User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the role of users in user-centered design. It is written from the perspective of science and technology studies, in particular developments in actor-network theory, and draws on the notion of the assemblage from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The data for this thesis derives from a six-month field study of the routine discourse and practices of user-centered designers working for a multinational microprocessor manufacturer. The central argument of this thesis is that users are assembled along with the new technologies whose design they resource, as well as with new configurations of socio-cultural life that they bring into view. Informing this argument are two interrelated insights. First, user-centered and participatory design processes involve interminglings of human and non-human actors. Second, users are occasioned in such processes as sociotechnical assemblages. Accordingly, this thesis: (1) reviews how the user is variously applied as a practico-theoretical concern within human-computer interaction (HCI) and as an object of analysis within the sociology and history of technology; (2) outlines a methodology for studying users variously enacted within design practice; (3) examines how a non-user is constructed and re-constructed during the development of a diabetes related technology; (4) examines how designers accomplish user-involvement by way of a gendered persona; (5) examines how the making of a technology for people suffering from obesity included multiple users that served to format the designers’ immediate practical concerns, as well as the management of future expectations; (6) examines how users serve as a means for conducting ethnography-in-design. The thesis concludes with a theoretically informed reflection on user assemblages as devices that: do representation; resource designers’ socio-material management of futures; perform modalities of scale associated with technological and product development; and mediate different forms of accountability

Enhancing electronic assistive technology prescription.

With the inherent functional flexibility of the computer it seemed inevitable that these machines would be put to use in assisting individuals with less functional ability such as the severely physically disabled. These functions would include Speaking, Writing, Controlling their surroundings and moving within those environments. The software applications which provide these functions have collectively become known as Integrated Electronic Assistive Technology (IEAT).This research investigation focused on the prescription of an IEAT prescribed for a particular individual using the Barnsley Wheelchair Interface (BWI) to enable the individual's function of mobility. The BWI controlled an electric wheelchair via a single switch pressed by the user, using her head and was prescribed using the "Multi-Disciplinary Service Model" process created and described by Hawley (1995).The subsequent enhancement of this prescription, from the model-based analysis of the automatically generated usage data logs, that were introduced by the PhD Research student and are one of the novel features of this work. The chosen method, using the analysis of data logs came about as a result of the PhD Research student's own severe physical disability rendering conventional techniques difficult and in some cases impossible. It is the model-based analysis processes that have been developed during this research and which inform the Assistive Technology Professional (ATP) with general information on the prescription, along with comprehensive information on 'Whole System Information', 'Functional Level Information' and 'Interface Level Information', which in all instances had previously been unavailable from assistive technology stakeholders.It is speculated that with the use of these analysis processes (tools) in addition to a software application called "Switch Environment Assessment Tool" (SEAT), in conjunction with the iterative process within the service model, the prescription should be enhanced, resulting in an increase in the user's quality of life

User assemblages in design : an ethnographic study

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the role of users in user-centered design. It is written from the perspective of science and technology studies, in particular developments in actor-network theory, and draws on the notion of the assemblage from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The data for this thesis derives from a six-month field study of the routine discourse and practices of user-centered designers working for a multinational microprocessor manufacturer. The central argument of this thesis is that users are assembled along with the new technologies whose design they resource, as well as with new configurations of socio-cultural life that they bring into view. Informing this argument are two interrelated insights. First, user-centered and participatory design processes involve interminglings of human and non-human actors. Second, users are occasioned in such processes as sociotechnical assemblages. Accordingly, this thesis: (1) reviews how the user is variously applied as a practico-theoretical concern within human-computer interaction (HCI) and as an object of analysis within the sociology and history of technology; (2) outlines a methodology for studying users variously enacted within design practice; (3) examines how a non-user is constructed and re-constructed during the development of a diabetes related technology; (4) examines how designers accomplish user-involvement by way of a gendered persona; (5) examines how the making of a technology for people suffering from obesity included multiple users that served to format the designers’ immediate practical concerns, as well as the management of future expectations; (6) examines how users serve as a means for conducting ethnography-in-design. The thesis concludes with a theoretically informed reflection on user assemblages as devices that: do representation; resource designers’ socio-material management of futures; perform modalities of scale associated with technological and product development; and mediate different forms of accountability.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo