, well, user apathy--not wanting to critique the technology?
• Historical Contexts (p. 13)
  • Technology and telos--the end or goal of a technology (or anything)
  • Dumbing down technology
• Technical Communication's contributions to interdisciplinarity (pp. 13-16)

Chapter 2 Highlights:

This chapter connects technical communication to rhetoric and cultural studies. Science and Technology Studies is a field (actually fields) of study that analyze technology as a social product and not mainly as an engineered product. The field asks why this technology and investigates ideology--the values, attitudes, and beliefs of a culture. The main thesis of this chapter is to consider user context: "a certain cultural and historical moment that constrains everything [users] do" (p. 17).

• Technology as panacea (p. 19).
  • An attitude many of us have is that technology always progresses.
  • Additionally, many of us also believe that the future will bring technological solutions to problems.
  • NOTE: The above two observations are generalizations--not universal statements. Obviously, not everyone believes technology will solve our problems, but we have a cultural bias toward techno-panacea.
  • Telos of technology: "to move constantly and consistently toward...the 'Good'" (p. 20).
• Rhetoric and Technology
  • Good definition for technical communication: "rhetoric is a systematic series or collection of techniques that makes the production and dissemination of language strategic for the orator or writer" (p. 22).
  • When we define rhetoric as an art we have to consider ethics and "suit the needs of the audience or, in the case of technology, the user" (p. 23).
  • Human experience is not absolute. "User-centered theory" needs to be able to "[deal] with contingency and mutability...the 'reality' of human contexts (p. 24).
• System-centered model of technology (p. 25):
  • Technological determinism: viewing technology or "the system as an inevitable result of the logical progression of human activity or...the rational outcome of life itself so it is tantamount to natural law" (p. 26).
  • Designer's image of a technology (p. 27)
  • Notice when the "user perspective" often enters into the lifecycle of a product...when little can be done.
• User friendly: "easy to use but may not be in the best interest of the user" (p. 29).
  • We operate technologies that we know very little about. Consider what the user knows about the lights at home.
• User-Centered Technology:
  • "keep[s] the user's view of reality in mind" (p. 30).
  • "User-centered theory argues for the user as an integral, participatory force in the process" of creating technology (p. 30).
  • Democracy anyone?
  • "The user's situation....represents the user activities of learning, doing, and producing" (p. 31).
  • Notice the questions a user-centered approach asks (2nd full para. p. 31).
• "Situation and constraint: No technology is developed, disseminated, or used in a vacuum, and a user-centered theory would be remiss...if it bypassed this crucial concern" (p. 37).
• Cultural forces: "Cultural forces define nearly every human action, and in a world more dependent than ever on international communication and technology transfer the element of culture is without question essential when defining the use of a technology" (p.39).

Thinking critically about the reading. Remember, "critical thinking" is not synonymous with criticizing; instead, critical thinking (re)looks at a subject with the goal of deconstructing its meaning or development--what conditions or dispositions led a designer, author, or engineer to create a work (book, technology, idea, etc.)? Johnson claims "Producing...is an activity rarely associated with users" (p. 38). What can be said about that statement in the context of the following:

• Open-source software
• Customizable features
• Do-it-yourself home improvement

Theory is so much fun, but it can be difficult to know how to approach it. We're an individualistic culture (or, probably more accurately, a culture that believes in the rhetoric of individuality as opposed to a strict individualism) and theoretical discussions ask you to think through the author's arguments. Unfortunately, our cultural bias is to think from our perspective. That's an alright place to start, but a critical thinker doesn't end there: he or she must suspend his or her filters, the ideas and attitudes that we use to interpret (unconsciously, perhaps) the ideas of others.

Let's think about this with this example on ways of understanding truth:

• Tastes and Convictions
• Opinions
• Theories/Laws
• Facts

Any takers?

Chapter 3 Highlights:

This chapter continues to try to convince the audience that users come with knowledge and that knowledge is important. Instead of listing passages, I want to just ask questions.

• What is epistemology (p. 45), and why is it so important in academic contexts?
• Why would Johnson mention that our cultural worldview has basic assumptions of hierarchy, power, and control (p. 46)?
  • What are some of those assumptions? In other words, what practices or attitudes let us "read" those assumptions?
  • What are some hierarchies within which you find yourself?
• What does "user as practitioner" mean?
• What does "user as producer" mean?
• What does "user as participatory citizen" mean?

What else does Ch. 3 help us consider?

Chapter 4 Highlights:

This chapter gets into an interesting discussion on interdisciplinary research and borrowing from "alien" disciplines. Should disciplines be self-contained or more open? The thrust of this chapter is to ground documentation design theory (and technical writing in general) by focusing on the human user and not the system. As usual, Johnson ends the chapter with a call for democratization.

Instead of listing passages, I want to just ask questions.

• What is the concern of the dominant paradigm under which technological systems have been routinely designed (p. 70, 2nd para.)?
• What limitations are there to a view that we can "predict the logical series of actions the potential user will follow" when using a technology (p. 70, 3rd para)?
• What is the view of "error" in the radical theory of user-centered design (p. 73, 1st full para)?
• What has historically driven human factors research (p. 74, 2nd full para.)?
• What is the difference between Qualitative methods and Quantitative methods?
• What does Artificial Intelligence research tell us about human factors research (p. 79)?
• What makes documentation effective for users (pp. 82-83)? How should it be designed?

What else does Ch. 4 help us consider?

Chapter 5 Highlights:

Technology: Determinism, Sociology, Politics, History, and Philosophy

This chapter gets much further away from the practical surrounding user-centered theory and embarks on an ambitious plan to explain the boundaries (and overlap) of several related (sub)disciplines under the umbrella Science and Technology Studies:

• History of Technology
• Philosophy of Technology
• Rhetoric of Technology
• Sociology of Technology (for a groundbreaking work click here)

Johnson's goal isn't to get you to become experts in any of the above fields; instead, he (and I advocate this, too) discusses these areas in order to get readers thinking about ways to think about technology. Also, he explains that how and what we think about technology is socially constructed. One dominant attribute we (the polis in Johnson's book [p. 106 & p. 107]) place on technology is that it is always progressing to something better, more useful, and desired. how many times have you thought, "future technology will solve these problems?"

This chapter has lots of information, so let's try to concentrate on parts most germane to our discussions.

• Agency
• Technological Determinism
• SCOT
• Dominant progress narrative for technology
• Lone inventor myth
• Democracy, participation

What else does Ch. 5 help us consider?

I also want to point out that Ch. 5 has a limitation. Although I find Johnson's work exceptional, I think it misrepresents the idea(s) of technological determinsim and denigrates the Social Construction of Technology Systems (SCOT)--often just called Social Consctruction Of Technology--by claiming "sociological researchers aim to tell the what, but not very often how" (p. 97). What this means is that Johnson thinks SCOT looks at the meaning(s) of technology as causes as opposed to looking at how the technology came to be (how it developed). Physical development is an engineering concern and not a rhetorical concern. The problem with focusing on the physical construction is that it misses the fundamental argument that grounds SCOT--ideology (a society's values, attitudes and beliefs) drives the demand for technology. No technologies come to be without fitting or being made to fit in with social values.

Therefore, Johnson's point that the Tomato Harvester was an engineered solution that drove human activity by changing farmers' goals and hiring (pp. 105-106) is incomplete. The larger social force was not the University of California and the tomato industry in a vacuum; it was/is the economic system of capitalism. The profit motive demands efficiency to improve the bottom line, and the new tomato harvest cut costs. They wouldn't have researched it otherwise. Efficiency is a hegemonic goal--it benefits the powerful, whose spheres of influence are greater than the polis at large.

With the above description in mind, what is the larger social value (economics is a social concern) related to the Internet? Or did Al Gore envision the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) in a vacuum--no outside influence just his own vision?

Chapter 6 Highlights:

Constructing User-Centered Computer Documentation

This chapter goes into quite a bit of detail about how one approaches creating user documents. It also discusses genre and the genre of computer documentation. I'm not sure we should focus too much on the circles and triangles Johnson uses to "display" his arguments; instead, let's try get the gist of user-centered approaches. Then, I definitely want us to think through the vision Johnson has for technical writers/communicators--their need to change their roles within organizations. I have a view of technical writers falling into two camps, which I've discussed before:

• Technical Writers as managers
• Technical Writers as short-term employees

Obviously, any binary (either/or) is doomed when one notices that there is an in between, so I do admit that there are other roles for technical writers: interaction designers, trainers, content providers, information specialists, editors, servers, etc. My point in discussing the two camps is that I think they capture two very typical roles for technical writers and underscore the employee's value. Simply put, managers are valued higher (i.e., paid more) than contractual labor. {I do have a story about moving from contractual, temp work to a permanent position.}

Here are some highlights from this chapter:

• Bad reputation for technical instructions (p. 116)
• Deceptive simplicity in technical documents because they hide "the complexity of systems and artifacts" (p. 117)
  • "Black box" phrase for technology
• Reading instructions delays gratification: "We have a strong desire to 'get going' when we are using new" technologies (p. 118)
• Users can read, but can they comprehend...especially when trying to use something for the first time? (p. 118)
  • The system-centered view places the burden for comprehension with the user (p. 118)
• System-centered paradigm perpetuates the myth (or continually disseminated narrative) that experts invent and users have no say in invention (p. 119)
• System-centered document is devoid of context (p. 119)
  • If the device is for experts only (e.g., Oracle database programming guide) is the context (sub)culturally understood?
  • "It's a UNIX System!"
• "Technical communicators are often forced to be part of the system-centered approach" (p. 124)
• Dominance of system-centered ideology (pp. 124-125)
• User friendly approach still maintains the paradigm that the system dominates and the experts are in charge (p. 125)
  • Here he implies the current paradigm is not democratic
• User friendly approach focuses on readability (p. 127-128)
• Lab testing is artificial; reality is much more complex (p. 128)
• Questions for user-centered design (p. 129):
  • user situation
  • documentation medium
  • organization and cultural contexts
• Watch out for vocabulary in documentation: is it general (for a lay audience) or jargon? (p. 138)
• Play and experimentation (p. 148)
• Avoid "this is the way it is because this is the way it is" (p. 148)
  • Your reality is constructed through your experiences--they aren't necessarily the users
• Changing role of tech writers
• Interface designer

What else?