HOW USERS MATTER
Edited by Nelly Oudshoorn & Trevor Pinch
MIT Press, 2003, 340 pages
Most Significant Arguments
The work How Users Matter is a compilation of papers focused on the ideas of how users of technology and developers of technology influence one another in their decisions about technology. Likewise, a number of the papers also speak to non-users of technology and what might put them into a position of non-use. Much of the relationship between user and technology development is shown as co-constructive. For example in Christina Lindsay’s piece, From the Shadows, referring to TRS-80 users she speaks to a sort of migration from that conceived initially by a technology developer, to those that actually take up and reshape the technology as users. I this case she starts with the reflexive user where the developer and user are one and the same so the technology matches the person creating it. Then the configured user who is defined or limited by the construct of the technology. Finally a projected user where the developers imagine the persons tastes, motives, etc. All of these are at the beginning of the technology release process. Then the “real” user steps in, with the technology in hand, and may comply with the notions the designers had in mind, but many do not. In fact many reshape the technology. They even can form user groups that work together to reshape the technology and its use.
This idea of user groups like the TRS-80 group is another important theme that was iterated in a number of the papers. Some of these groups are like the friks and Raners in the Laegran article, Escape Vehicles. In these examples the users form a sort of self-help collective to share information and spark ideas among themselves. They also find identity and community among like-minded people. Then there are the user groups acting as spokespeople in the Parthasarathy article, Knowledge is Power, and the work by van Kammen, Who Represents the Users?. In these examples there are interested parties who are users (patients), but then they take on more of a leadership role in structuring, to one degree or another, policies based on their interpretation of the respective user community. One good example of this was the difference in how the US and UK patient advocacy groups approached actors in the policy and development portions of a system/network around genetic testing, the BRCA gene technology, in the Parthasarathy work. The US groups like the NBCC and BCA felt they were more knowledgeable than the average patient and wanted to limit access to and use of the BRCA testing. In the UK the GIG felt that increased access was in order. These groups sprung up from volunteers who coalesced into a formal advocacy group. The US healthcare system differed from the UK healthcare system in that the US version is/was dominated by private medical research and insurance companies and the patient groups generally do/did not trust that these companies would have the patient’s interest ahead of profits. The UK system is primarily a government run medical system and is more trusted by the patient groups. This is how the article explains the difference in approach.
Comparison with Other Readings
The idea around community or group representation does not seem to be in the Cowan article, Consumption Junction. She certainly advocates for putting the user at the center of the network with ever-widening concentric rings showing different provider groups. The center is the user or type of user in the household domain, then out to retail suppliers of the finished product, then wholesaler, producers and governmental regions. There are groups that are supposed to represent the user, for example a government agency is supposed to somehow be mindful of the consumer needs, as are the retailers, but she does not focus on the users themselves forming any sort of formal group to either co-identify, or to speak on behalf of the user community. Her model allows for such a group in terms of an option to place them onto one of the network diagrams, but she doesn’t focus on how such a group might influence, or be influenced by, the other actors in the user-centric network.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Users book and the Cowan article seek to define the network of technology creation from the perspective of technology consumption. I really like this approach in that creators of technology will either ultimately consider if and how their technology is used or they will fail. Many do consider this, but get caught in a trap of considering the user at the beginning of development then stop once the technology is “publicized”. That said, in the case of the TRS-80 the technology was preserved and shaped by the users even through the company didn’t do much with it, and eventually discontinued the line. None the less, Tandy did eventually fail with the TRS-80 if their goal was about gaining a large user base and continuing sales.
Most of the articles admit that every user is different, but then still make efforts to categorize both users and non-users. For example Wyatt puts non-users into groups with titles: Resistors, Rejecters, Excluded, Expelled. These ideas about grouped non-users are helpful, but it doesn’t allow for those who may move from category to category, or are in more than one category at the same time. Wyatt does speak of non-users who are former users (Rejecters and Expelled). She also speaks about non-users ability to become future users. Each of these groupings implies some sort of knowledge by the non-users about the existence of the technology. If they never even knew a technology existed, could they be in one of these non-user groups? Would we have to create another non-user groups called “Unaware”?
Aside from students of STS, I would think the works would appeal to policy makers, advocates, technology designers, technology planners and historians. I could see interest in those who also look into behavioral economics. It’s an interesting field where researchers try to understand how people make every day decisions, including how they spend their money.
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