I caught a glimpse book

I caught a glimpse of movement at the juncture of the cognitive, the social and the technical

Organised action and interactivity inhuman, social, and technicalconstituencies

Derek William Nicoll

Marketing

Design

Product Development & Manufacturing

Draft Manuscript Phnom Penh,Cambodia 2003-2005

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Introduction

It is not strictly civilisations that rise and fall but ratherthe ability of succeeding generations of people to liveaccording to the inspiring ideals and laws of thatcivilisation. Surely the material artifacts are born anddecay; the architecture, viaducts, irrigation schemes or evensimple drinking vessels rise and fall in quality,effectiveness and beauty. The inspiration and dedicationbehind that skill, the coherence of that society, these arethe determining factors, and these lay in the permanency of acanonic understanding . . . Canonic law is based on theobjective fact that events and physical changes which areperpetual are nevertheless completely governed by intrinsicproportions, periodicities and measures. (Critchlow, 1981:cover note)

Since Plato the material world has taken a subordinate

position in the western mind. The environment and all

within it; wildlife, rare species of plant and animal,

expanses of wilderness, green belts, conservation areas,

gardens, national parks etc. all suggest spaces under

human preserve from human intervention across various

levels. In technology too, the case which encloses inner

functioning components also delimits a preserved space,

cases prevent the non-technician from interfering or

tinkering with the functioning of the device. Before the

desktop PC there were not too many devices which allowed

access to ‘user serviceable parts’.

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For Plato ’Form’ was the creative force that manifested

itself into the soulless matter. The concept or idea was

always superior to the real world object. But we witness

in media also, that censorship has prevented access to

material not deemed fit to the social interest. Censored

material is not to be seen by a wider population, lest it

causes social unrest, or else somehow warp views or

corrupt morals, even motivate undesirable behaviors

including subversion and revolt, rape, torture and

murder. The man-made world seems full of boundaries and

yet man’s experience seems to move seamlessly through

time and space. Cartesian dualism – the idea, descended

from Descartes, of the separation of mind and body,

suggests the body as the interface linking the

phenomenological worlds of human experience with that of

nature, the social and technological with cognition and

intention. I think therefore I am, we think before we do,

or else we do not. We look before we leap. We design and

plan action, we forecast result, and we implement and

utilize – all in order to accomplish some desired or

intended goal or aim. But aims and goals are always

prefigured and teleological, they must be visualized and

conceived of in a similar manner to how we perceive those

things that are immediate and surround us. They can

shift. So it is always thinking about how to ‘get there’

from ‘here’. It is always teleological – we explain the

‘what will be’ by ‘what is’, and ‘what is’ by what we

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think ‘will be’. This explains failure in many reports of

the future, including science fictions, due to too much

reliance on the social, technical and cultural exigencies

of the time.

More immediately, the hardware or physiology of the eye

and the hand links to the software of the mind via the

chemistry and electricity of nervous system and brain

functioning. Tools, from space shuttles to humble tin

openers and smart bombs, extend our bodily interface into

and beyond the world. Following the musings of Marshall

McLuhan, media, in its various forms, bring far-flung or

never before imagined depictions of the world to our

senses for assimilation or unconscious or conscious

processing. Whether this is blood flow in the brain,

galaxies from the Hubble telescope, Hollywood

blockbusters which increasingly depend upon the

significant computational advances in animation and

graphics production for their power, or hellish

suffering, famine and pain in a distant country, mediated

sound and images make both the fantastic and mundane, the

fictional and factional, both proximate and immediate.

All are mediated.

The PC started as a physically massive statically placed

number crunching business machine and is now moving

towards a mobile device which is both tool and medium

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capable of transmitting and receiving multiple streams of

data and information from anywhere to anywhere. But, as

yet, nobody has an ‘always on’ mobile device, which

monitors us on multiple dimensions and allows us, with

permissions, to monitor an infinite number of other

worldly and human phenomena such as bodily sensations. We

can see the functioning of the brain but not the mind.

Not only would this be prohibitively expensive, would we

want it, maybe, but do we really need it? The closest we

have got to is turning the mobile phone into an internet

or television device.

Technological products are almost unavoidable in

contemporary life, and to grow up, and satisfactorily

socially integrate today does to a large extend depend on

learning a very complex system of signs and codes. In

many ways this denotes progress and development – the

shift from a predilection for signs coming from nature to

those coming from the man-made environment. Much this is

to do with the design and use of technological products

and their system and operating infrastructures. Without

the primacy of idea and innovation there would be neither

design nor investment of resource. Ideas and inspiration

never act independently of the vast store of influences

that abundantly populate our rich adorned modern

synthetic environments. These are environments with their

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respective orders and chaos of existence. And let us not

forget the social aspects of design.

That we most often design because of other people for

other people, we must use knowledge attained through

social channels, and armed with this knowledge we toy and

play with ideas of how others think in an intersubjective

sense. We strategize what their intentions may be, and

how they see and construct their worlds. We place out

imagined product in their worlds in order to realize

profit and utility. This is a key idea to user advocates

who wish to champion the user in design processes.

“Designers live in the world of design isolation.There are effectively two worlds – the design worldand the world of users – and while the real worldcontains real users, the designer works withabstract users, whose characteristics he invents.”1

Much has been written on this subject and we shall return

to these discussions later. But suffice to say here is

that it is not only design that views the social in such

a way, marketing, engineering, even governments view

reifications of persons in such a manner. This duality or

polarization is something of a chimera. Such views can

represent a democratic view of design, where users,

designers, investors, and all other interest groups have

1 Page, J. (1972) Planning and protest in N. Cross (ed.) Design Participation Academy Editions

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input and compromise civilly way towards the final

design. Or the view can be autocratic of the type

summarized in the following.

• We have a clear strategy for product and market growth.• We know exactly what our customers want.• Our customers never change their minds.• Our products fulfill their basic needs, entirely, every time,

forever.• Our products delight and attract new customers.• We bear complete relation with partners and suppliers• They understand our goals completely• They • We never lose customers to the competition.• Our products work exactly as designed.• We never force our customers to accept tradeoffs.• Our products make it to market on time, on budget, without

sacrificing quality or functionality.• Our plants and service operations are defect free.

If a company could out rightly state the above, they

would have little problem raising capital from banks and

investors. But this is not how the real world, the real

market operates. It is dynamic, and for varying reasons,

but using the tools of social science we can verify,

authenticate and solicit imagined realities. We aggregate

reports and observations of behavior and value and so can

make informed choices and decisions. We can observe

behaviors and we can inquire regarding action and its

motives, beliefs and attitudes, but can we really know

how other people think and feel? Perhaps not, but we

certainly act as if we do; we must do especially when

designing?

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How we perceive and make sense of technology, how we

value it and learn to value it, how we use it and learn

to use it, are matters of social concern as they are of

cognitive realms. So industry turns to the social to

investigate. But connecting mind to technology via the

physical body is not enough, the body must tackle with

the propensities and permissions and of function imputed

by design. Imagine a busy city street, whether in car or

on foot you can’t go just anywhere. The street is full of

static information such as street signs, advertisements,

road names, arrows in various directions – a maze of

conflicting information. Road sign differentiates from

shop sign – in which way? Road differs from pavement Then

there are the vehicles and people. Crossing, braking,

walking, running, laughing, gesturing, breathing. They

too convey information, how they act and what they do,

how they look and how they interact.

Almost all of this information is linked to the local

setting; almost all of it is, in fact, context-specific.

Within this chaos different individuals will pick out

differently aspects, the social psychologist walking her

dog may focus on a heated argument whilst checking body

language, a person late for a dental appointment is

apprehensive about what is about to take place but

cognizant of road conditions to cross, the driving

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instructor focuses in one road sign their instructor is

unaware of. Multiple realties in complex environments,

multiple systems of hard and soft elements abound,

converge, and comply, conflict, but all within context

and to some extent shared values and knowledge of

reality. For instance in the example given above people’s

roles do not dictate difference in whether they consider

it safe to leave the confines of the pavement to cross

the road without looking. Context lies in design as that

which normalizes and sublimates the chaos of existence.

The relation between content, form and technology in

contemporary product design is highly complex. The world

has meaning in how it is physically organized in

relationship to our physical abilities, and in how it

reflects a history of social practice. Studying social

and cognitive aspects of design and use can assist us to

become more aware of reality as a construction and of the

roles played by ourselves constructing or designing it.

It can help us understand that information or meaning is

not ’contained’ in the world, in books or products. The

‘worlds’ of design and use are particular. Designers are

not capable of affecting free will and choice. Meaning is

not ’transmitted’ to us – we actively create it according

to a complex interplay of codes of which we are normally

not aware. The signifier is the physical form of an

object; what we see, touch and smell in the objective and

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shared reality. The signified is the content, the meaning

of the object; what we experience, think and feel when we

interact with the artefact.

It helps such a project that no person, artefact or human

organization that develops, exists or operates in a

vacuum. Leaving space vehicles and neglected and feral

children to one side for a moment, for artefact, human

being or human organization there is only co-existence,

relation or relating. Insularity, autonomy, isolation are

understood here at best as only relative terms, more

realistically they are abstract terms. Think about the

six degrees of separation, think of synchronicity. What

ever happens on its own, independent of interested or

necessary ‘others’? What happens through pure

serendipity? What is indeterminate and random? Nothing

that which we are not trained to identify, or have no

interest in finding or looking at, nor that which fails

to capture and hold our attention.

Interaction, co-shaping. co-evolution. So co-existence,

relation or relating of things is true even within the

core mission of space travel and exploration. Expectation

and forecast typify our prospect of controlling the

future, the indeterminate and the uncertain, what we may

or may not find. Is there a sound when the tree falls in

the forest? - only if someone cares or deems it relevant

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knowledge, and creates appropriate systems, channels and

measures to know. The space craft communicates with

mission control or it doesn’t exist.

When Nasa originally planned to send men to the moon the

core mission was simply to get there. The race was the

prize. Only through convincing the powers that be at the

time did Eugene Shoemaker build a case for the kind of

scientific exploration that still defines space missions,

including the more recent shuttle launches.2 We’d love to

explore Mars in person, but we have already in mind what

we will find. This expectation helps craft the technical

and scientific prowess of the mission; it helps define

means and methods. And so it is when a company risks

resources to develop new technological products. They

wish to reduce risks and uncertainly.

While new products have been variously defined as

‘incremental;’ or radical’ innovations, they never drop

in on us from mars. A very worldly range of comparisons

drive the inspiration for firms to create and develop.

The first car is nothing but a carriage without horses, a

horseless carriage. The Horsepower is hidden in the

engine. It is not until twenty years later that the car

2 Deep Impact: Asteroids National geographic July 14th It should alsobe noted that ‘just getting there’ has a renewed focus within Nasa since the Columbus disaster.

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found a form that truly differentiated it as an

individual product.

How may we recognize something new? The answer is that we

cannot. There must be something familiar in the new. The

solution is to make an analogy to something well known.

We can use a metaphor that helps to create understanding

of the function; it facilitates a re-cognition of the

product. It is through this that we understand Windows

media player playing back MPEG-1 encoded information is

as yet a poor rendition of a VCR.

Other analogues aid consumers to make informed choices

regarding potential value and use of new products.

Products that belong to the same paradigm perform the

same function in a given context. If we need to sit down

we can use a sofa, a chair, a stool or a bench. If we are

thirsty we can drink water, coke, tee, beer etc. Which

product we choose is shaped by socially defined, shared

classification systems, some of them being personal

taste. The kind of comparisons here include the market

success of similar products or services, the widescale

adoption of a system or standard by firms and consumers,

competitive manufacturability, these all contribute to

the mix that inspires development.

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Comparisons continue to influence at junctures throughout

the development process guiding first the functional

aspects and components of design, and subsequently or

concurrently, drive ideas concerning how it should be

packaged and sold to the public, guiding whatever

associations should be built around it by marketers.

Firms constantly analogise market attractiveness and

utility through observation of the features of

competitors’ products and their success, or the

historical success of predecessors from within their own

product lines. They can also move further afield and

analogise from ever less directly related products and

their functionality such as the controls of a software-

based DVD player mimicking those of an analogue tape

recorder. But perhaps where such projection is most

noticeable is where it considers those aspects which open

the functionality of technologies and systems to their

publics – the consumer-user interface.

Regardless of how technologies are sold to the public,

there is hardly ‘open’ exploration in the sprit of a

Columbus or even the impetus of an Edison. That breed of

expectation know as ‘hypothesis’ also guides action and

exploration, as does ‘hunch’, ‘curiosity’ and ‘problem

identification’. It helps us think ‘outside the box’.

Inner and outer worlds

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There is an inherent drive for humans to develop relation

to that which lies ‘outside’. This is not difficult to

imagine as this ‘outside’ can be understood most

immediately, as the world around us, that inescapable

sensorium which sustains us as organisms and which feeds,

envelopes and surrounds our perceptual apparatus and

physical body. It encapsulates and provides context and

boundary to our mental ‘invironment’. It makes our

neurophysiologies, our bodies develop as interfaces to

the world of sensations beyond. We interact with the

world via them. We encounter the world as a place within

which we act.

The external environment offers stimulus as a constant

flow to our mental invironment and we react

cybernetically and monitor this reaction, but through

neurophysiological blocks and limitations not all of this

is processed into available information made available to

our mental invironment. This invironment, in turn,

develops its own higher order filters and processes to

steady the flow of conscious registration. This

characterises the idea of psychodynamic phenomena such as

the defence mechanisms of psychoanalysis. Also higher yet

is the mobility of our bodily interfaces to move between

particular environments which carry particular

characteristics over others, and of course to change and

alter these environments in accordance with intention and

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desire. This would be the realm of Abraham Maslow's

(1954) hierarchy of needs,i the idea that the world is the

interface

Beyond this lies the reality of the social and the

cultural.

“. . . most human acts in a developed society do notproceed according to a merely individual circuitbut, on the contrary, a more or less large part oftheir trajectory goes through social circuits whichare often extraordinarily far removed from theimmediate reality of the individual’s concreteaction . . . In fact it is the immense extent of thedetour between the starting point of an individual’saction and its return to itself, which explains thebasic spontaneous unconsciousness of the individual of the real basisof his personality.” (p.224)

Clearly notions such as social acceptance and

acceptability, adherence and non-adherence to rules and

procedures, to laws and regulations censor and constrain

individual choice of action/interaction/reaction. Social

structure constrains and enables actions. As such other

people, social institutions are our interface at this

level.

We learn of these rules and codes, or habits and ideas

not only from other people directly – that is face to

face – but also through media, books, radio, internet,

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television etc. Following the logics of Marshal McLuhan

and communication theory we are exposed to mediated

information that has itself been intentionally encoded

stored and transmitted for consumption and use by others.

This is again a higher order of filtration limiting

exposure trough privileging certain notions, meanings,

ideas, ideologies and scenarios over others. This is

accomplished through censoring, editing and formatting by

humans for humans. Technology also plays a role in its

mediating of the diffusion process. Books convey ideas,

notions etc. in a particular way compared to television.

It straddles the realms between mere reporting and

description of ‘facts’ to the deliberate and conscious

attempt to form public opinion. This is largely maps the

reckonings of McLuhan in his attempts to highlight the

peculiarities, as well is the propensities of media to

alter ‘sense ratios’. It is the realm of much work in

communication and media theory.

Contrast modernism with so-called ‘pre-industrial’ or

‘primitive’ cultures and societies. In contrast to stark

technological modernity, the myths and legends of

Australian aboriginals, Native Americans, Celts or

ancient Greeks exhibit a great reverence for place as

something alive, something that can reveal itself and

“talk” to people:“ Country is alive with information for those who

have learned to understand” (from Deborah Bird Rose’s study of

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life and land in an Australian aboriginal culture) .

What differentiates is nature from the word of the

artificial is that in the intended, designed world

‘evolution’ is speeded up. Nature, in its infinite

complexity evolves its components slowly, for biological

species it can take millions of years to adapt and

optimize with the environment. Context and condition

slowly dance towards better fit. In an age where

‘agility’ and ‘rapid prototyping’ typify manufacturing

and development processes such a waltz is not possible,

and speeding matters up becomes an exercise in

information intensity.

Our bodies and our sensory apparatus act as our interface

to the phenomenological world; we can only sense what is

made available to us, order and manage the resources of

nature and the prospects of technology via our senses and

bodies. Trough trial and error, repetition and

comparison, are ever more clusters and networks of

meaning and belief are built. This begins with

physiological learning such as eye-hand coordination,

through the means through which we recognise how to tie

shoelaces and tell a “P” from a “Q” and eventually

leading to what Clifford Geertz refers to in his

definition of culture as “webs of significance sown by

man” (Geertz, 1973: p.5). Within these schemas the

unfamiliar seem to sublimate into the familiar.

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This similar to processes which Silverstone has termed

domestication. This refers to the way in which technologies

and media sublimate into everyday life and routines

through appropriation and familiarisation. He likens this

to a taming process, such as when a wild animal is

adopted and made conductive to living in habitats and

their associated regulated and controlled spatiotemporal

conditions. Indeed, it is not unusual to find a dog, cat

or budgerigar in a home but a kangaroo or a horse? The

equivalent of the horse or kangaroo typifies many

deployments of IT in industrial and commercial contexts.

Here their complexity has makes them extremely obtrusive

elements of the operating environment, to the extent that

those environments – working practices, organizational

processes and physical settings – need to be redesigned

to accommodate IT.

The world around of us of products and buildings becomes

naturalised; it seems to be a natural, unquestionable

status quo and not a constructed piece of human artefact.

We often fail to realise that the most obvious and self-

evident around us, the real world – isn’t that self-

evident after all. Mark Weiser’s vision of Ubiquitous

Computing was founded on two observations. The first was

the most successful technologies are those that recede

into the background as we use them, becoming an

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unannounced feature of the world in which we act. they

both look for opportunities to tie computational and

physical activities together in such a way that the

computer “withdraws” into the activity, so that users

engage directly with the tasks at hand and the

distinction between “interface” and “action” is reduced.

The soft, mutable and ephemeral becomes hard, instituted

and patterned and vice-versa. ‘Outside’ can be the

unfamiliar in terms of situation and environment, outside

of the atmosphere and gravity that contains, constrains

and pins us. While many of us spend time and money

reducing uncertainty and risk, others possess some aspect

of that psychological disposition which drives them to

explore other lands, take drugs, or do dangerous sports.

We can explore vicariously sitting in front of out

televisions and our PCs. Similarly we design vicariously,

implicitly when we sit on a standards committee and

decide on parameters, or consider and condone changes to

standard operating procedures at boardroom level. Senior

managers explore options via their subordinates.

But the rules which motivate and guide exploration are

those always developed within our own immediate social

and cultural ecosystems with their ways of articulating

the universe relative to our own human development and

social interests. The plate on the voyager space probes

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depict symbols supposed to communicate with ‘intelligent’

aliens who may come upon it in the distant future. Was

its ability to translate meaning tried on indigenous

people within our own global socio-cultural ecosystem?

No, the likelihood is that it communicates to those

aliens that have successfully evolved to build an

organisation very similar to Nasa with its own culture

and inhabitants with Ph.D.s in communication design.

That plate represents an optimistic yet infinitely

delimited view of intelligence, and a very particular

one. Nothing would please, intrigue or scare us more

than if we ‘discovered’ life beyond our ecosystem, from

beyond the realms of our present knowing. But the

question of such an ‘encounter’ is; would we recognise

alternate lifeforms using our current frames of

reference? We understand little of what animals are

saying to each other. A little modesty and introspection

would reply: “Don’t we still have trouble communicating

with other earth-based lifeforms and even between

ourselves?”

Understanding design and needs

An important aspect of communication and miscommunication

lies in the translation of human need into function, and

function into desirable outcome. These are essential

translations which typify the design and innovation

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process when it meets with the diffusion, uptake and use

process. What makes something desirable and usable, and

desirable to use periodically and respectively is a

complex problem little explored in any holistic way. This

book attempts to explore these issues. It also considers

the very rich blend of influences and limitations which

can constrain the final product and its design and use

parameters. These are complex and interdisciplinary drawn

from a very wide set of literature including:

Anthropology of internet use; Business studies (e.g. of

effects of disruptive technologies on value chain, and of

ubiquitous computing); Communication studies and

education studies; Distributed cognition and communities

of practice; History and philosophy of science and

technology; Innovation studies; Knowledge organisation

(taxonomies and ontologies); Law and legal perspectives

(especially on IPR) and socio-legal perspectives; Library

information science, computer-assisted content analysis,

data mining; Marketing; Media studies and internet

studies; Organisational analysis, economics and business

studies, innovation theory; Policy studies and political

theory; Psychology of technology use; Science and

technology studies: Science communication; Social

informatics, CSCW, ethnomethodology; Social science

methodology; Sociology of consumption (science and

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academia as consumption of ICTs); Sociology of

technology3.

All of these fields and areas of knowledge and theory

development contributes to the thinking in this book. It

pivots around the key issues of use and usability, not

only as matters of technology designed in response to

glib assertions of latent human needs and requirements,

nor purely to do with explicit and clearly articulated

expressions of human desire to employ the products of

science and technology development towards solving

problems or making profits or saving labour. Indeed the

notion of needs has been questioned in Dreyfus (1967):

“When we experience a need we do not at first knowwhat it is we need. We must search to discover whatallays our discomfort. This is not found bycomparing various objects and activities with someobjective, determinate criterion, but through ...our sense of gratification. This gratification isexperienced as the discovery of what we needed allalong, but it is a retrospective understanding andcovers up the fact that we were unable to make ourneed determinate without first receiving thatgratification. The original fulfilment of any needis, therefore, ... a creative discovery.” (pp.25-6)

3 Social Shaping Perspectives on e-Science and e-Social Science: thecase for research support A consultative study for the Economic and Social Research Council(ESRC) Steve Woolgar p.6

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Rather, ‘needs’ is to do with the enrolling of complexes

of cognitive, social and organisational exigencies,

mustered, marshalled and managed to create new products

and services and new behavioural and cultural practices

as well as new forms of use behaviour and expectations.

Silverstone and Haddon (1994) refer to the special place

of use and its characteristics, when they suggest it as

the ‘design/domestication interface’. It is the most

tangible phenomenon arising from the lack of parity

existing in the relation of design processes to the

processes of incorporation within lives and lifestyles.

Value is a notion closely tied to use. It has been

defined by Bounds et al (1994) as “the summation of the

benefits and sacrifices that result as a consequence of a

customer using a product/service to meet certain needs.”

They continue:

“The concept of customer value moves away from thenotion that value is something inherent to theproduct or service toward the notion that value isdetermined in the context of customer use. Thus thecustomer does not value a product in a vacuum, butrather values the consequences of its use.” (p.175)

Wasson (1975) for instance speaks of ‘use systems’ with

respect to products “. . . oatmeal is not one product,

but several products, each with its own use

system.”(p.10) Here he refers to the ‘use’ of oatmeal for

making porridge, compared to the ‘use’ of oatmeal for

making cookies. Each requires different [design]

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processes and [tools] utensils in their production and

consumption. Bannon (1991; p.29) is aware of this with

respect to computer systems:

“In fact, it is often the case that computer usersneed to make some modifications to the system invarious ways, tailoring the system before it istruly usable. So in a very real sense users aredesigners as well.”

By privileging neither the situations of use nor

circumstances of production or consumption, there is an

attempt to anchor the reality of the product as an entity

that exists in both the worldviews of designers and

users. The aim here is to gain insight into the nature

and scope of the individual experiences a product may

generate.

Just as a house is more than its plans, more than a set

quantity of bricks, more than a result of the employment

of multiple skills, the dream of its owner, the ambitions

of landlord, its electrical, plumbing and communications

systems, its layout, shape size, desirability, cost and

value – then all manifest design products and processes

result from an to conditions which enable and constrain

its use in the short an long term. Symbolically the

created building takes on new symbolic meanings when it

is lived in, when it is used. An important factor to be

addressed from the wider approach to usability concerns

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the 'evolution of the user' (Nielson, 1992). Users of i-

TV, regardless of whether they were technically

sophisticated or not, at the time of appropriation will

not stay at the same level of usage ability. Using the

system changes the user, and as they change there use of

the system will change. This phenomena is referred to as

the "coevolutiion of tasks and artefacts." This may be

relevant to particular design issues over others, such as

search patterns a user has to perform to return or search

for an item. It is difficult to forecast these problems,

and this is the reason for longitudinal contextual

enquiry. Usability lab testing, provides useful and

immediate data which may be used for initial design of

more hardware oriented generic type features and

functionalities.

Here we are not concerned with he big picture nor small

picture, the whole or part, the experienced, imagined and

the real, the physical, chemical or biological, the

economic, the cognitive and social, the but how all these

dualities and aspects are relevant and come to prominence

as matters of concern over time for those attempting to

understand and marshal the processes of development.

Are we alone?

In a thought provoking article John Page suggests that

deisginers live in a world of design isoloation. They are

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isolated from users through politics, administration and

even intentional gatekeepers. Desigers, in some cases

such as architexts of new road systems are usally at the

end of a social and political process ehich dicates their

eventual working parameters.

So true ‘Robinson Crusoes’ whether experience, artefact,

human being or social organizations are few and far

between. Each enter arenas already existing or created,

populated or inhabited by ‘others’, environments

established, sustained and conditioned by pre-existing

rules and conditions. Meaning exists within the codes and

practices of these groups. Their rules and conditions are

often simple in effect – e.g. encounter and interaction -

but they are often complex in cause and origin,

especially when they act in concert. These rules and

conditions shape relation and relating, and the relative

power that some component, person or organisation has to

effect change upon others. The most complex relation

perhaps that popularised by chaos theorists towards the

end of the last millennium – the provocative notion of ‘a

butterflys wings beating in Korea cauing a hurricane in

Kansas. What is the window of opportunity for this? And

how is it set? Can we prove this or even observe it at

all? Is it of interest? Certainly national economies are

built granularly from small single purchases, but only in

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aggregation is there the suggestion of meaning which can

invoke interventions.

Cause and effect is often much more immediate. Repetition

like rote learning characterises the development of

routines, the carrot and stick of Pavlov and Skinner’s

behaviourism conditions responses and helps nudge proper

action and reaction and normative behaviours. But as

infants grow to accept the cultural norms and codes of

their families and communities, they relate and are

related, but not necessarily in any fixed or predictable

way. This is because they compare and are compared. They

grow to develop intersubjectivity, empathy, projection of

thoughts and feelings. They do this with people, and they

do this via multiple media and media technologies. These

range from ambient television exposure, books, electronic

and paper based spelling and counting games and now

multimedia and intelligent interfaces in the shape of

cuddly toys.

Technologies too, the grand plans or ‘babies’ of

entrepreneurs wax and wane according to perceived

benefits derived from the perspective of various

stakeholder and interest groups - developers,

manufacturers, distributors, consumer-users and other

investors. Their complex actions and interactions over

time, space and economy forge new artefacts and meanings,

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as they do learning. They condition their societal

embedding and thus impact upon their uptake and diffusion

into the fabric of everyday working and recreational

activities.

It is clear that social, political and economic concerns

wheedle their way implicitly an explicitly into technical

projects and much of the work in social studies of

science and technology (STS) has strived to illustrate

this. In sum this perspective has it that the design of a

device is much more than a summation of purely rational

technical processes and choices, preferring a more

problematic view that wider social and socio-cognitive

influences play critical roles in providing solutions and

guiding choices. Clearly, available knowledge of purely

technical options that circulate in technical communities

matter here, as does the impact of standards

organisations and potential and prospective user

impressions. Technological frames guide both the thinking

and the (inter)action within a relevant social group, and

“include different elements [such as] current theories,

goals, problem-solving strategies, and practices of use”

(Bijker et al. 1999: p.171). Just as the acquisition and

purchase of toothpaste is more than a purely rational

economic matter, technological innovation represents a

complex of ideas, knowledge, know-how and know-why.

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Perhaps this is why today the mundane achievement of a

routine everyday task such as the washing of one’s

clothes draws upon multiple streams of knowledge. This is

innovation captured in terms of knowledge used in the

development of ingenuous chemicals and machinery

(technology knowledge), and deepening understanding of

the human activity involved in the process (human

knowledge).

The juncture of where the technical and human relate can

be captured in the washing machines operating interfaces.

This offers user options where one inputs conditions and

contexts of the act – in this case which fibres, which

colours and how many clothes (all of which it is assumed

that clothes washers ‘know’ and can impart this knowledge

to the machine in order to effect desirable results). The

present move is to create intelligent responses and

processes where there is reduction in the machine need

for human intervention. As manufacturing automation

delivered (in cases) more effective and efficient

production processes, such optimisation is now intended

to diffuse into more and more everyday routines. The

upshot of this is that rather than the user having to

refer to manuals and experiment with user options, having

to develop knowledge for fibres and fabrics, one need

only place clothes in the machine, the machine adjusting

functional characteristics to suit whatever permutation

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of fibres and colours it ‘senses’. Such systems of

technology and use have already been around or some time.

Intermediate examples of these scenarios are enshrined in

those VCRs which can read bar-coded or numerically coded

information published in television guides. Rather than

programming the machine manually (referring to manuals an

accessing a barrage of peculiar menus, button sequences

and functions) such perplexing and frustrating activity

is short-cut. One achieves their goals without the

necessary postgraduate diploma in VCR programming.

What is interesting regarding the above is the many ways

such technical rationale is now analogous to ideas which

originated in organisational design and review. These

praised appropriate agility and responsiveness to changes

in operating environment whilst taking into consideration

how organisations leverage their internally developed

strategies and competencies. This conception of the firm

has viewed as a system within systems, and its products

and services emerging as components within ever larger

systemic contexts. This has a chair within a room, the

room within the house, the house within a neighbourhood,

and the neighbourhood in a city, the city in a nation,

the nation within a continent, the continent within the

world and so on.

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There are four important aspects of context: location,

identity, time and activity. They correspond to the where, who,

when and what of a situation. All four of these context

types should be used to determine what situation a user

is in and what action is appropriate to take on behalf of

the user. The user and their task. Context is defined as

any information relevant to an interaction between users,

their devices and their environments. This can include

physical context (such as the user’s identity and location),

social context (such as the relationship between users and

between users and devices), and virtual context (such as

meeting information kept in an electronic calendar or e-

mail message (Schilit et al., 1994; Pascoe, 1998)).

Context can also be broken down into information that is

explicitly provided by users and information that is

implicitly sensed by a computational system. The field of

context-aware computing has tended to focus on the

latter, because of the greater contrast with traditional

interactive computing.

Commentators such as the economist of technology Nathan

Rosenberg stated that entrepreneurial failure arises

when: “a would-be entrepreneur failed to consider the

relevant condition of interdependence between the

component with which he happened to be preoccupied and

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the rest of the larger system.”4 And thirty years ago,

the eminent British design theorist Nigel Cross and other

notables such as Donald Schön flagged up the lack of

systems level thinking at the expense of focusing too

strongly upon the component as the problematic rather

than the system, in which the component, must take its

place.

Dogson (2000) gives a compelling example of this in

relation to a firm which produces pumps coping with a

fierce low cost competition from overseas.5 To cope with

the increasing complexity of its own product, the UK-

based firm increased its sensitivities towards user

needs, whilst simultaneously developing abilities to keep

abreast of recent scientific and technological advances

and also developing stronger communication with related

technology firms (such as electronic control) systems

integrators in the projects its pumps will be installed

within. Improving its knowledge (user and material) and

its communication the firm had sights upon becoming a

system integrator itself. It was to become the designer

of pump systems and solutions than simply a fabricator of

pumps themselves. This offered the firm much master scope

4 Rosenberg, N. (1979) ‘Technological interdependence in the American economy’ Technology and Culture January, p. 295 Dodgson, M. (2000) The Management of Technological Innovation Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press

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for growth as it moved towards a more information-

intensive status. .

Systems are arenas often defined by what they keep at

bay, that is how they are exclusive, and what they choose

or are designed to embrace or include. Firewalls protect

digital networks from unauthorised intrusion. Nations and

their immigration law and enforcement do the same. A

breathable waterproof material lets water in the form of

sweat, out, whilst simultaneously keeping the same

substance, in the form of rain, from entering. Electronic

circuits act similarly. Components are explicitly

designed according to fixed tolerances, widely

communicated and socially understood, to prevent and

allow the passage of electrons according with the

delivery of functions. Human social groups also pattern

themselves according to inclusivity and exclusivity, in

City

Housing

Other system, e.g.

Industry ,

recreation

Traffic

Vehicles Travellers RoadsHOuses Families Sites

Surfaces

Networks

Body

Engine

Land

Property Rights and Legal Processes

Livings Rooms

Bedrooms

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order to function according to some explicit dictate,

goal or objective. Human brains and nervous systems also

act like this as much as they filter and channel as much

as they store and record. They select from competing

elements in the environment and if they did not we would

suffer sensory overload and be incapable of cognition.

Firms select materials and recruit expertise in the hope

of delivering successful products. The flow and passage

of elements is conditioned by the means and ecology of

communication and connection in a given system, and of

course, the facilities and promise of sustenance,

learning, relating and transforming.

We understand this through the rules of physical things

and actions and atoms, the rules of the chemical reaction

of elements and compounds fusing to create desired or

unintended or emergent properties, or the rules and

conditions set by the primordial soup of biological and

chemical properties from which living things arise, then

develop and evolve. Science is the human project through

which these rules and conditions are defined and

technology development is the means by which they fuse

with the arena of everyday life and everyday human

experience. They are made recognisable by the devices and

materials we use, consume and employ, those we live with,

or choose not to live with, and the tools we use to do

our jobs and further the cause of creation.

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The subjects of science and technology come under the

jurisdiction of rules and conditions outside of the rules

and environments in which they occur or are given life,

that is the lab or the workshop. More than geographical,

once they leave the lab or workshop they are explained by

rules that emerged within, or were created implicitly or

expressly by the wider pre-existing population of living

ideas, personalities and objects. David Bloor’s (1976)

“strong programme” defends the need for impartiality in

the explanation of true and false scientific beliefs. As

such it flags sociological concerns in the establishment

of ‘truths’ and generic overarching principles. These

‘truths’ are the new fusions of perception arising from

creative and critical thinking, a coping with the natural

limits inherent in all human-made constructs and

realisations, the boundaries of searching and finding at

any given time, age and knowledge development, coping

with relating and relation, our using and our copying.

Our ways of seeing, knowing and transferring and

transforming. Interpretative anthropology is a science

whose progress is marked less by a perfection of

consensus than by a refinement of debate. This does not,

however, mean that all interpretations are equally valid.

Ricoeur, (1971) writes that there may be a;

“ . . . specific pluriocity belonging to the meaningof human action . . . human action too, is a limited

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field of possible contradictions . . . .It is alwayspossible to argue for or against an interpretation,to confront interpretations, to arbitrate betweenthem and to seek for an agreement, even if thisagreement remains beyond our reach. In the finalanalysis differences in interpretation can only bearbitrated by applying socially accepted modes ofjustification; i.e., what will count as a convincingargument.” (p.331)

Ricoeur reached the conclusion that the type of

validation appropriate to interpretative claims is

juridical, a form of reasoning associated with legal

arguments in which the goal is to reach a verdict subject

to appeal and to the power of public reaction (i.e. not

‘facts’ or truth claims).

In technology development ‘pre-existing’ populations

invariably means technology companies and the universe of

technology products and systems. Particularly those whose

relation to other commercial entities and consumer-users

of existing products has been previously structured and

defined, but, again, not necessarily in a constant or

fixed way. New entrants into established markets can

change or innovate upon the status quo or any homeostasis

where the tendencies are conservative and reserved. In

volatile and dynamic industry sectors, they always do,

and potentially, they always can. New fusions in this

case mean innovations coming to be appropriated and used

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by the populations they were aimed at. They have met

their target audience. This takes more than discovery it

often takes aligning one’s efforts and resources towards

learning the language of another dominant party, a more

powerful player who creates the environment – in this the

standards regime - in which a lesser component

technology sits.

Markets, technologies, ideas and people evolve at

differing rates, and it is the aim of management to

understand and denote resources appropriately in

establishing trends, and their relative power to impact

the business. Perhaps it was the idea of virtual reality

which outstripped the technical potential to properly

provide for it. Although specific and narrowly defined

applications have arisen, such as showroom aids for

selling kitchens, these still fall dramatically short if

compared to the representations of science fiction by

authors such as William Gibson, and against maxims such

as “psychology is the physics of VR” by leading

researchers and theorists of the early 1990s.6

6 William Brikien

Katz M. L., and Shapiro C. 1985. Network externalities, competition, and compatibility. American Economic Review 75: 424-440.

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The world of ideas has always experienced its water

wheels, steam engines, Sony Walkmans, VCRs, Nelsen

Mandelas, and witnessed evolving theories and conceptions

of nature, the universe, of materials and living things.

That is not to say they are common, but to say that they

are rare yet have profound and wide effect on reality.

Powerful technology ideas – what one researcher calls

‘poles of attraction’ - draw the development of

infrastructures and associated networks, systems or

extension and support. Such development and growth

subverts the notion that things remain fixed and stable

as both infrastructure and that which it is aimed at

supporting or extending go jostle with each other, and

other networks, to improve and develop. And when they do

it is not just the ostensible technology but all its

associations and associated networks and infrastructures

including knowledge structures. The washing machine as

suggested earlier lies at the juncture of human

intentionality, technology, soap powder and fabric

development. Each has its own system or ‘constituency’

which drives dependent and independent development. Each

are complex and require multiple explanations in

discussing their realities; sociological discussions of

why clean clothes are desirable or why low energy

machines may be seen as more desirable, technical

discussions regarding making the machine robust and able

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to self-diagnose, how to make more durable, beautiful

clothing, and so on

Applied to human and social systems, such as the world of

politics or the wider world of human reality, existence,

creativity and experience, we can witness changes in

opinion and sometimes revolution. Developments clearly

affect and impact upon some people’s realties more than

others; they always do and so do so to different degrees.

They also affect and impact always in unique ways, even

if these effects are hardly recorded beyond recognising

quantities such as book sales or advancing the rating for

television programmes. The pervasiveness of a book – like

Chairman Mao’s Little red Book – or Moby Dick or the

Bible or Koran carries with it the idea of the

pervasiveness of its message, but this is not always

true. Media reception studies have shown clearly that

media consumption is a complex and very subjective

phenomena, where size of audience des not necessarily

relate to pervasiveness of message, especially if that

message is full of nuance and is complex.

The scope and scale of impact always varies, from the

subliminal to the supraliminal, from the micro to macro,

but only when something fits an environment, some

meaningful and ascribed space, when it is seen in

context, only then does it become available for universal

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acceptance. Again this need not relate to the way in

which it accords with the intention of its authors. It is

only where environmental conditions are conducive and

necessity drives action that ‘fit’ arises. The ecological

perspective (Ecosystems Theory, The Life Model) of Robert

E. Park, Ernest Burgess, Harvey Zorbaugh, Carel B.

Germain and Alex Gitterman suggests how people and their

environments constantly change and shape each other as

people strive for “goodness of fit” with their

environments. Neither is fixed, but neither are they in

flux, they are inextricably related. Gradual change seems

to be preferred although disruptive change also forces

radical change, and radical extinction. And so it is with

new technologies, technological systems and their market

and social environments. Radio and its networks of users

and technology were not made ‘extinct’ by television, nor

was cinema made extinct by television and later VCRs.

Pervasive technologies with established supporting

infrastructures and systems such as television (broadcast

networks and technologies) and the automobile (fuel and

service stations), impact upon the practices of many more

people than a specialised piece of plant, or a

specialised device for a laboratory. Kuhn’s paradigms

shifts apply equally to matters of a cultural and

political nature as they do to technologies and

scientific advance, and so background, Mandela as

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terrorist becomes background, to the foreground of

Mandela as freedom fighter. The opposite can also be true

if we consider the rise and fate of Hitler as champion of

the oppressed German people, to Hitler the orchestrater

of the final solution. As individuals they were a product

of the systems they recognised and opposed. Their

intolerance came to symbolise the power of will to create

good and evil. But what is clear is the power of

serendipity and political climate that propelled both men

from incarceration to leading.

Any dissident or subversive, in order to be such, must

have specialised perspective and sympathy towards the

system of which they are a product of, and which they

exist within, whether that environment is antagonistic or

not. Only then can they evoke strategies and tactics

which enable them to resist that which they see as unjust

and imbalanced.

Moving quickly from my vain attempts at moral relativism,

general systems theory is interested in the relation

between whole and part. It contrasts sharply with

reductionist scientific tendencies which have favored

part over whole (and attempted to show a kind of ‘primacy

of parts’). If a hypothesis is proven through experiment

there is a kind of completion, a point where theory is

built. But where do ‘systems’ begin and end? Are some

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components more important than others? Are they such at

different times? Are they context and environment? This

has been of interest to some commentators on technology,

as it does carry implications for the management of

innovation. Typically we say that systems have an

architecture, a hierarchy and rigidity of form, whereas

environments may have both structured and unstructured

and unrelated elements. Contexts have related elements.

A traffic system will comprise fixed symbols painted upon

the road and changing symbols in lights and numbers. Red

viewed within the context of this system is often deemed

and accepted as the instruction ‘stop’. The entire system

exists to pattern and structure the safe movement of

individual cars and the intentionality of their drivers

within a larger environment of other cars, other drivers,

other internationalities, buildings and pedestrians. An

ineffectual system will not only be a hazard to this

wider environment, but an inconvenience to drivers

through the creation of traffic jams and inaccessibility

to desired locations. But it only one system. Wider

systems of refueling and parking also feature, as does

systems of repair garages, car manufacturers, and driving

schools, driving tests, car salesrooms, and accessory

shops. All form partials of an interlocuting universe of

diverse meanings and support. This was highlighted by

Albert Pacey who drew attention to the lack of

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infrastructural support of water pumps in India in their

failure to provide utility.

What economists refer to as network externalities is the

number of users grow for a communication product so does

its value to the user.7 One component, which in labelled

as the ‘autarky value’, is the value generated by the

product even if there are no other users. This could be a

non-networked PC or Palm Pilot. The second component,

which has been termed the ‘synchronization value’, is the

additional value derived from being able to interact with

other users of the product. It is this latter value that

is the essence of network effects. This idea suggests the

growth of large scale communication systems such as

mobile telephony but it does not explain use and the

phenomenological aspects of such systems. This includes

playing an online game with other sentient human beings

controlling a sprite, against the internally encoded

artificial intelligence of a game sprite.

7 Liebowitz, S. J. and Margolis, S. E. 1995a. Path dependence, lock-in and history. Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 11: pp.205-226.Liebowitz, S. J. and Margolis, S. E. 1995b. Are network externalities a new source of market failure? Research In Law And Economics 17: pp.1-22.

Liebowitz, S. J. and Margolis, S. E. 1996. Market processes and the selection of standards. Harvard Journal of Law and Technology 9: pp.283-318.

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There are limits to adaptability in environments,

systems, components and in people, and especially with

respect to the temporal dimension. This is clear when

using technical communication systems. We can only

express ourselves in certain ways with SMS txt, with

voice, with video. Likewise whether control of a sprite

is by artificial intelligence – encoded human reactions –

against – realtime control by human controllers – there

are limits to the sprites performance and actions. To

some extent they keep themselves in order by allowing

some potentials whilst negating others. It took

considerable time for animals to emerge the capability to

breathe air after emerging from the oceans. And so it is

for desktop operating systems to become ever more user

friendly towards context awareness negating the need for

individuals to learn basic computer skills. It looks like

it will take a considerable jump in infrastructure to

shift from the internal combustion technology to fuel

cells and other means of propelling cars.

No artifact or human organization or theory comes to the

public domain with a clean slate. They vary in complexity

and simplicity, in utility and functional specificity,

but they always carry association. If there is none, they

will be quickly fabricated. Stakeholders and various

interest groups sublimate difference into wider existing

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structures of meaning and familiarity. This is

increasingly a normal routine of the business use of

technology. A PC taken to the home finds its use over

time through the selection of applications and other

software by its users and their installation. This

selection, within a limited set, differentiates and makes

unique the configuration of one PC to another. But just

as applications differ, they usually obey some order or

level of standardisation in the placing and design of

features such as the toolbar. A design etiquette has been

established. A recent buzzword has been cited as

‘services orientated architectures’. Essentially this is

middleware which offers the prospect of being adapted for

use by various players over a company’s value and

distribution chains.

Similarly, humans share traits although each one of us is

a unique configuration of experiences. There is always

sameness and difference. Like the decoration,

personalisation if you will, of one’s home, or the impact

of new plant on the shop floor on productivity what is

new situates within what exists, creating something of a

new revised whole, for the better or for the worse – an

incrementally new gestalt. This is clearly different from

a tin opener which has a specific function and specific

use, even if considered next to a knife. Intelligent

traffic systems will be responsive and sympathetic to the

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amount of cars travelling within the jurisdiction of

their boundaries, and also their behaviours and

movements. In doing so they will attempt to optimise the

utilisation of their resource – in this case their

abilities to permit the safe passage of cars to where

their drivers want to go. The same is true in the design

of circuit boards and microchips – they wish to allow as

free as possible the movement of atoms round their

architecture. Within their physical limits, this allows

them to travel as fast as possible, with least hindrance,

and utilising least amount of energy resource.

Situation and context

Over the last 20 or so years we have heard so much about

‘situation’ and ‘context’ with respect to digital system

design. This will be a constant thread raised throughout

this book. Typically these refer to activities and

cognitions with respect to task outwith the propensities

of the machine itself. It represents an effort to explore

what people actually do when engaging in work tasks and

responsibilities in order to capture and codify this

knowledge and apply it to system function, network

architecture and design. In short it should make for more

relevant systems, optimised to raise effectiveness and

efficiency. But what of digital network use for

entertainment or education? Clearly they will situate in

very different contexts, and have very different expected

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outcomes which can barely be described as ‘task’,

certainly against that which is focussed on industry and

office activities. We hardly use industrial terms to

describe domestic processes (i.e. the ‘raw material’ of a

sandwich and its ‘fabrication’). Also consider Cooper and

Press (1995) when they suggest that “ . . .the booker

prize is not awarded to Jeffery Archer or Jackie Collins

although their work is “usable” to more people than that

of Salman Rushdie.” (p.18)

Over these twenty years many fields of study including

media research and studies of consumption have shifted

focus to explore issues using ethnographic and other

qualitative research methodologies. These have been drawn

from anthropology and other ‘softer’ social sciences.

They also derive elements from philosophy (mostly

phenomenology) and from the humanities (critical analysis

and hermeneutics). So it is perhaps unsurprising that

over the same time domestic computing and its industry

has come to embrace the notion of consumption over

production. This is perhaps most notable through the

development of e-commerce and other forms of commercial

practice over digital networks. Consumption also

manifests in this arena through the development of

increasingly effective media delivery as an integral part

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of the functioning of PCs and mobile devices. Increasing

uptake of broadband communications, wi-fi and 3G mobile

networks lend provision of recorded and broadcast media

forms. They enable and extend functionality long

associated with the media technologies of video,

television and music reproduction. These functions are

restricted and augmented by the physical, geographical

and technical aspects including protecting copyright

content material.

Handwriting recognition was jumped upon too early by

Apple with their pioneering PDA. It worked inefficiently,

but highlighted how this function played a crucial role

in interfacing with this type of device. Computing and

mobile telephony moves increasingly towards the goal of

context awareness. What is fascinating with this

movement, which is functional as well as methodological,

is how it suggests new imperatives to understanding the

human factor in mundane, everyday tasks and activities

(e.g. the system of cleaning, or feeding, or

entertainment etc.) The danger that some quarters have

raised is that technology which goes too far into the

‘system’ of everyday life, and in doing so, invades

private space and time. It intrudes upon and spies on

what were previously private and anonymous activities.

This raises a specter which has long been the fear of

digital age privacy advocates with respect to ‘big

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brother’ state intervention. But it has come about more

insidiously through technical innovations advancing on

many fronts seeking their place central in the everyday

life and communications of users. Context aware

computing plays a key role in reducing the user’s

explicit input.8 Unlike the design of a single PC or the

entire internet, contexts and the events giving rise to

situations are infinite.

Even twenty years of human interest and explication can

not convincingly map all the contexts of human

experience, and computing impinges little upon aspiration

and inspiration at least in a direct fashion. Innovation

can help the layman achieve ‘professional results’ but

can not reach into the creative spark which led to, and

motivated, that standard of result being set in the first

place. The word processor still lacks functions that

write novels or academic papers to order. The fully

functioned digital camera creates good movies

autonomously, but circuitry can remove amateur handshakes

and focus and provide a ‘correct’ exposure according to

set normative values. But largely what alludes to here is

where the mental environment, the creative human being

with the command of cause and effect, the development of

8 Kaenampornpan, M. and O’Neill, E, (2004) An Integrated Context Model: Bringing Activity to Context Department of Computer Science, University of Bath

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problem identification and solving, still holds

precedence in the production of intellectual property.

This is that aspect where the person ceases to being a

‘cog’ or a ‘ghost’ in the machine, but rather the arcane

operation and functioning of the machine becomes a

‘ghost’ in the task and desirable outcomes.

Cause and effect can logically stretch back to the

beginning of time, and context can be taken to the

magnitude of the known universe. But the point where it

seems to matter is surely where learning and value

coincide. This is at the juncture of interacting

elements, the congregation of meaningfulness.

“Actor network theory is a ruthless application ofsemiotics. It tells that entities take their formand acquire their attributes as a result of theirrelations with other entities. In this scheme ofthings entities have no inherent qualities:essentialist divisions are thrown on the bonfire ofthe dualisms. Truth and falsehood. Large and small.Agency and structure. Human and non-human. Beforeand after. Knowledge and power. Context andcontent. Materiality and sociality. Activity andpassivity. In one way or another all of thesedivides have been rubbished . . . it is not, in thissemiotic world-view, that there are no divisions. Itis rather that such divisions or distinctions areunderstood as effects or outcomes. They are notgiven in the order of things.” (Law, 1998)

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Janus-faced then, these junctures are where systems

collide, where intentionality of the individual

translates into activation operating principles and

capabilities of the machine or business process, where

consciousness and concern translates neural activity into

physiological responses, button pushing, electronic

pulses and binary code. This is where the complexities of

intertwining systems and system levels become through

necessity direct and simple, or conversely very problematic

by designed or evolved structure. Where function and

being translate to use and usage, in order to deter

miscommunication and misdirection of purpose. It has

outcomes, whether this is changes of icons in a display,

or the reception of online ordered goods through the

post.

People, their organisations and artefacts, context and

act as condition and environment to one another. The

qualities of foreground and background, subject and

object, internal and external, their interplay and

interaction over time creates and defines the

differences, and although eternally complex, they are,

thankfully, of a limited set. Focussed, and by no way

infinite, they share attributes, characteristics,

routines and activities that can be apprehended and

communicated in efforts to replicate and take forward

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strengths of coping and capacity both by users of

systems, and of systems and their components.

Examination of these relationships forms the subject of

analysis across a wide range of fields, particularly in

systemic studies of phenomena. There exist essential and

chief dualities in such studies such as that lying

between system and component and system and wider

universes of context which include other connected or

related systems and other discrete systems. The object is

to improve understanding of the relation between objects

and living things (biological and physical sciences),

between people and between individual groups and

societies, and between people and objects in the universe

(human and social sciences) or to improve design and

practice, learning and application (what may tentatively

be called a science of reaction, interaction,

intervention and use).

Evolving epistemologies and ontologies - the available

spectrum of ways of knowing and ideas or models of

realities – also help anchor us and enable us in our

often vague and vain attempts to taxonomise phenomena,

objects and systems. In hypothetico-deductive inquiry,

for instance, one examines data concerning empirical

relationships among the variables; and one expresses the

propositions of a formal theory to provide a tool for

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developing further tests of relationships. These arise

according to developments in the theories and methods of

the physical, social and human sciences and according to

the themes arising from the humanities; history and the

Classics, philosophy, the wider media, direct experience,

folklore, hearsay and tradition.

Use cannot be narrowly defined through scientific and

technical explanation, nor can it be defined purely in

social or cognitive terms of reference. Regarding

motivations driving desire and use, or invention and

innovation any of these can only offer a description of

one part of the elephant. It cannot be said to be

entirely rooted in creative desires and needs for

sociability, or purely fickle wants and needs. Similarly,

it is not rooted entirely within new scientific

principles nor is necessity the only mother of invention.

Consider that inconvenience or breakdown and inefficiency

can be as well. A sophisticated new PDA device can

satisfy Velben’s notions of conspicuous consumption in

every way as well as functional concerns. That is it is

bought as a ‘trophy’ as much as a functioning tool. But

more than this is the fact of what these technologies are

used for. All the creative uses of digital technology are

much more rooted in the humanities than they are in

social sciences or technology.

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Their inspiration and application in understanding nature

and in the development of artefacts and systems are the

means and ends of knowledge creation. Taken together as a

whole they are only the beginning of the translation of

knowledge into meaningful application, utilitarian and

adventitious products and services.

A very rich mix of ideas and theories have continually

raised issues and informed management thinking and

‘science’ over the years. They have came from an eclectic

blend of sources, most notably psychology and sociology,

bringing it forward to where it stands today. But both

the object and methods of mainstream research continually

come under question. Through critique and response they

have developed and evolved to renewed sophistication

rather like physical products. New kinds of questions are

being sought and gaping gaps in our knowledge of

ourselves and our societies have been identified against

a backdrop of ideological, demographic, economic and

technical change. In the new millennium, the design of

technologies, information and communication technologies

(ICTs) in particular, face new imperatives within their

research agendas. I have already cited this as a

requirement for a deeper and more granular understanding

of the human, social and organizational aspects of use.

With the development of new levels of connectivity and

new kinds of applications and services not necessarily

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intended to cater for the paradigm of industrial

productivity, new scopes and scales of use knowledge will

be called upon at the ideation and design stage.

As an empirical science, sociology has been interested in

latent structures, while as critical theory, it has

pointed out that social reality is not what it seems to

be. Therefore, all attempts at building a unified theory

of society on the basis of the critical/positivist

distinction had to lead into the paradox of treating

front and back, latent and manifest structures as one and

the same thing. There is a clear relation for instance

between the market dominance of a company and its product

and that of economic, technological, political-legal and

sociocultural contexts. For instance, an increase in

interest rates means fewer sales of home appliances.

Fewer homes are sold and since most appliances are bought

when people move house this translates into reduced

profits of everyone in the appliance industry (Wheelan

and Hunger, 2002).

Changes in technology also matter. As microprocessors

leak and seep into every aspect of industrial and

domestic activity they transform the issues and relevancy

of design. What is becoming blatantly apparent is that it

is only through increased sensitivity to the contexts of

use, physical, behavioural or mental, can new information

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intensive products be adequately innovated. We are

speaking here of a granularity of designed effect, similar

to the pervasiveness of water as it fills every nook and

cranny of a rugged rock face. This applies as much to

the delivery of new portable media devices as it does to

increasingly farming yields through computerised

registration and analysis of land conditions.

Political-legal variables in the environment of firms and

products cannot be ignored. Antitrust laws are but one

example where corporations have to diversify their

acquisitions due to strict monitoring of their growth

strategies (see for instance Dobbin and Dowd, 1997).ii

And of course there are a range of sociocultural

variables that can converge upon firm, product and

process. Demographics are one, ‘green’ and wider natural

environment issues, increasing diversity of workforce and

markets are others.

None of these variables exist independent of the other.

Their relative weighting, power and strength create and

constrain opportunity, as well as condition development

and growth. Their individual dynamics and trends need to

be captured and highlighted so as to allow firms some

insight on how opportunity waxes and wanes and where they

might direct activity. Awareness of their attributes can

help strategic navigation and steer them towards

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sustainable realities. But to do so requires that firms

be adept at creating, acquiring and transferring new

knowledge, and at modifying its behaviour to reflect this

new knowledge and insights. This is at the core of the

rationale for Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline (systemic

thinking) in the generation of learning organizations.

Learning is developed through critical self-examination

and experimentation at all levels of the organization. So

emphasis here is upon consideration of the whole rather

than the part in developing organizational learning

(Senge, 1990, Garvin, 1993). iii

It is within these realms that no artifact or human

organization comes to the public domain with a clean

slate as they always carry association. If there is none,

they will be fabricated, sublimated into the chaos of

everyday consciousness by our perceptual processes,

nervous systems and brains. Thus the differences between

new and old, soft and hard, human and non-human are made

and become significant (even though as we will see later

some would view these distinctions as arbitrary). This is

way in which company cultures form as well as how brand

strength develops in the public domain. It lends meaning

to product, project and firm differentiating it from an

ad hoc phenomenon to one which carries intention,

direction and identity.

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Summary

Following the lessons of biological science, we can know

nothing about any individual thing by itself, only of the

relations between things - things and their predecessors,

things and others in their type, the structures within

things and their relationship to structures without. The

reasons and terms by which things and human organisations

come to exist, as well as how their relation and relating

unfolds over time vary according to situation, condition,

environment and context. Examination of these

relationships forms the subject of analysis across a wide

range of fields, particularly systemic studies of

phenomena. The object is to improve understanding of the

relation between objects and living things (biological

and physical sciences), between people and between

individual groups and societies, and between people and

objects in the universe (human and social sciences) or to

improve design and practice, learning and application

(what may tentatively be called a science of reaction,

interaction, intervention and use).

There are also no random variations in human organizations

and artifacts. They are intentionally designed and exist

within a limited set to operate according to prevailing

rationales, conditions, ideologies and sets of

objectives. They came to be intentionally and

unintentionally shaped. Whether by adherence to explicit

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or underlying rules, as a response to recognisable

change, or through pure inspiration, creativity, will and

determination; what organisations produce comes to

fruition in society, culture and public domain, or they

do not. Just because something is prototyped, developed

then manufactured, this does not guarantee success. There

are a multitude of case studies showing tremendous and

costly research and development efforts which led to no

product and therefore no profits. But the residue that

was left was learning, either for the firm itself or for

interested others. Learning is particularly important to

innovation in the use and creation of new products.iv

Chapter 2 - Systems of acquisition,

acceptance and use

Business and industrial systems parallel but only find

closure in systems of acquisition, acceptance and use.

There exists no symmetrical model of

design-use/production consumption. As Silverstone and

Haddon (1996; p.44) have it:

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“Production and consumption are not related to eachother in a singular or linear fashion, but are theproduct of a complex pattern of activities whichproducers and consumer-users, as well as those whointervene in a facilitate the process ofconsumption, take part . . . innovation involvesmuch more than merely research and development orproduct launch. Innovation is a process whichinvolves both producers and consumers in a dynamicinterweaving of activities which are solelydetermined neither by the forces of technologicalchange nor by the eccentricities of individualchoice.”

In particular, sociologists view the rate of diffusion

and thus the economic value of an invention as primarily

a function of potential adopters’ perceptions of an

innovation’s inherent characteristics rather than as a

function of aggregate demand characteristics (Rogers,

1983). Value, relevancy and meaningfulness as much as

other qualities such as beauty, fun and ease of use –

usability – can never be forced upon those who would

consume and use products. They are not passive qualities

in any sense, they can only be realised in apprehension

and interaction. Good marketing and products is not

enough. According to Rogers, market acceptance is

influenced primarily by consumer preferences such as

“user needs”. Users accept and cope with the

inadequacies of products, or they do not. And there are

always inadequacies. That is not to say that this

mitigates appropriation and consumption, Krippnedorf for

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instance (1995) notes in relation to emphasising

awareness of product semantics in design:

“The experiential fact that that people voluntarilyaccept considerable inconveniences to drive the carof their dreams, live with the furniture that theylike, or wear clothes for which they are admired,suggests that other then technical criteria dominateeveryday life and individual well-being.” (p.157)

The Uses and Gratification (U&G) perspective (Rubin,

Perse, and Barbato) assumes that interpersonal

interaction through these and other media channels is

motivated by, and gratifies, felt needs and wants. Motives

are “general dispositions that influence actions taken to

fulfill a need or want” (Papacharissi and Rubin 179).9

Even the widely cited pundit of human-centred design

technique Donald Norman concedes that:

“In the consumer economy taste is not the criterionin the marketing of expensive foods or drinks,usability is not the primary criterion in themarketing of home and office appliances. We aresurrounded with objects of desire, not objects ofuse.” (Norman, 1988; p.216)

9 Papacharissi, Zizi, and Rubin, Alan M. “Predictors of Internet Use.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 44, 2 (2000): 175

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Determination is always vaguer and more difficult to

grasp and quantify in the analysis of consumption than in

production. You can quantify units of inputs and outputs

in industrial and business systems one can account for

units sold. However, the ‘impact’ of new technology can

sometimes be vaguer. Usability, meaningfulness,

usefulness cannot be added on or some after thought

‘fix’, they have to be experientially realised. But as

elements in the complex of acceptance they are also privy

to a complex of contexts and conditions in their shaping.

This will be increasingly the challenge as technology

reaches deeper into the realms of human activity,

interest and behaviours. Computing not only becoming

pervasive, ambient or ubiquitous but humanistic: This

requires new levels of awareness of designers towards

people and new levels of sensitivity imputed into machine

design catering for the idiosyncrasies of users.

Firms

Firms: What they do, why they do it, how they do it

varies under prospects and constraints arising from a

wide spectrum of influences. In organisations these

manifest internally, such as management effectiveness, as

well as technical knowledge and expertise, and

externally, in terms of such entities as regulatory

regimes, suppliers and markets. A firm has been described

broadly as:

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“… an internal learning system in which the system’sinteractions… must now become a matter of directedtransformation of the whole system. These directedtransformations are in part the justification forthe business systems firm. But they oblige it tointernalise processes of information flow andsequential innovation which have traditionally beenleft to the ‘market’ and to the chain reactionswithin and across industry lines – reactions inwhich each firm had only to worry about its ownresponse as one component. The business firm,representing the whole functional system, must nowlearn to effect the transformation and diffusion ofthe system as a whole.” (Schön 1973: p.75)

Human, social, organisational, technical, economic and

business factors and knowledge waxes and wanes in

influence and in the development of organisations and

what they produce. Firms and much of their environments

like all social and living systems are in a constant

state of transformation and flux. Donald Schön makes the

case that many companies no longer have a stable base in

the technologies of particular products or the systems

built around them. But this is not isolated, entire

societies and all of their institutions are in continuous

processes of transformation. In order to be effective

they must learn to understand, guide, influence and

manage these transformations. The appearance of stability

is only an appearance. The task which the loss of the

stable state makes imperative, for the person, for our

institutions, for our society as a whole, is to learn

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about learning. What is the nature of the process by

which organizations, institutions and societies transform

themselves? What are the characteristics of effective

learning systems? What are the forms and limits of

knowledge that can operate within processes of social

learning? What demands are made on a person who engages

in this kind of learning? (Schön 1973; pp.28-29)

This is of course a problem for the application of social

science methods to the analysis of technology

development. Are we trying to capture a moving target? By

the time we write up the object of study has already

moved on.

Schön argues that social systems must learn to become

capable of transforming themselves without intolerable

disruption. In this ‘dynamic conservatism’ has an

important place:

“We must become able not only to transform ourinstitutions, in response to changing situations andrequirements; we must invent and developinstitutions which are ‘learning systems’, that isto say, systems capable of bringing about their owncontinuing transformation.” (Schön 1973: p.28).

The social glue is symbolic elements of the company, its

culture and its operating procedures and polices. The

physical glue is the politics of space and order, such as

‘open plan’ and ‘closed offices’ and boardrooms. The

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dynamics of change differs between firms and their

constituent social and technical components. Some

indication of there trajectory and velocity or

acceleration of change is very relevant learning for the

responsive organization. Product development does rally

though it lends fixed points in the chronological and

development roadmap.

One significant transformation comes through the two main

stages of innovation. Companies first innovate in their

products, but then, to be successful, they must innovate

and refine their processes. That is they must learn how

to produce what they have developed cheaper, faster,

smaller etc. Process innovation is essential to bring

price down and quality up. But it also requires review of

standards, procedures, and administration. This is

crystallisation. Once process innovation sets in, it puts

the whole company into an ‘efficiency mode’, with little

time, energy, nor inclination to look outside their

narrow ways into whole new approaches (Utterback, 1994).v Competitive advantage, once established through

discontinuous innovation, is maintained with kaizen

(continuous improvement), incremental product line

extensions or improvements (Morone, 1993).vi

Shifting from product to process innovation firms shifts

epistemology from single loop to double loop thinking. If

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they are successful, the result is that they

institutionalise and sustain. But the paradox is that in

most cases they can only sustain themselves through

redesign and innovation - the conscious creation of flux

and mutation.

At a high level the aggregated propensities and

activities of firms are monitored and constrained by

regulatory infrastructures dictated by government or by

adherence to guidelines of cross industry standard

bodies. They work in favour of the overall industry

sector or even entire economy by assuring agreement to a

single standard. At lower levels various industry

alliances prevail to condition structure and behaviour,

as will individual company policy and operating

procedures. At the micro level people interact with what

they build or use, constrained by their individual

differences such as motivations, presumptions, expertise,

skills and abilities. Tracking and monitoring these

processes, understanding the processes involved, where

and when such knowledge is applicable and necessary can

help in the strategic realisation of where firms and

their offerings can be steered and improved.

Returning to the biological metaphor, considered as

genotypes, organisations and artefacts inherit and bring

forward the aggregate of recipes and injunctions of their

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predecessors. Like individual human beings they possess

something of both the prospects and the inertias of their

ancestors. But in their operation they become unique,

always varying, especially in terms of effectiveness and

efficiency, and in terms of complexity. They have a

propensity to change the ‘way things are done’. This is

because different factors and/or influences are important

at different stages in the development of organisations

and artefacts. Unexpected or concatenation of factors or

influences can occur putting unexpected pressure on

strategic revision, even back-turning in activity and

strategic trajectories. In the beginning of projects

basic issues may dominate, like ensuring the technology

works, or how well teams are communicating and working

together.

What emerges is as much a product of their interaction with

their environment as it is of their individual capacities

and functioning. When structured, environment appears in

the literature dressed in various terms – systems,

matrixes, constituencies, universes, frameworks, fabrics,

and clusters, networks of other people, events and other

things. This includes other organizations (competitors,

markets, communities, suppliers, regulators, public

interest groups etc.), and conditions (state of economy,

GDP trends, tax laws, legal issues, changing

demographics, environmentalism etc.)

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Only in relation to this do they vary in their ability to

compel creation (what they make, how innovative or

compelling the offerings to customers and investors),

including their own, and in abilities to seduce and

sustain engagement (say, by suppliers, customers, users).

The modern business environment, inspired perhaps by

technology, toys with structure and therefore with the

freedoms and rigidities of social, industrial and

business relations. So we see the appearance of ‘virtual’

organisations, ‘matrix’ organisational structures, and

consumer-user ‘communities’. There is also the blurring

of traditional organisational boundaries. A recent

example is IBM extending along its value chain so much

that it now wants to ‘run your business’.vii This was a

company who originally made business machines, went on to

provide consultancy and now leveraging its knowledge to

encroach on the granularity of everyday business practice.

Technologies

Technologies: What they do, why they do it, how they do

it varies under prospects and constraints arising from a

spectrum of influences, forces and factors. In products

such as technologies this relates to design elements

within the product (keyboards, video cards etc.) and with

respect to supporting services and infrastructures

(internet, TCP/IP etc,).

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Artifacts such as technological products are also born

within a limited set; they also vary in the effectiveness

and efficiency of what they do. They vary in complexity

and in their ability to seduce consumption and cultivate

use and usage at individual, group and population levels.

They exist in a functional and usage environment which

includes human consumer-users and other non-living

artifacts, their functions and the natural world. Some of

these environmental aspects are complimentary (i.e. Sony

Playstations augmenting the use of television) and some

which can compete (say, for attention and usage such as

when the act of Internet. browsing replaced television

viewing time). Some are hostile (too much water or

humidity affecting operation, or children hitting a

switch too hard). Artifacts vary in their

interoperability, their robustness, durability, and

capabilities to be customized or personalized.

But the success, survival and sustainability of

organization and artifacts are always finite. They are

always limited by socio-cultural, knowledge, and

material, scientific and technical exigencies.

Availability, accessibility, absorbency, usability – they

all limit integration. Surpassing these constraints and

limitations through and by innovation is the project of

firms acting competitively (for instance Druker,

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1987).viii. The hallmark of sustainability is adaptability

and much recent management ideas, such as agility and

semi-autonomous teams mirror this. Prahalad and Hamel

(1990) define core competencies as "corporate wide

technologies and production skills that empower

individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing

opportunities."

How shape and scope, scale and structure are

conceptualized is through being crystallized in pattern

and anticipations. These are the ideas, the projections,

the designs, the symbolic collateral that organizations

and artifacts carry for interested parties including

management, project teams, investors, customers and so

forth. Technical standards and laws and rules governing

operation are examples here. This phenotypological aspect

is as crucial here as traits determined by inherited

hereditary prospects and inertias. More than ‘smoke and

mirrors’, this is how people come to trust and believe in

a firm’s capacities or a technical product’s prowess to

deliver value. Herein lies the engine of brand strength.

Same is true for feature and function; how organizations

and artifacts operate and come to be, is monitored and

adjusted in operation and in action. The opening salvo of

David Schön’s The Reflective Practitioner (1983) is directed

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against ‘technical-rationality’ as the grounding of

professional knowledge. Usher et. al. (1997: 143) sum up

well the crisis he identifies. Technical-rationality is a

positivist epistemology of practice. It is ‘the dominant

paradigm which has failed to resolve the dilemma of

rigour versus relevance confronting professionals’.

Schön, they claim, looks to an alternative epistemology

of practice ‘in which the knowledge inherent in practice

is be understood as artful doing’ (op. cit.). ixBut action,

to be meaningful and to be replicated, such as when

management researchers ascertain ‘best practice’ in a

given area of operations, it must pertain to some level

of generalization and be relevant to the largest

population. In order to do so it must render itself to be

easily described. Herein lies the juncture where action

ceases to become prominent in discussions of the social

shifting instead to highlighting the role of

communication.

In the management of everyday life we are so used to

thinking of, and within, patterns of one sort or another.

Think of how our personal everyday habits and routines,

the standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the firm, the

rules of law for citizens of state, household rules,

customs of our culture – govern what we think and do. Our

adherence to these ‘frameworks’ can be tacit, unspoken,

once we have consciously registered and assimilated them

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into our thinking and behaviours. We use these shared

codes to benchmark our actions and behaviours. We measure

individual opinions against public opinion in effort to

assimilate or differentiate ourselves against the notion

of a status quo. Learning to operate a new machine for

instance, like riding a bicycle, may need instruction and

practice. That is, until it becomes ‘second nature’ –

done with little conscious thought (Polyani, 1962, 1966).

Users

Users: What they do, why they do it, how they do is yet

another aspect that varies under prospects and

constraints arising from a spectrum of influences, forces

and factors. Silverstone and Haddon (1996) are amongst

others that view reversal or collapse in the roles of

production and consumption as a distinguishing feature of

recent society. Technology-push and demand-pull are seen

as two conflicting theories of innovation and diffusion

of products. The debate about the relative importance of

market demand versus technological opportunity has raged

since Schumpeter (1934). While Schumpeter argued that

entrepreneurs are driven by technological opportunity,

early studies indicated that increases in demand preceded

increases in inventive activity over the business cycle

(Schmookler, 1962). Research has tended to side with

Schmookler, concluding that user “need” is the most

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important driver of innovation (for a review see Freeman,

1982).

User ‘needs’ have been rarified in much of the discussion

of new product development in the literature. Their

capture and application within processes is less than

clear. A few prescriptive models and methods exist, ut

challenging this emerging consensus, Mowery and Rosenberg

(1979) pointed out that user “need” is not an accurate

measure of demand and that it is too vague a construct to

mean much. But it isn’t one or the other, and the

chicken/egg question is not cogent. Many cases of new

product design draw upon very significant resources in

their development and represent considerable acts of

monetary risk, but even so, Westrum (1991; p125) suggests

that “ . . .in some cases inventions predate knowledge

of their major uses.” Tauber (1974) puts the case much

more strongly when he says that most innovations, and the

need for them, are ‘beyond’ the foresight of most

consumers. Ortt and Schoormans (1993) suggest that in the

case of major innovations consumers “perceive products

incorrectly”, and suggest that any inferences from their

feedback is “of dubious value.” They claim that in the

marketing literature respondents’ evaluations of major

innovations are claimed be invalid; “. . . in the case of

major innovations, all consumers can be regarded as non-

experts.” Surely this is rallying call for

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technologically determinist designer and producers to

ignore any meddling notion of ‘needs’ and ‘users’ and

just produce new products with indeterminate outcomes

when delivered to market.

The first has it that technology is developed by firms

and then ‘pushed’ onto unsuspecting receptive consumers.

These like the mass media audience are considered no

better than passive dupes accepting and absorbing

anything that firms throw at them. In many ways this

characterises the mass manufacturing paradigm where

generic products are built for their utility value and

captured so forcefully in Henry Ford’s maxim “any colour

as long as its black”. The second has it that latent

demand will somehow precipitate in the emergence of a

succession of new products by perceptive and receptive

firms. This denies the ‘one size fits all ideology of

mass production, and is more suggestive of modern ‘post-

fordist’ manufacturing, one-to-one marketing,

customisation and personalisation that caters for a

divestiture of tastes and preferences. The technologist

has documented science to support the functionality or

nutritional value of the product, and the marketer has

data on what consumers perceive they need.

A balanced view here is that some products and services

are by nature simple utility based products that require

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little input from customers while others are complex

information intensive products which require significant

input from actual and prospective user bases. There is

world of difference in the complexity between tin openers

and a program which aims to provide fro ‘intelligent’

functioning. From a hermeneutic perspective the reader’s

production of meaning in the text occurs within a ‘fusion

of horizons’ - “the fusion of horizons of understandings

which is what mediates between the text and its

interpreter.” (Gadamer, 1979 ; p.340) Basically this

points to the symbiosis of a text, its inscribed meaning,

its interpreted meaning, and the “reader’s awareness of

the text as both similar to and different from those

experienced previously (Wilson, 1993: p.45).” By

substituting ‘text’ (or understanding it in the wider

sense that it is often referred to today, see for

instance Dezin, 1997), for technology, or more

accurately their characteristics, attributes, features

and functionalities, one can begin to understand

something of an avenue for a phenomenology of technology

that includes the worldviews of both parties. Rubin,

Perse, and Barbato drew on Schutz’s in the study of mass

media. They measured and verified three additional, but

arguably less interpersonally focused, communication

motives: pleasure, relaxation, and escape (Rubin et al.

625)10.

10 Rubin, Rebecca B., Perse, Elizabeth M., and Barbato, Carole A.

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While few commentators would argue that they exist in any

pure form, many business cases (including my own research

project of interactive television) suggest that the

realties of innovation always contain significant

elements of serendipity, chance and opportunity. Who or

what end-consumer-users are remains vague and non-

distinct, incomplete, improperly articulated, as indeed

can be their reactions with firms and technologies.

Overview

The material given in this book is an eclectic blend of

theories and ideas drawn from a wide range of sources. I

make no excuses for this, but I apologise that sometimes

the ideas will not quite bolt together in a wholly

elegant way. There is space for a chaos of meaning. The

propositions are at best prototypes in an outlook which

is crucial for considerations in the organisation and

management of technology, innovation and design. It is a

reflection of what is taking place in industry just now

and reflects the dilemma that many more firms will

encounter as they explore issues like intelligence and

pervasive connectivity in their products.

“Conceptualization and Measurement of Interpersonal CommunicationMotives.” Human Communication Research 14, 4 (1988): 601-628

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The first usability theme – the ontology of usability

All themes presented here are linked by their common

interest – how people, natural and fabricated

environments, tools and artefacts provide for mutual

shaping. From this process emerges knowledge and ways of

doing and seeing. It also conditions what is available to

use and how we can use it. Some of these are drawn from a

practitioner/methodological position such as studies of

human computer interaction. This is a broad church which has

developed a very broad outlook extending from philosophy

and the humanities (I am thinking here particularly of

Brenda Laurel’s idea of computers as theatre) to extremely

pragmatic rules of thumb for aspiring web designers such

as basic guidelines for designing good web pages (an

example here is Neilsen’s guerrilla usability). The main aspect

here of interest is exploring the notion of usability as

a disintegrated or integrated product or service quality

and also its relative place in the propagation of

instances of use and the development of usage patterns.

This is the first of three themes which will address the

notion of usability in this book.

The second usability theme – usability develops its

scope, advances methodologically

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A second feature of usability questions it as a product

quality relative to product and services which are non-

productive. This can be summed up in the notion of the

‘usability’ of media programming. Methodologically, the

Cartesian ideal of experimental psychology and cognitive

science—continuing the use of experimental apparatus of

laboratory-oriented classical psychology borrowed from

natural sciences—has been seen as unable to penetrate the

human side of the interface of commerce and technology,

end-use and technology. This is because these products

not only exist in the clinical setting of the laboratory,

or comfortable setting of the boardroom, the noisy dirty

environment of the shop floor, but more usually as elements

woven into the fabric of everyday life. The ethos of

‘everyday’ distinguishes the nature and value of these

technologies. What is the usability of television for

instance against that of a book? It is important to

analyze the utility of a technology before one considers

its usability; so what precisely is television’s ‘use’,

how is it used, when is used, under what social and

environmental conditions is it used and so forth.

Such a line of questioning takes the researcher form the

realm of computer science and HCI into media studies,

cultural studies, and social studies of consumption. The

periodicities and patterning of use – usage – are

enabling and constrained within a plethora of social,

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environmental and operative conditions. And similarly the

notion of usefulness, an all much more immutable,

subjective quality, arise in direct relation to the

circumstance of use, quality of using (including

usability an more general aspects of achieving goals and

objectives – themselves potentially very personal and

encroaching on the realm of personal taste) and how often

and under which conditions it is used.

Use is an event, its contexts and conditions can be

registered. Usability has evolved certain methods which

lend themselves to quantitative analysis. Usage is

periodical - it is frequency.

Usefulness is more difficult to grasp, it can be

intensely subjective and personal. It is not observable

and only measurable via attitudinal style questionnaires

surveys and phenomenological style inquiry. No one can

authoritatively dictate the interests of others. They can

suppose their interests and level of value, make

conjectures and inferences based upon analysis of use and

usage but they cannot say why someone has value in

something.

This question is related to concepts of acceptability,

usefulness, or utility. Davis et al. (1989)x has

developed a technology acceptance model (TAM), which is

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based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) describing

the determinants of consciously intended behaviours

(Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). According the TAM actual system

use is dependent on the behavioural intention of the

users to use. This intention is created by a positive

attitude towards the system which stems from a cognitive

evaluation process based on beliefs and norms.

According to Davis 'perceived usefulness' and 'perceived

ease of use' are strong beliefs in the attitude forming

process. Perceived usefulness is defined as the

prospective user's subjective probability that using a

system will increase his or her job performance within an

organisational context. Perceived ease of use is defined

as the degree to which the prospective user expects the

target system to be free of effort (Davis, 1993). This

model might be valid for interactive technology, which

will be used in organisational contexts. However, for the

use of information technology TAM appears to be too

simple, i.e. more factors might play a role. Prospective

users of information technology have more freedom to

choose between various applications. They are interacting

with information technology in a wide range of contexts,

and often lack adequate user support.

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The dimensions of use are also not monotonically related;

there are generally trade-offs between them. This

explains some of the paradoxical aspects of usability

analysis -high usability does not imply high usefulness

or usage, and many well-liked interfaces and systems are

poor from a usability standpoint. The theme of Donald

Norman’s The Invisible Computer raised the spectre of how good

products can fail and inferior products can succeed? This

became the theme for the book. When technologies are new

they are invariably clumsy, instable and difficult to

use. They engender engagement but remain complex and

difficult to learn and use. Part of their allure lies can

lie in the challenge they present. In use, if not design,

a game is not an engineering problem. Although they

ostensibly look similar, we understand there is a huge

difference in context and objective between a puzzle book

bought at the train station to while away the journey,

nervously tackling an exam paper, and completing an IQ or

other psychometric test.

But more generally Rogers (1995) has suggested that a

certain breed of consumer-users will overlook

instability, difficulty in use, inelegant appearance.

They wish to indicate to the world that they are on the

vanguard of advance; they are part of an elite which

surpasses difficulty to find arcane function. As the

market matures and competition and process innovation

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lowers price and raises quality the demographic of the

customer changes from technology enthusiast ‘early-

adopter’, to more general populations of ‘functional

users’. In doing so the customer set changes radically.

Now consumers want efficiency, pleasure, and convenience.

More than simply addressing media products such as

movies, games music and so forth such a notion of

usability is being applied to tangible goods and service

as well. This is touted as the ‘experience economy’. The

notion is that what we are paying for is experiences,

symbolic and otherwise rather than for perfunctory goods.

This notion intersects neatly with more recent product

development approaches in ICTs which speak of addressing

the ‘user experience’ (UE) in design.

The third usability theme – usability embeds in the

organisation and its processes

A third aspect of usability brings us to the realm the

social and organisational. It questions it an integrated

product quality and site of research in new product

development. Consider the following employment of

ethnographic work by Kodak.

One such unanticipated finding emerged from a studyof the ways people used digital cameras to capturevideo and still clips. The ethnographers discoveredthat photographers had to tell people when they were

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shooting video and when they wanted stills, so thesubjects would know whether to move around. As aresult of this finding, Kodak digital cameras arenow equipped with an indicator light that providesthis information automatically. Similarly, a studyof how people purchase and initially use filmcameras, generated insights on the shoppingexperience that led to revisions in the ways Kodakproducts are packaged and displayed in stores.Ethnographic findings contribute to the creation andrefinement of Kodak products and services becauseresearchers work closely with designers, engineers,marketers, and product planners. In most projects,the ethnographers take others into the field to seethe world from the customer's point of view. Theseexperiences, along with the analysis and insights ofthe ethnographers themselves, provide developmentteams with the knowledge and inspiration they needto develop truly user-centered products.11

Usability is political. What is its place in the

competing structures of knowledge that feed managerial

decision-making? Important questions are raised regarding

the place of usability in product and service development

and only recently are these questions being tabulated in

terms of the economic benefits. Likewise engineering and

marketing have long been represented politically at

senior management levels, and it is only very recently

has user focus been represented here. Clearly it is not

11 http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/researchDevelopment/productFeatures/anthropology.shtml MAy, 2002

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http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/researchDevelopment/productFeatures/anthropology.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/researchDevelopment/productFeatures/anthropology.shtml

enough to build product and services, there propensities

must be communicated to those who may wish to acquire

them. Marketing and marketing research as practice has a

strong legacy institutionally, like engineering, and over

the years has evolved routines, methods and processes.

Marketing has evolved as a distinctive field within the

firm. The proactivity of building relevance for the

product and establishing customer niches compares to the

receptivity of market research capturing customer

feedback upon product. It is an established field in

management training and business studies. This contrasts

with user experience, user centred design, HCI, usability

have only recently become components of courses in design

and computer science.

For instance In IBM today a ‘Vice President of Ease of

Use’ .provides overall corporate strategy on user

experience. The remit is to communicate regularly with

executives across the company. Also a ‘Director of User

Technologies’ leads the integration of ease of use

programs into IBM’s management system with divisional

ease-of-use champions, including regular cross-company

tracking. A ‘Program Director of Corporate User Centred

Design and User Experience’ leads the further development

of UCD and UE methods, processes, and tools and provides

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leadership of and communication to IBM’s user experience

practitioners (Vredenburg, 2003).12

The relevance of usability to the firm and society are

explored much deeper in this book extending the essential

and necessary economic imperatives to that of a

‘contribution’ to culture and the future of design and

organisation. It is clear: there must be balance in the

firm regarding the organisation of knowledge between and

around marketing, technology, and user experience as they

all play critical roles, but one cannot dominate the

others.

But technology appears from a management perspective as

more certain, controllable and predictable in terms of

application and consequence. It is manifest and has fixed

attributes (standards) and functions; it is often

available as bolt-on system to be integrated. It has

interoperability along fixed lines. It is crystallised.

For firms developing technology it is naturally centre

stage and a pre-occupation, organisation and activities

are structured around it. For firms simply using

technology it remains a key resource commanding

significant budget, and needs proper representation at

12Vredenburg, K. (2003) ‘Building ease of use into the IBM user experience’ IBM Systems Journal, Vol 42, no 4, pp.517-531

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board level. Its power has grown in power with the

continual march of ICT into all manners of enterprise.

Such an idea calls for extending our view of both

usability as an integrated product quality, a development

company practice and with respect to our considerations

of the value and meaning of media in our lives. As much

of the literature on usability has tended to be

prescriptive, I am moving into high-risk unchartered

territory. But it does come at the backend of serous

research into creativity, organisation and technology

over the last 20 years. In order to approach these topics

there will be excursions into areas as diverse as

interpretative social science theory and method, systems

and associated theories, science and technology studies,

and more general frameworks arising from industrial

practice and design and innovation research.

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Chapter 1 - Pattern

Pattern: it is all around us. Everywhere we look, feel,

and listen. Even smell has pattern, stored as such in the

brain. Patterns existing in the physical world, enter our

brains via perceptual systems to creating patterns, The

internal patterns of the brain index with those from the

physical world and those stored patterns of associations

Can we ever have structure without pattern?

Humans use patterns to order the world and makesense of things in complex situations. Give a childa pile of blocks, and he or she will build patternsout of them. Give an adult a daily commute, and heor she will build patterns within it.13

We search for patterns when we enter an unfamiliar space,

meet a new person, listen to a new piece of music, use a

new device. Most important is that we also manifest patterns

as we act, as we communicate and behave, and indeed, even

as we seek out and acknowledge patterns in others and our

environments. At certain levels of analysis people repeat

things, we have routines, habits, necessary functions we

must perform to sustain ourselves, learn, socialise and

entertain ourselves. These can be subjected to13 KURTZ AND SNOWDEN IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 42, NO 3, 2003 p. 466

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statistical analysis. The search can be effortless,

casual or exacting; it can be tacit or explicit. We look

and listen, touch and smell. We may use microscope and

telescope, system-logging of user responses and website

reporting, we use social science inquiry like participant

observation or we can use police inquiry. Digital pattern

making in spreadsheets and datasets, and pattern

recognition by neural nets are a long way from the

sophistication of human understanding of the relevance of

pattern.

The creation and search for pattern, for proportions,

periodicities and measures is so prevalent it seems part

of a basic human trait. Its how we make sense of atoms

and molecules, solar systems and galaxies, individual

neuron firings to nervous systems and organ functioning,

individuals to groups, societies and cultures, syntax,

vocabulary and prose, from fibre to thread to the

intricacies of Persian rugs, from bricks to houses,

cites, binary code to applications and the internet,

individual purchases to national and global economies.

In an attempt to link heaven and earth ancient builders

followed canons, some coded in texts like the bible,

which dictated proportions which linked stars and planets

to the building of temples and other artefacts. This

provided them with a tangible link between the everyday

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experiential world and that of the cosmos. Patterns once

acknowledged on a cultural level become tradition, a

conservative force which can positively challenges

adaptation and innovation. It is more easily

transmitted, than abilities that lean towards novelty and

creativity. It confers ontological security and the sense

of a stable environment or society. This is largely what

Csikszentmihalyi's (1990)xi is speaking of when he refers

to flow. ‘Flow’ underlies the psychology of optimal

experience and what we can recognise from when we get

lost in a good book or watch an engrossing movie. The

familiar and expected sublimates us into the passage of

time, whilst unfamiliar events or situations cause

stress, possibly adrenalin rush, and jolt us to a

heightened state of apprehension and awareness.

But what in the universe is stable? Donald Schön (1973)

takes as his starting point the loss of the stable state.

Belief in the stable state, he suggests, is belief in

‘the unchangeability, the constancy of central aspects of

our lives, or belief that we can attain such constancy’

(Schön 1973: p.9). Such a belief is strong and deep, and

provides a bulwark against uncertainty. We try to make

‘brute facts’ ‘objects’, but money (paper and ink) only

carries the significance it does because we all recognise

that we do. And we continue to do so.

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Combinations or patterns of elements are always being

sought, identified, reconfigured, applied as a governing

ethos as powerful as the periodicity of a daily rising

sun. It seems that under analysis that our whole

universe, micro, meso and macro are patterned. But much

scientific inquiry is aimed at an over insistence that

the only explanation is the simplest one. But such

explanation must situate within a larger gestalt, always

of one thing in relation to others. Even the most

chaotic and random events finally appear to possess

underlying structure and submit to taxonomy. Digital

technology is all but a tool in this boundless search to

establish pattern and meaning.

He same is true in the conductance of everyday life. When

we switch on our TV we expect the screen to light up. If

it doesn’t we are unsettled and embark on processes of

problem solving. Chris Argyris and Donald Schön's

(1974)xii starting point was that people have mental maps

with regard to how to act in situations. This involves

the way they plan, implement and review their actions.

Furthermore, they asserted that it is these maps that

guide people’s actions rather than the theories they

explicitly espouse. One way of making sense of this is to

say that there is split between theory and action.

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Akiko Busch in Geography of Home, indicates that it is

often only when technologies breakdown that they, their

use, and their function, comes to conscious awareness and

focus.xiii Then, and often only then, do we realise their

relevance and integral nature in sustaining the smooth

running of domestic affairs. Most relevant to the story

is the way in which addressing breakdown led to

reconceptualisation - a taking stock of the contexts or

the 'bigger picture'. Busch reflects on her tale of her

faulty septic tank pump thus:

"While I reject categorically the idea that my house(or any other) has a personality, I have come torealize that it does have a language of its own, onethat includes not only the slight sounds, hums, andvibrations of all electrical appliances that keep itgoing, but a host of other interior systems, anetwork of social and cultural currents, thosehabits, beliefs, and values that also make itfunction. And I realize, too, that it is by beingattuned to all these systems that we might arrive atsome genuine understanding of what it is that givesus power to the places we live." (Busch, 1999:p.163)

She alludes here to the home as a seething, living

complex of elements and dynamic flows, an exchange of

energies and industry. As such she hints at how the home,

the domestic, its contents, activities and technologies

represent a whole, a dynamic open system, and a special

case for study. While her example hints at an animistic

view of the home, the home considered as a living entity,

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she does not promote a blurring between human and non-

human elements (as we shall see later is promoted in

actor-networks). Instead, she shows how they fuse. Mesh

in a meaningful way, which lead to an enriched view of the

environment in where she lived.

We always have operational expectancies regardless if we

are speaking of armies or football teams or of everyday

labour saving, communication or entertainment devices.

Psychologically, patterns afford us an ontological

security, a sense that there is some limit to change,

that things and events can be consistent and predictable,

that they will repeat or at least move in a direction or

trajectory ‘that makes logical sense’. In this frame they

are viewed to replicate and can be replicated. Patterns

and their recognition hold the promise of results through

application of knowledge.

Meaning

Can we have meanings without structure or pattern? As

Ulrich Neisser indicated in Cognition and reality (1976) we do

not perceive things in themselves – i.e. pure stimulus -

but the meaning things have for us. Meaning is complex

web of emotional and intellectual responses to a given

event or artefact. All our Metaphors and symbols of

‘reality’, what we register in our nervous systems,

neurons firing in particular sequences and configurations

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in the brain, what we learn through direct experience and

what we pick up from media and social interaction all

meld into a whole, a particular succession of sensations

and experiences. We learn to recognise succession in this

way. We are given a helping hand by parents and teachers

and others in society. Familiar situations function as a

precedent, or a metaphor, or... an exemplar for an

unfamiliar one. (Schön 1983: 138)

The naming of things, nouns, helps transference of

meaning. For early humans this ability picked things out

socially, isolated patterns from a white noise, an

infinite continuity of unstructured sensory experience.

Corresponding sounds became individually shaped and

socially accepted to stand for things that had

recognisable pattern, and as such there was the prospect

of remembrance and transmission, eventually in written

text. Gregory Bateson (1988)xiv draws our attention to the

fact that language depends on nouns, but other forms of

communication such as biological communication depends

upon the relations of things to one another. He also

warns us an overly dependent use of reductionist science

can hinder us from understanding part to whole, and

similarly this can happen when we reify things with

nouns. We can know nothing about any individual thing by

itself but we can know something about the relations

between things. An organization’s behaviour – what they

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produce, how they produce it (product and process) -

their ability to respond, adapt and cope – is what

characterizes them, differentiates them from others, as

indeed does the constraints they encounter when they

operate. Since the early 1970s Donald Schön’s central

argument is that ‘change’ is a fundamental feature of

modern life and that it is necessary to develop social

systems that can learn and adapt.xv

Patterns take on meaning, and meaning takes on pattern.

And in doing so the succession of sensations and

experiences group and come to be registered, stored and

encoded in the brain. Importance varies regarding

patterns corresponding to something like Maslow’s

hierarchy of needs. Lower order needs have to be

addressed first, but once satisfied, lead to higher order

needs. The development of civilisation can be mapped to

Maslow’s generalisation, as indeed can be the development

of technologies, - where once we were entirely

preoccupied with cultivating food and providing shelter,

we now spend protracted periods of time watching TV and

playing video games.

The tools and technologies of agriculture and industry,

aimed solely to labour save and at production, give way

to the heterogeneity of the microprocessor and digital

networks capable of providing for knowledge work or

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knowledge play. Indeed, work becomes play as in

simulation games such as SimCity and The Sims teach us to

consider the management and governance of municipalities

and human nature and outcomes. The prospect of the digital

battlefield is considered as a blurring of video games with

real life consequences. Simulations relate to the real

world, as the development of the brain relates to the

development of culture. It is difficult to ascertain the

primacy of art mirroring nature, or nature mirroring art.

When looking at a situation we are influenced by, and

use, what has gone before, what might come, our

repertoire, and our frame of reference. Meaning also

arises and is interpreted via our worldview or

Weltanschauung - the similar, shared and yet unique and

individual way we value, judge and make sense and

wholeness of disparate experiences. We are able to draw

upon certain routines. As we work we can bring fragments

of memories into play and begin to build theories and

responses that fit new and unfamiliar situation.

Interpretive social science approaches such as

ethnomethodology and phenomenological inquiry seek to

explore similarities and differences in articulation of

reality between individuals towards an end of

understanding patterns of meaning, or themes.

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In an artificial world where we have to decode so many

symbols of reality everyday, we have no choice. But

fortunately all things artificial were built,

unconsciously and of course explicitly to accord with to

the needs and requirements of a generalised human sensory

apparatus and understandings, as well as to that of a

shared and mutually beneficial culture. This enshrines

the intimate relation between individual creativity and

cultural ‘acceptance’. or ‘appropriateness’. It is to

some degree hardwired into our nervous systems –

McLuhan’s ‘sense ratios’ as a result to constant exposure

to the abstract and artificial creations of our species.

It is conduit in the complexities of the relation of

micro to meso and macro levels of reality.

“There is a sequence in the functioning of memorythat can be seen passing from the biological intothe cultural realm. First the cerebral storing ofinnumerable items of experience, then theirconcentration into images that begins the breakdownof the wholeness of experience hence to the controlof life’s matrix; next the formation of fixedsymbols and more especially the sound symbols oflanguage that make it possible to sharpen theidentity of things by the giving of names and totransfer memories and images from one living humanbeing to another. Finally, the invention of writingthat extends memory outside the living group to allgenerations of all mankind. By these means whatstarted as the momentary experiences of singleindividuals may be built into a great and long-livedcultural tradition.” (p.166) xvi

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In this sense this is good for the discussion raised in

this book. It offers a basis for a shared horizon of

meaning between those who design and produce and those

who use and consume. The designer as celebrity like Stark

or Alesi or the unsung industrial designer producing a

‘classic’ design are like the film star or rock artist.

They have impact, to varying degrees, upon culture and

individual taste, aesthetics and meaning. Their success

in doing so, and how this is hindered, is a key theme in

this book and of vast interest to designers and marketers

in the new millennium. Donald Schön considers the

processes and development of reflective practitioners

(1983; 1987; 1991).xvii The heart of this study was, he

wrote, ‘an analysis of the distinctive structure of

reflection-in-action’ (1983: ix). He argued that it was

‘susceptible to a kind of rigor that is both like and

unlike the rigor of scholarly work and controlled

experimentation’ (op. cit.).

Hard-line semioticians

Hard-line semioticians would have it that even our

apprehension of nature is symbolic, constructed as it

were. It was Berger and Luckman who spoke first of the

social construction of reality but this rests upon a legacy of the

verstehen tradition. This means that a setting sun means

peacefulness and relaxation or the end of the day, and

that a snow filled landscape equals ‘cold’, ‘barren’ or

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even ‘Christmas’, the season to spend. Likewise no firm

or product enters the market with a clean slate, that is,

without some ideas about how to proceed or without

strategies about what might work or what it can or may

do. Even when the market ruthlessly punishes bad

decisions and/or lack of knowledge firms can only respond

by ‘reading’ the lessons the market is teaching and of

course making internal changes to suit. That is firms

treat external changes as a ‘text’ as a symbolic

construct, to which their only response is to change

their patterns of behaviour, or that which they produce.

We communicate symbolically and all designs by humans for

humans carry symbolism - the icon on the mobile phone,

the brand name, the door release on the underground

train, the graph on the television screen, the

lightswitch at the side of the door, the figure on the

banknote, even the entire written philosophy of

Wittgenstein and Heidegger and those who critique them,

the billboard urging us insidiously to buy or at least

express a little interest in the lifestyle depicted.

Schatzberg (1999) studied the shift of aircraft material

from wood to metal in American airplanes during world

wars. Schatzberg argues that the shift to metal was

reinforced by the “progress ideology of metal” suggesting

that symbolic meaning of material “is not neutral; it can

become linked with systems of power in a way that

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distorts understanding and restricts human choice. In

such cases, symbolic systems become ideologies, and these

ideologies can exert a powerful influence on technical

change.”xviii

As children we develop, or do not, the ability to decode

meanings inferred in symbols and they effect how we

interact and develop meaning in the world with each

other. Such abundant symbolism is a legacy and a product

linage that we adapt to as we engage in lifelong learning

to decode and encode reality. 150 years ago the idea of a

child lighting an entire room by a touch of their finger

would be abstract, and this is but one example.

How we react and cope is indicative of what we prize as

‘intelligence’ and this is not the abstract

‘intelligence’ of experimental psychology and IQ tests

but the common sense know-how and know-to that gets us by

and helps us achieve our everyday goals and solve

everyday problems. The first thing ‘putting a spanner in

the works’ here is that there is no certainty in

communication acts. This is certain, some things we

share, some things we can‘t, won’t or don’t. Some

experiences we can articulate if asked the right

questions some we cannot. There is always an element of

misrepresentation and misinterpretation within

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communication systems, and this is regardless of form,

physical, technical or symbolic. Things and their

meanings are only ever partially shared. If I design a

piece of music on the PC I can only partially translate

its meanings to you when I play it back or give you a

disk so you can listen to it later. What I am attempting

to translate is an arcane mix of emotions and technical

rationale which is intensely personal, but still will

have recognisable and shared elements. Enough so you can

partially understand ‘what I am getting at’. ‘Pure’ or

‘radical’ works of art by uncompromising designers or

artists can prove very difficult to interpret or use.

What I am attempting to transfer to you via this book,

regardless of the employment of emphatic prose, remains a

compromise. I can only partially engage you in what I am

trying to say, and I can only partially get my

articulation across. It’s the same if I make a device to

augment your everyday life, it too will represent an

imprecise measure in the palette of human exchange. But

in the way it is compromised, how is it compromised? And

why is it compromised? Is it a playoff? Is it a political

or ideological compromise, or rather more likely an

economic compromise? Is it due to lack of empathy? Or is

it due to stubbornness on my behalf? These are only some

of the questions that I can ask as a producer or

marketer.

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Meanings in groups and teams

While we have great latitude to read or misread things at

the individual level we have less so as a group, the

group consolidates and consumes difference or it ceases

to function and dissipates. Institutions are

characterized by ‘dynamic conservatism’ – ‘a tendency to

fight to remain the same’ (Schön 1973.: 30). But the

forces of entropy work for physical and living systems as

they do for social systems. The final outcome of

democratic or consensus processes of interpretation are

most definitely compromises. Without shared meaning we

would be embodied in a rudderless ship with no chance of

developing goals or objectives in the world. It is well-

known that ‘design by committee’ has its strengths and

yet can manifest weakness. It is dependent largely upon

the alignment or congruence of the various parties in

acknowledging an apparently common view.

Today with virtual teams, strategic alliances and other

advanced forms of organizational structure alignment, and

its recognition, are more important than ever. In cases

where all parties feel (equally?) compromised, the net

result will always be less than perfect; indeed this can

end in stalemate. The emphasis upon creative teams in

product development is a first attempt by industry to

mimic the messy real world of consensus building that

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take place out with the organizational boundaries. As

such it is an attempt to create microcosm and to minimize

misinterpretation and miscommunication. It is the

precursor to recreating the messy world of deployment and

commercial and lived realities in product and marketing

trials. It is not just recreating mess but learning to

cope with it and minimising its impact in denying our

ability to forecast

Team members with complementary skills and knowledge, if

reacting in consensus, should produce a more accurate

model of what can, should and will be produced - one

which more sensitively balances internal capabilities

with outside possibilities. They debate and lobby from

their own expertise, and they bring to the table

knowledge of their own expert domains with associated

knowledge of relevant internal and external developments.

These act as lenses, or hindrances, to congruency. It

should produce better results than if their thinking were

‘manufactured’ or ‘controlled’ by decision-making groups

higher up in the organization. Herein is the nature of

decentralized organization.

But lack of ‘fit’ is a godsend for innovation, just as

the political left and democrats are renowned for their

praise of the dialectic, it manifests between senders and

receivers and opens the prospect of a biodiversity of

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ideas and rich opportunities for innovation. But only if

only we can register, see and exploit them, and resolve

ideas to action. The way societies learn about

themselves, and the processes by which they transform

themselves, is through politics, and the essence of

politics is learning through public deliberation, which

is the characteristic of effective learning systems.

(Ranson (1998: 9) xixThey can be, and sometimes are,

grasped by firms and teams who have the capacity and

capabilities to record, learn, develop and produce. In a

world of perfect fit there are no needs and requirements,

no way to compete, no way to improve product and process.

But it is not the sole prerogative of the corporation tomanufacture and propagate wider society and culture, thefinal sites for developments, where innovations aredeployed. They are usually beyond the sphere of influenceof any one firm (unless they are called Microsoft!).There is an in-built tendency for people to subvertoverly rational structures put upon them. Customising,making something one’s own, or altering it in some way sothat it functions better is not just a common practice,but an essential practice in helping products evolve andachieve success. This is not new, the ancient warriornever fashioned spears that were too short or too long,the craftsman always adjusted aspects of his creations tobetter suit the needs and whims of his client. HenryFord’s “any colour as long as its black” manifests in the

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field of architecture where Lang, et al. (1974) identifiedthe received view in architectural thought as: “peopleare infinitely adaptable, that they will respond in theway that they will give up normal tendencies topersonalize the spaces in which they work.”

As Krippnedorf (1995) notes in relation to emphasisingawareness of product semantics in design;

“The experiential fact that that people voluntarilyaccept considerable inconveniences to drive the carof their dreams , live with the furniture that theylike, or wear clothes for which they are admired,suggests that other then technical criteria dominateeveryday life and individual well-being.” (p.157)

Production is also accomplished, completed if you will,by consumers who appropriate, use and cope with productsand services within their activities and in doing somanifest implicit communications which can register atkey micro, meso and macro levels. In doing so, theyeffect social, cultural, economic and organizationalevolution.

Indeed, we should unveil the common place and make the

familiar unfamiliar and remember the remarks of design

theorist David Pye in the 1960s:

“Who wants a car to get hot? Or wear out its tyres?Or to make a noise and smell? . . . Nothing wedesign or make ever really works. We can say what it

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ought to do, but that it never really does. . ..Things are not ‘fit for their purpose’ “(p.10).

Successive generations may abide by the codes and rules

of design inherited from predecessors or they may be

inspired or coerced to effect alteration and change -

innovation. And change always implies risk. Things and

social institutions change or are changed in order to

effect adaptation to miscommunication or

misinterpretation, or perceived or actual lack of ‘fit’.

This can be the appearance of internal or external social

or technical elements ‘enforcing’ change (i.e. regulatory

changes), sometimes economic or political necessity

(changes in the wider economy, legal frameworks),

sometimes it is tactical and sometimes strategic

(competitors actions, changes in technical

specifications, wider societal trends).

We look at the sky and the dark clouds overhead tell us

to expect rain . . . it does not. We watch the weather

report on TV the symbols on the screen and the

commentator’s dialogue tells us to expect rain and there

is none. Our models and constructs help reduce complexity

and help us focus our decision-making and choice, just as

theories and methods help focus research efforts in

science, technological innovation and environmental

scanning. Alan Ganek summarized this with respect to

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computer systems: “The computer industry has spent

decades creating systems of marvellous and ever-

increasing complexity. But today, complexity itself is

the problem.”

But they are not perfect; they do not and can not

guarantee success, just as the information source may be

wrong. But through their employment they do appear to

smooth the chaos of existence, highlighting the most

relevant areas to focus and aim the ‘controlled’ chaos of

development.

Models, constructs, theories and methods bear relation to

each other as ideas and maps of activity. Praxis, a term

used by Aristotle, is the art of acting upon the

conditions one faces in order to change them. It deals

with the disciplines and activities predominant in the

ethical and political lives of people. Aristotle

contrasted this with Theoria – those sciences and

activities that are concerned with knowing for its own

sake. He considered both are relevant to the development

of societies. That knowledge is derived from practice,

and practice informed by knowledge, in an ongoing

process, is a cornerstone of development in pragmatic

science, design and engineering.

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Social science method acts as the interface between the

designer, researcher, the world and whatever phenomena

are being constructed or placed under study. As Poole and

McPhee (1985) have it; “what we can know is determined by

the available methods for knowing.” Indeed, in both

social research and in product design and development the

strange and the familiar are both pertinent and to be

sought. The strange or mysterious, are often considered

to be ‘problems’ which need to be ‘solved’ so that

advance can be made. This is highlighted in the historian

of technology Thomas Hughes’s notion of reverse salients –

these are elements of an overall system development which

lag due to unforeseen problems. They hold up overall

system development.

Systems then become self-referential regarding their

operational and design defects as it were, the mysterious

becomes sensible when it is cast in a luminous frame (for

example Bateson et al, 1956). But what of when the

commonplace becomes puzzling when its complexities are

revealed (e.g. Henry, 1975). In the latter case the

notion of everyday life with relation to the

appropriation and consumption of technologies has opened

up a Pandora’s Box in terms of present and future

applications for information technology.

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But understanding and knowledge generating activities

require time and place in organizational activities and

structure. Their return on investment or ROI may not be

immediate or even figural in terms of end of tax year

accountancy. Their value is less discernable than

consumption of raw materials, the cost of human labour,

the cost of utilities and plant and the production of

hard artefacts. Understanding the consumer-users

phenomenology of ‘everyday’ life, is a much bigger and

complex problem than understanding the ‘usability’ of

your new device, and that is a bigger and more complex

problem than understanding how many chips you use in the

device, their cost and how many man hours in its

development.

Similarly, in business our contracts also help formalize

our relations with outside agencies, focus our

behaviours, and limit our use of resources. All this is

reduction - reduction from a large set of possibilities

to a narrowing of the determinism of mutually beneficial

actions. But there is a notion that hiding complexity,

behind words and software interfaces can cause

complications. Interfaces which mask complexity render

the user, either party, powerless to improve it. If a

transaction breaks down, you are left helpless, unable to

solve what might be an underlying design problem in the

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wording. You need to call on an expert, legal or

technical.

All commercial activity utilizes technology and

knowledge, and all business is all about being social.

And to the crux of the matter, what I would like to do in

the remainder of this book is consider communication with

respect to the ‘social’ and the ‘technical’. I believe

that this is best worked out in the course of a tour

through recent developments and consideration of the

foundational backdrop against which they have played out

– particularly with respect to technical system

development and its use. At a high level, though,

communication, the social and the technical is the

property of being manifest in and as a part of the world.

Examining the challenges of first identifying elements,

then considering the interface and interaction between

elements, I propose a way out of the management and

innovation dilemma facing emerging industry, and society

based upon connectivity and mutability. In order to do so

we need to make a clear distinction between the concepts

of method, technique, and tool and this tour will

introduce some of these, hopefully for new audiences.

Enlarging usability as a research project

Design exists in the interplay between tradition and

transcendence, between what came before, the ways of

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making and doing it, and a drive for innovation and

betterment. One of the aims of recent design is to

improve the usability of devices and interfaces.

Usability - the design of ‘ease’, ‘effectiveness’,

‘efficiency’ and ‘satisfaction’ of use. This is perhaps

best understood using a Darwinian metaphor – the notion

of ‘fit’. ‘Fit’ as applied to the instance of products or

services, is when their intended function and purpose

matches that of their apprehended function and purpose,

to the delight of those who will be willing to pay for

it. Usability as a quality plays a significant role in

this process of fit, as frustrations on behalf of those

who use arise from disparities of anticipated function

from actualised function, or from poor representation of

function in visible elements of its design, or even

through marketing, advertising and promotional activity.

But herein lies a contradiction. I have already claimed

that lack of fit is a godsend for innovators, it opens

the prospect of improvement of products by their

developers or heir competitors. Usability closes lack of

fit, so in some sense it closes the prospects of

improvement, and so is anti-innovation. Usability as a

practice comes under fire within development firms due to

its intrusion of fast development cycles. .Also

usability as a semi-explicit quality of products

completely melds into the development of ambient or

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pervasive computing applications where there is complete

transparent in function and operation of devices.

To design usability effectively represents a real

challenge to designers, particularly if they have

impoverished concepts or knowledge regarding the contexts

of use, how the product is encountered, apprehended,

interpreted and used by users. Other factors are

important such as the technologies interoperability with

others or with communication networks .As such it

straddles the worlds of perception, learning, and

technology key themes in human-computer interaction (HCI).

A focus on purely functional dimensions of a product is

no guarantee of ‘fit’, as intangible elements can

contribute to its apprehension in the minds of those that

use and consume. Usability as either aim or experience

can be said to only really exist as both a product of

contexts, and as a product which can only be apprehended

within contexts - technological, informational,

historical, social, individual. But most importantly it

is both created and apprehended also through practice –

i.e. use and usage. It also relies on the substance of

the communication act itself, whether this means the

features, functions, texts or symbols denoting the

designer’s and producer’s intended purpose/s.

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From a usability perspective it is the users’ perception

of product qualities which is important, and it is these

which need to be captured and translated to designers and

managers in meaningful ways, in order to produce relevant

feedback into innovation effort. Beyond simply

imaginative or speculative views of potential needs and

requirements regarding a product, lie perceptions of use,

consumption and users informed through various kinds of

research practice. Research practice is the means by

which users and consumers are themselves ‘designed’ by

firms, either as an “ideal” or “necessary” to “complete

both the function and vision embodied in the artefact.”

(Silverstone and Haddon, 1996; p.45) This can often act

to problematise the notion of user value and behaviours

for guiding early ideation and design, it can also be

used politically within the firm to win senior managerial

support for projects, or even in validating the prospect

of new innovations to the wider public domain (Nicoll,

1997).

The origins and development of human factors knowledge

The origins of human factors knowledge in its application

of design have a very ancient beginning. At a strategic

point in human cultural history humans began to adopt the

general habits which we can still identify today

including ‘making things for others to use’.

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“Early in our history it became usual to inhabithouses built on the ground, to wear ornaments andsome clothes, to cook food, to live in familygroups, with wider social allegiances that mightlead to warfare, to work and to play, and to use allremaining social energy to religion and the arts.”(p.52)xx

By this time humans designed and crafted “tools for

cutting, piercing, hammering, and smoothing . . . The

Palaeolithic artists of Western Europe understood outline

drawing, engraving, polychrome painting, modelling and

carving in relief and in the round.” (p.53) These

abilities supported and augmented abilities to

domesticate animals and cultivate crops. This was the

appearance of control and management, patterns of

recognisable actions and predictable reactions –

intelligent anticipations - that furthered the separating

of humans from the chaotic force of nature.

“The self-consciousness that intensified with theelaboration of the cerebral cortex, making man moreand more aware of his actions and of his separationfrom nature, was to take two main and opposingdirections. One was towards controlling theenvironment. This led immediately to tool-making andthen on to the while accelerating course of ourtechnical and scientific advance. Here analysis, thebreaking down of the whole into manageable parts,has been the means, and the ends are whollypractical and material. The other direction istowards reuniting the part with the whole, man with

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the universe from which his consciousness seemed todivide him. This way led to ritual art, religiousfaith, mysticism, and some aspects of philosophy.Metaphor, simile, symbolic enactments and otherunifying forms have been means, and the endsessentially, are not practical or material.” (p.166)

They were making artefacts for others to use, such as

pots, weapons and hand tools, the maker, the craftsman,

had a fixed formulae that had latitude in variation.

While there were essential conformities, different

variations catered for differing purposes.

Without doubt the industrial age, only a 150 years old or

so (two human lifespan end-on-end?), not only brought

with it the ability to create new mass markets, but also

the need to reorganise labour. Just as the need for

weapons drove ancient innovation in design, so it did

when the revolver company began the first production

lines during he American civil war.

The old craft tools were themselves a product of crafting

by their owners, making them better fit the user and the

job. But the industrial age gave rise to more generic

machines and technologies, and more generic products.

Work specialisation gave rise to the generic worker the

cog in the machine.

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With new forms of distinction in what operators could and

could not easily achieve when carrying out their assigned

functions. Basic physical traits such as smallness or

strength would dictate job role. Physiological

differences also came to the fore, determining how one

person physique and frame predetermined their suitability

for the job (i.e. could they reach and turn this

stopcock?). Accidents were considered a nuisance rather

than highlighting where machinery was dangerous and in

need of serious redesign. They were a particular nuisance

when one had to train a new operator/repairer. This

further hampered production. As machines diffused into

owner operator concerns such as in farming a concern for

safety eventually highlighted.

What eventually became apparent was that levers and stop

cocks difficult to use, placed in inaccessible or

inconvenient places, or dials and other system feedback

elements which did not provide accuracy also had an

impact of the efficiency and effectiveness of the machine

and its operator. Psychological differences also appeared

in that some people could pick up the operating

principles more quickly and learn faster than others, and

some could remedy minor glitches or breakdowns better

than others. It became clear that machines, particularly

their interfaces, should be optimised to their operators,

and that operators should be parsed according to their

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socio-cognitive abilities to learn and operate machines.

But how much was poor design to blame, and how much was

poor human resource management? Clearly for the sake of

flexibility it was necessary to optimise controls so as a

given machine, whose design was to be replicated could be

used by the largest population of potential users.

Such perspectives were given a considerable impetus by

the Second World War. With the outbreak of war it soon

became clear that there needed to be significant

investment of financial, intellectual and engineering

resources in order to improve many diverse areas

contributing to the war effort, including pilot training,

personnel selection and target tracking performance. It

had become immediately obvious that serious performance

shortfalls existed with some manned equipment and both

human factors and ergonomics were given a great boost

when efforts to address these and many other problems

brought together a host of professional specialisms,

including psychologists, physiologists, and engineers.

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The discipline of Ergonomics or Human Factors started tobecome formalized after the war. Ergonomics is describedas a study of work, and its environment and conditions inorder to achieve maximum efficiency. The essential ideais placing humans as the centre of attention in systemdevelopment. Systems cannot be considered to be trulyintegrated without the appropriate matching of users (andnot forgetting maintainers), the technology or equipmentwhich they will use, and the environment within which theequipment will be operated. Ergonomic studies havelargely focussed on identifying human factors - humancognitive and physical capacities and limitationsrelative to the design and specifications of task,technology and machinery. Part of the product of thisresearch has been translated into guidelines andprescriptive measures regarding the size, positioning andother characteristics of hardware and display items. Itis a scientific investigation into the relation of peopleto machines.

The 1950s saw the developed and diffusion of computersand more complex into business. In the mid-1960s, taskssuch as filling seats on airplane flights or printingpayroll checks had been translated into requirements thatresulted (with some trial and error) in successfulmainframe systems. In the mid-1970s, minicomputerspromised to support groups and organizations in more

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sophisticated, interactive ways, and office automationwas born. Office automation tried to extend and integratesingle-user applications, such as word processors andspreadsheets, to support groups and departments. Much ofthe writing on computing from the mid-70s was:“stunningly dismissive of usability and ratherpatronizing of users.” (Carroll: p.506)

The first conferences dedicated to human-computer

interaction (HCI) were held in the early 1980s. HCI

studies are described as an “area of intersection between

applied psychology and the social sciences . . . and

computer science and technologies.” (Carroll, 1997) In

the later part of the 20th century the dominant view of

human nature portrayed in psychology and allied

disciplines, has been a cognitivist, rather than a

behaviourist, physiological, or phenomenological one.

This regards the human individual as a “as information -

processing systems, that is, as systems receiving,

manipulating, storing, retrieving and transmitting

information.” Bernsen (1988).

The view of humans as ‘information-processors’ is a view

that largely dominated discussions within human computer

interaction (HCI) studies for a large part of the 1980s.

However, many critics including original proponents of

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such views, came to criticise them for lack of

contextuality:

"The problem seemed to be in the lack ofconsideration of other aspects of human behaviour,of interaction with other people and with theenvironment, of the influence of the history of theperson, or even the culture, and of the lack ofconsideration of the special problems and issuesconfronting an animate organism that must survive asboth an individual and as a species..."(Norman,1980: pg.2).

and from that time there has been much evolution in howdata gathered from users of technology is used to guidethe process of designing and developing new hardware andsoftware systems. Throughout this process there has beena productive dialog among academic and industry-basedresearchers and usability engineering practitioners.

Shackel (1991)xxi has human factors issues along three

major dimensions:

utility--will it do what is needed functionally? usability--will the users actually work it

successfully? likeability--will the users feel it is suitable?

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Shackel has usability measured along on four furtherdimensions:

effectiveness--performance in accomplishment of tasks--the access to potential utility

learnability--degree of learning to accomplish tasks--the effort required to access utility

flexibility--adaptation to variation in tasks--the rangeof tasks for which there is utility

attitude--user satisfaction with system--themanifestation of potential likeability

The means by which usability and other HCI studies

achieve this is a focus on ‘users’. Usability testing as

a research practice had roots as a lab-based activity,

and as such, relied heavily upon controlled experimental

methods and quantitative means of analysis. It often

combined questionnaire administration, with system-

logging and participant observation in order to evaluate

time to completion of certain given tasks, where

manipulation of certain interface elements provides an

independent variable. The results of the test, combined

with self-report, and analysis of user behaviour during

the test inform recommendations made to the product

developers, regarding iterations on the original design.

Dumas and Redish (1993) came to identify a problem in

this ontology when they claimed that the; "specific

instances that you see in a usability test are more often

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symptoms of broader and deeper global problems with both

the product and the process." (p.32) Lab tests invariably

treated the ‘user’ as an independent variable, a ‘cog in

the machine’, observed and tested to provide insights to

improve machine functioning. Champions of usability

engineering have stressed since the early 1980s the

importance of an early focus on users and their

requirements during the early specification stages of

product development (i.e. Gould, 1988, Gould and Lewis,

1983, and Whiteside et al., 1988), a process that must

continue as the system, its diffusion into the sites and

situations of use and its associated marketing develops.

Carroll sees a pivotal point in the early development of

HCI as emerging in the work of Dreyfus (1979) who shifted

the focus in design practice; “beyond the designer’s need

for prototyping and iteration as a means to clarifying

the design problem . . . to the user’s knowledge,

experience and involvement to constrain design

solutions.” (Carroll, 1997: p.504) This is the genesis of

what is referred to as user-centred design (UCD).

“Design is typically “inside-out”; that is, theinternal architecture is defined first and then auser interface is created for users to get access tothe system functions. In contrast, UCD isfundamentally user driven. Users are involved in allstages of design and development. The userexperience is designed first, and the product orsystem architecture is created to support this

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design. In other words, UCD is design that is“outside-in.””xxii

Such a view would encourage practitioners to look beyond

traditional usability concerns such as ease of learning

and effectiveness to broader user issues such as

aesthetics, collaboration, accessibility, credibility,

persuasion, and pleasure. In the next decade

practitioners will need to expand their repertoire of

knowledge and skills beyond traditional usability and

design activities and move from tactical to strategic

thinking.

The need for strong facilitation skills has beenemerging slowly over the past decade and willescalate with the growth of virtual teams, matrixmanagement, and outsourcing of design. I canenvision a new job role called “strategic usercentered design (UCD) facilitator.” This rolefocuses more on strategic facilitation (for example,getting executive support, doing high-level publicrelations, and training managers about the UCDprocess) than on tactical facilitation (conductingdesign meetings, test sessions, or brainstormingideas for a particular product). The strategic UCDfacilitator would work to get UCD activities intothe mainstream of the development process.xxiii

Another principle and related field is CSCW started as an

effort by technologists to learn from economists, social

psychologists, anthropologists, organizational theorists,

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educators, and anyone else who could shed light on group

activity. Applying this analysis to the net and web one

has to take into account that utility in a collaborative

environment is not just for individual users but for

communities. For example, the accessibility of a system to

all members of the relevant reference community is a

utility consideration. One has to take into account that

usability is not intentionally defined in terms of

compliance with human factors guidelines, but rather

extensionally defined in terms of evidence of a high

proportion of effective users. Likeability is a critical

factor to user adoption of a technology, particularly in

a competitive market place, but it is sometimes taken as

a "subjective" dimension not subject to formal modelling.

Taking people into account in this way, by means of

Human- or User-centered design, has long been a cardinal

principle for human factors and this is now enshrined

within the national and international Standard “Human

centred design processes for interactive systems” [BS EN

ISO 13407:1999].

This Standard provides guidance on the human-centred

design activities that take place through the life-cycle

of interactive systems. Although the Standard was

originally written with special reference to computer-

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based systems, it is readily applied to any other type of

system. It also stresses that making interactive systems

human-centred brings substantial benefits by increasing

usability and such highly usable systems:

are easier to understand and use, thus reducing training and support costs; improve user satisfaction and reduce discomfort and stress; improve user productivity and operational efficiency of

organisations; improve product quality, and provide a competitive advantage.14

The lack of commitment to usability in almost all

organizations is reflected in the limited career paths

for usability professionals. They are usually paid less

than the technologists and have limited promotional

opportunities. In some organizations, usability

activities are being scaled down and staff moved into

broader roles, such as writing user documentation.

14 [BS EN ISO 13407:1999, Clause 4].

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The best known texts of these approaches are Jakob Nielsen, Donald Norman, John Seely Brown, Dertouzos and Vredenburg. (Brown and Duguid 2000; Dertouzos 2001; Nielsen 2000; Norman 1990; Vredenburg, Isensee et al. 2002) Brown, J. S. and P. Duguid (2000). The Social Life of Information. Boston, Harvard BusinessSchool Press.Dertouzos, M. L. (2001). The Unfinished Revolution: Human-centered computers and whatthey can do for us. New York, Harper Collins Publishers.Norman, D. A. (1990). The Design of Everyday Things. New York, Doubleday.Vredenburg, K., S. Isensee, et al. (2002). User-Centered Design: An Integrated Approach.Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall.

(Maddix, 1990: p.9) As an experience, usability has beendefined as:

The ease with which a user can learn to operate,prepare inputs for, and interpret outputs of a systemor component.15

The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction withwhich a specified set of users can achieve a specifiedset of tasks in particular environments16.

”The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specifiedcontext of use.” (ISO 9241-11 Guidance on usability)

.Taxonomy of design orientations

15 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1990) IEEE Standard Computer Dictionary: A Compilation of IEEE Standard Computer Glossaries16 ISO (1991). International Standard ISO/IEC 9126. Information technology - Software product evaluation - Quality characteristics and guidelines for their use, International Organization for Standardization, International Electrotechnical Commission, Geneva.

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Design for all It is now recognised that too little attention in the past has been paid to thewide range people's skills and abilities when designing products. This has often led to people with disabilities being excluded from making effective use of a product or system. By taking account of the needs of the people with say, impairedhearing, vision, speech and motor skills, the future product will be more useful to a wider range of people, and be more successful as a result.

User Supportive design This area is often left until a very late stage in the design process, and then somedocumentation and 'help' screens are written in a hurry at the first minute; theother aspects of user support are usually left to others by the designers, who are often unaware of their relevance and importance. careful attention to all thesesupport facilities can significantly assist usability.

Iterative design The difficulties revealed in user tests must be remedied by redesign, so the cycle design, test and measure, redesign must be repeated as often as is necessary untilthe usability specification is satisfied.

Experimental design Early in the development process, the expected users should do pilot trials and then subsequently use the simulations, andlater the prototypes, to do real work. Whenever possible alternative versions of important features and interfaces should be simulated or prototype for evaluation by comparative testing. These studies should be formal and empirical, with measures of the performance and the subjective reactions of the users. Thus ease of learning and ease of use can be assessed and difficulties revealed.

Participative design A panel of expected users (e.g. secretaries, managers) should work closelywith the design team, especially during the early formulation stages and especiallywhen creating the usability specification.To enable these users to make useful contributions, they will need to show a range of possibilities and alternatives bymeans of mock-ups and simulations. A valuable procedure, although not easy, is to write the parts of the operating manual

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describing the interface and how touse it; then user tests of a drawing of the interface with this draft manual can reveal potential problems before they havebeen embedded into the design.

User-Centred design Designers must understand who the users will be and what tasks they will do. This requires direct contact with users at their place or work. If possible, designers should learn to do some or all of the users' tasks. Such studies of the users must take place before the system design work starts, and design for usability must start by creating a usability specification.

Action and activity

Have our brains developed through the ordering of our

environments and experiences, or has ordering our

environments and experiences developed our brains? The

development of humankind is the story of a multitude of

mutual shaping processes between thought and action,

action and environment, and action regarding particular

objects in particular environments. The major product of

such processes is learning and knowledge. Within the real

of tools and technologies this is learning and knowledge

leading to innovation. Kolb and Fry identified four

stages in a model of experiential learning.

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Observations and

reflections

Testing Implications of concepts

in new situations Formation of

abstract concepts and generalizatio

ns

Concrete experienc

e

Via our observations and reflections of concrete

experiences we form abstract concepts of generalisations.

This includes logical inferences “if this and this

happens, then this will result . . . “This is affirmed or

refuted through testing the implications of the concepts

in new situations which lends to the creation of further

concrete experiences or outcomes whose observations and

reflection should infinitely refine the process and make

more founded the concept and generalisations .and so on,

and on a loop recursively. This model fits a wide range

of human activities from the applications of social

science research, to creative processes in product

development and design, to how we come to learn how to

use products and recognise the usefulness of their

functions in particular situations over others,

developing critical, self-reflecting practice.

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Formation of abstract

concepts and generalizatio

ns

Finger and Asún (2000)xxiv argue that this constitutes a

two-fold contribution to pragmatic learning theory.

First, their introduction of the notion of ‘theory in

action’ gives greater coherence and structure to the

function of ‘abstract conceptualization’ in Kolb’s very

influential presentation of experiential learning.

‘Abstract conceptualisation now becomes something one can

analyse and work from’ (Finger and Asún 2000: 45).

Second, they give a new twist to pragmatic learning

theory:

Unlike Dewey’s, Lewin’s or Kolb’s learning cycle, where

one had, so to speak, to make a mistake and reflect upon

it… it is now possible… to learn by simply reflecting

critically upon the theory-in-action. In other words, it

is not longer necessary to go through the entire learning

circle in order to develop the theory further. It is

sufficient to readjust the theory through double-loop

learning (ibid.: 45-6)

The study of activity has developed by Activity theory or

cultural-historical activity theory. This was developed by Russian

psychologists Vygotsky, Rubinshtein, Leont'ev and others

beginning in the 1920s.xxv It represents a very general

framework for conceptualising human activities. It

possesses an alternative formulation to that of human

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http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm

information-processing as to how people learn and society

evolves. While it is Donald Schön’s work on

organizational learning and reflective practice that

tends to receive the most attention in the literature,

his exploration of the nature of learning systems and the

significance of learning in changing societies has helped

to define debates around the so called ‘learning

society’. It adopts a materialist perspective based on

the concept of human activity as the fundamental unit of

analysis. Leont’ev argued that an activity is the

smallest meaningful unit of analysis because analysis of

its components (by which the activity is realised) is

meaningless in isolation. Indeed individual actions,

rules, use of artefacts and so forth may appear to be

bewildering or even contradictory outwith the context of

the activity.

It holds that the human mind comes to exist, develops,

and is only understood within the context of meaningful,

goal-oriented, and socially determined interaction between

human beings and their material environment. It assumes

that human beings live in objective reality that determines

and shapes the nature of subjective phenomena.

Socially determined properties of things, especially

those of artefacts, and the very involvement of things in

human activity, are also objective properties that can be

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studied with objective methods. As such it places

emphasis on social factors and on interaction between agents

and their environment explains why the principle of tool

mediation plays a central role within the approach

(opposed to description and language which is the focus

phenomenological and ethnomethodological studies). It

considers that tools shape the way human beings interact

with reality. It further emphasises that internal

activities cannot be understood if they are analysed

separately, in isolation from external activities

The very concept of activity implies that there isan agent who acts (an individual or collective"subject"). Then, any activity is directed atsomething, so there should be things the agent isinteracting with. According to the Activity Theoryterminology, activity mediates interaction betweensubjects (agents) and objects (things). The basicprinciples of Activity Theory, which will bepresented below, clarify different components ofthis system: the objects involved in humanactivities, the forms of mediation, the structure ofactivity, etc.xxvi

Motives are processes that account for an individual’s

intensity, direction and persistence, of effort toward

obtaining a goal (Mitchell, 1997).xxvii Basically, motives

correspond to human needs (cf. Maslow’s hierarchy of

needs), and according to this model, activities, driven

by motives, are performed through certain actions which

are directed at goals and which, in turn, are implemented

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through certain operations. In 1987 Yrjo Engeströmxxviii

proposed the triangular structure of human activity as

shown in below.

The main components of this model are:

Subject: Information about the individual orsubgroup chosen as the point of view in theanalysis.Tools: Information about tools, which can meaneither psychological or physical tools.Community: Information about individuals orsubgroups who share the same object as subject.Division of labour: The division of tasks betweenmembers of the community.Rules: Explicit or implicit regulations, norms andconventions that constrain action or interaction.Object: Target of the activity within the system.Outcome: The result from transforming the object.

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Engeström’s model has been applied in computing to

studies of CSCW where the notion of shared work or

labour, is a key defining component of activity. Not

exclusively aimed at productivity, this typifies the

context in which it is applied in studies of computing.

After all, it is confusing to speak of the ‘task’ of

‘viewing’ television as much as any notion of ‘using’

television. However, the activity of ‘watching’ television

is common. Activity Theory describes and relates key

elements in their influence to human activity. In

Engeström’s model it considers that any two elements in

the model are mediated by another element. For example,

the relationship between subject and community is based

on rules (i.e. parents designating the time permitting

children to watch television). At the same time the tools

have influence on how the subject meets the object (the

TV allowing for entertainment possibilities, or in the

case of I-Tv shopping). The idea is to look for

contradictions within the activity and between this activity

and surrounding activities, since they constitute the

basis for change: In particular contradictions in how

tools, objects, subjects are seen.

This apparent complexity of Activity Theory has

frightened off many practitioners from actually trying to

apply activity-theoretical concepts in practical

situations. But its concepts and ideas suggest a fresh

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look at what we do with technology rather than how we

‘react’ to it. As such it removes us from technological

determined perspectives regarding use.

Such processes of mutual shaping are recognised to have

biological consequences as well as socio-cultural

outcomes. Human intervention in the natural world

culminates today in the significant developments in the

fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering, human

communication has its apotheosis in the development of

ICTs and in other terms, such as the development of our

brains. Neurophysiologically, our neo-cortex developed

significantly over that of previous hominids. The

exaggeration of the frontal and temporal lobes,

characteristic of humankind, provides for millions of

nerve cells not enslaved to basic bodily functioning, but

lent capacities to store and associate memories. They

also lend themselves to powers of image-making. Taken

together they lay the foundation for self-consciousness,

awareness of past and future, intelligent anticipation

and the prospect of accepting and transferring traditions

needed to sustain culture.

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Extending usability to tackle media

It is difficult to appreciate that much of what surrounds

and unconsciously preoccupies us in our everyday life is

a relatively recent addition. Consider television. We

shift cable channels with ease creating a sensory

smorgasbord of what were in the past the very alternate

and distant realities of nature, wildlife, indigenous

tribes, police activity and science programmes depicting

new advances and failings of advanced large technical

systems. Each of these coexist and are in some respect

now equally familiar. But the increased sophistication

and subtly of our interactions and knowledge tell a story

of both fragmentation and melding. It is difficult to

predict in which way, if at all, a person’s worldview is

shaped as they watch the behaviour of polar wildlife from

the comfort of their shack in the Cambodian jungle. Does

it make sense? Is such programming of any use? Certainly

it speaks more of the fact of television pervasiveness

than of any meaningfulness of its programming.

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To be truly user-centred usability has expanded the remitof HCI and ergonomics to encompass the cognitive andemotional aspects of using products. More recently,usability research has expanded the scope of HCI andergonomics research to include emotional, perceptual andsocial aspects of use - aspects which have conventionallycome under the wider auspices of the social sciences asfoci of study (March, 1994; Logan, 1994).

The subject of the current research was the usability of

an interactive television system. The system came to be

represented technically and operationally in a ‘demo’

box, this prototyped how the actual networked system

would operate, what it would feature in terms of service

components, and how its would handle and navigate between

service elements. Starting with standard usability lab-

style tests, the present study highlighted that while the

usability of a stand-alone demo box was generally 'good',

there were a range of other issues surfaced through the

interactions with subjects.

It transpired that the common, familiar everyday

phenomenon that we call television actually manifests a

range of very complex conceptions regarding television,

what it means, as well as its content and the practise of

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viewing; their opinions about the content available on

the demo box, what they imagined i-Tv to be and how this

compared with what they were confronted with in the

prototype STB.

Constructively, this drove a need to approach the main

study with a much more open-ended and broader style of

approach. One that would understand the usability of the

system in context with an individual's perceptions and

understandings and also the operability of prototypes

compared to the functioning of the actual, large

operating system. In essence this confirmed the anomalies

originating in a consideration of the concept of the

‘usability’ when applied to television and other types of

media.

"One of the most potent symbols and vehicles of ourcurrent high-tech society is the television set. Theautomobile, the aeroplane and radio have clearlyleft no one's life entirely untouched, but it isarguably television that has affected people's mindsmost deeply. Around the globe, the television setprovides a very literal window on the world outside,liberating at the same time the inner, private worldof the imagination. But is television truly a ghostfrom the gods? Or is it a Trojan horse, coming intoour homes as a deceiver . . . ?" (Marzano, 1995:p.9)

What do we use television for? A notion of use is

ambiguous here. Even applied to games it is less open,

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games like some television programming, entertain. For

example, the design of games is something that should or

could involve the participation of users, but user

centered design experts should not approach game design

in the same task-oriented way as they would approach an

application design in banking.xxix In practice new games

are more likely to be based upon industry trends and

designer ingenuity than upon the thoughts and aspirations

of users.

Situating usability as company practice

This brings us to a second strand of development in the

original proposed study: That of situating ‘usability’ as

‘company practice’ and ‘source of knowledge’. This would consider

usability testing and its results as one of a number of

competing knowledge flows within pressurised product

development processes, not least finances. Karen Donoghue

describes how critical it is to align business and user

experience goals in her book Built for Use.xxx

Single-loop learning seems to be present when goals,

values, frameworks and, to a significant extent,

strategies are taken for granted. The emphasis is on

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‘techniques and making techniques more efficient’ (Usher

and Bryant: 1989: 87)xxxi Any reflection is directed

toward making the strategy more effective. Double-loop

learning, in contrast, ‘involves questioning the role of

the framing and learning systems which underlie actual

goals and strategies’ (op. cit.).

Most of us are aware that Marshall McLuhan was a champion

of the notion of media extending our sensory apparatus,

and he has been criticised as being technologically

determinist in this respect. This is because the opposite

is also true. With the astounding penetration of portable

devices, media and information technology extend ever

deeper into the nooks and crannies of both who we are and

what we do and value. It is not extant technologies

extending our capabilities but our human capabilities,

thoughts, behaviours and actions themselves that are

providing a rich source for the computations and pattern

recognising abilities of large technical systems. With

adequate digital storage and computational abilities

combined with sophisticated data mining, reporting upon

individuals, groups and populations of users is becoming

a powerful tool. With respect to McLuhan he was not

unaware of this. In Understanding Media he writes that:

“each stick of chewing gum we reach for is acutely noted

by some computer that translates our least gesture into a

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new probability curve or some parameter of social

science” (p.60) He continues this theme in a later

passage quoted from the New York Times (Oct. 15th, 1963);

“a decided transition from today’s distributionvehicles. . . Mrs. Customer will be able to tune inon various stores. Her credit identification will bepicked up automatically via television. Items infull and faithful coloring will be viewed. Distancewill hold no problem, since by the end of thecentury the consumer will be able to make directtelevision connections regardless of how many milesand involved.”

It appears that at least the idea of e-commerce and

interactive television has pedigree. And moreover,

McLuhan was wise enough to critique such future scenarios

by pointing out that:

“what is wrong with all such prophecies is hat heyassume a stable framework of fact-in this case, thehouse and the store- which is usually gthe first todisappear . . . in other words it is the frameworkitself that changes with new technology, and notjust the picture within the frame.” (p.195)

He predicated that such a change would lead to the death

of shopping itself. We know in hindsight that regardless

of the turn of the millennium hype of t-, m- and e-

commerce, none have supplanted the store as the principal

site of commerce. But it has created a very significant

alternative channel. But what is true is that

virtualising organisations does place the need to

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rearticulate business processes. A television used for

playing video games is a different beast than that which

receives broadcast television. It is backed by an

entirely different infrastructure to create and provide

content, as well as requiring augmentation to the basic

function of the television receiver.

Grudin (1991) noted many influences which compromise

usability programmes within product development in large

organisations. He and others (such as Norman, 1993 and

Redish, 1989) suggest that management, 'traditional'

development processes and organisational structure can

hinder the incorporation of usability programmes. Indeed,

such hindrances can be an ingrained aspect of company

culture and routines. Redish and Selzer (1985) point out

that two sets of costs, which they described as 'test it

now' or 'fix it later', may not come under the same

budget within departments (i.e. R&D and customer

service). This causes a rift within the organisation with

respect to incorporating usability practices: "The

manager who must get the manual to the printer on a

certain schedule and within a certain slot is not

responsible for whatever havoc the manual might cause

later on." (p.51)

Internal politics and power most definitely enter into

the equation of how effective usability testing may be,

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or any other kind of external scanning, and confuse and

make complex any idea of usability delivering a result

(i.e. a better and more usable product). Even more

general political climates and national cultures can

affect the ‘usability’ of various methods.

Understanding of such problems has driven the creation of

usability departments independent of R&D and customer

service departments. This ensures the place of usability

within the organisation and its product development

process, and helps in maintaining objectivity in the

evaluation of a product's functionality. Usability

becomes a discrete company function. However, Wixon and

Comstock (1994) pointed out that testing often involved

the setting of goals and tasks by the product development

team, which were then used in tests by the usability team

or department and who would subsequently return the user

feedback to product developers.

While this is admirable in maintaining objectivity and a

sense of ‘rigour’ in the application of the research -

bearing in mind that developers and designers conducting

tests themselves would often consciously or unconsciously

influence results and their interpretations according to

their own subjectified, sometimes impassioned view of the

product. It does, however raise further questions

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regarding the successful organisational positioning of a

usability study.

In the first instance, questions have been raised with

respect to usability testing slowing down the product

development process. Employers will ask usability

practitioners to provide more evidence of their impact on

corporate return on investment (ROI),The concern for

usability ROI started growing with the economic slump

beginning around 2000, and companies now routinely ask

how our efforts to improve usability relate to either

internal ROI (cost savings) or external ROI (increased

revenues).

While the emphasis in articles on ROI is often onhow usability activities make the product better, itmight be more important to understand how thoseactivities affect the internal development process.Usability groups should consider collecting metricsthat show how they improve the process as well asthe product. For example, can you show that youreduce the number of problems that might haverequired rework late in development or (don’t laugh)that you reduce the amount of unproductive meetingtime? Collecting internal and external metricsrequires developing a solid usability infrastructurethat can support the ROI metrics.xxxii

Regarding the situated use of a product within

naturalised settings, a number of usability experts (most

notably Wixon et al., 1990), began to consider the wider

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contexts of use, with particular regard to work

environments. As I have argued in the book, usability

(and the other use parameters) of domestic information

and entertainment appliances depend on a much wider set

of social and perceptual conditions than the relation

between a product's functional qualities and human

response time in performing set tasks.

Simply because a product merits the attribute of good

usability by being tested in a scientifically rigorous

way, this does not mean that it will perform that way in

the marketplace (Wixon and Comstock, 1994). In addition,

while it may indeed add to the value and accessibility

for the masses’ styles and mode of use, it does not

guarantee desirability and usefulness for all.

Conversely, perhaps the least ‘rigorous’ approach for

companies deriving knowledge of their product in relation

to perceived consumers – product concept testing - is

open to vast discrepancies between reported and actual

product perceptions and consumer behaviours (i.e. Iuso,

1975; Sands, 1980, Tauber, 1975, 1977, 1981).xxxiii

I wish to argue that there exists a rationalistically

bounded perspective of the consumer-user by firms,

largely created by the employment of various tools and

research methods which filter and accent aspects of the

user and their use process. Such filtration and accenting

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corresponds to the routine way in which the firm conducts

its consumer-user research. It can also be in answer to

changing corporate and industrial climates and

philosophies where issues such as 'customer focus' and

'continuous improvement' (TQM, Kaizen, etc.) evolve in

importance, or in response to tools, methods and

procedures. These may rise and fall in popularity for

enhancing, production, market success, and consumer

satisfaction (usability engineering, QFD etc.)

Again, while frameworks such as macroergonomics, which

aim to harmonise work systems at both the macro- and

micro-ergonomic levels (Hendrick, 1995), may work to

place usability as a relevant quality within the social

and technical settings of the workplace, there remain

questions regarding the experiential qualities of usability.

This relates much more strongly to the processes of

everyday consumption and integration of technical

products into lives and lifestyles, into the private and

personal space of the home. Indeed, one could argue that

one can expect to use [sometimes complicated] machines in

the workplace, whereas the legacy left from domestic

machines and technologies – light switch, vacuum cleaner,

electric clock, fridge, television – is one of simplicity

in operation. Silverstone's notion of 'domestication' -

which along with the notion of the everyday practices and

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consciousness has formed a recurrent theme in this book,

and it suggests the more personalised, possession-style

rituals associated with learning to use and live with

ever more complex technologies (PCs, hi-fi separates,

home cinema – all of which require some degree of

installation).

Managing Technology within Transitory Organizational

StructuresxxxivAn agent is something that perceives and

acts in an environment. We split an agent into an

architecture and an agent program.

‘hot’ and ‘cool’ usability

Compromise is the shear beauty of design. Luckily it is

so as it is always evident in the built environment. Ask

Donald Norman an outspoken proponent of user focused

design methods. In works such as The Psychology of Everyday

Things he wanders the built environment illustrating and

drawing attention to use and usage compromised by design.

His style particularly in this volume is similar to that

of epoche in phenomenology. Husserl describes epoche

thus:

“From the beginning the phenomenologist lives in theparadox of having to look upon the obvious asquestionable, as enigmatic, and of henceforth beingunable to have any other scientific theme than thatof transforming the universal obviousness of thebeing of the world” Husserl (1970: p.37)

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The kind of critique that Norman makes of the world of

technology, symbol and use is similar to that which

Husserl advocates as a means to doubting the horizons of

experience, a suspension of familiar assumptions through

an agnosticism regarding their truth content:

“A lifeworld must be rendered, “strange” and itsmundanity made the subject of a radical epochésuspending natural attitude and exposing itspresuppositions” (Benson and Hughes, 1981; p.50)

He represents the travelling fool or trickster whose

apparent naivety is actually a set of parables teaching

us of how the passively received artefact and

environment, actively considered, could be improved by

design. In a phenomenological sense, he brackets our

mute acceptance of what we a given, to evoke a logical

criticism of the poor usability of very familiar objects.

Such a view begs creativity on behalf of the recipient,

the symbol decoder or user, who unlike Norman are not

researchers whose jobs are to shape educate design

thinking. In many more cases, Shannon and Weaver’s

‘noise’ – an ‘unwanted’ artefact of communication system

operation, distinctly offers the prospect of incorrect

transference or imprecise interpretation of use and

usage. A crackly line depends a lot as recipients on our

ability to ‘join the dots’ and make meaning where

communicatively there is little. Ask a minimalist,

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economy of meaning is a big thing in technological and

semiotic development. It saves space and energy if one

can get a meaning across to the largest amount of people

without risk and taking up vast energy resources. It

opens the prospect of ‘getting into someone’s head’; it

is the catchy jingle, the ‘sticky’ array of verbledge,

the unusual but memorable and evocative juxtaposition of

images. Moreover it opens the prospect of ‘getting into

many people’s heads’ – the apotheosis of mass markets

and the dream of firms and investors alike.

The essential ingredient here is of course the definition

McLuhan left us regarding his ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ media.

‘Hot’ media like movies leave less for the audience to

‘fill in’, compared with ‘cool’ media such as telephone

and radio. We sit back, relax and get involved, rather

than spend energy in conversation and creating mental

images to suit dialogue. But how involved do we get,

comparing say, internet access on the move to watching

television in our lounges, what about gaming or texting?

Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) notion of flow is also relevant

here. With relation to media and technology it relates to

abilities of content and devices to facilitate concentration and

involvement. It an apply to both ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ media, but

probably more to ‘cool’ media, as it requires that we get

lost in engagement. We can watch a film but not register

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it as we are lost in internal thought. Getting lost in

conversation is usually noticeable both in face-to-face

conversation where there is visual cues, but also in

telephone conversations where there is a lack of auditory

cues and/or responses. Too little a level of engagement

will result in boredom and in cases frustration (where

someone prevents you to input in to a ‘conversation’) and

too high a level in anxiety (where people are speaking

over the top of each other in an attempt to conroal or

command the conversation). The optimal level results in

the intense satisfaction of a good interaction.

Media and artefacts captivate us, but to different

levels. Not all ‘good books’ are ones that we can’t put

down, not all movies are engrossing, only some websites

are ‘sticky’ – can such a level of experience be

formulated, designed? How could one explore this with

consumer-users? Asking someone what colour of car they

would like is a relatively binary operation compared with

asking them if they will ‘meld’ experientially with it

and come to feel as ‘one with it’. Such approaches will

take marketing research to the realms of whacky

categories of advertising - ‘working mum with two kids

does karate on tues nights’.

How true is it if we are speaking of the ‘received

wisdom’ or ‘craftsmanship’ passed between generations or

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that knowledge passed formally or causally between

parties over coffee in the staff room or domestic

kitchen? How engrossed in that are we? Absorption of

material is also relevant. Is it also true in matters of

design and production, in internal communications between

company functions and team members and of the acceptance

and use of products and services in everyday routines by

consumer-users?

All product and services communicate intentions and

beliefs, tacit and explicit, of their creator

communities. They are consciously built, taking forward

the McLuhan metaphor, as ‘hot’ media, that is; as devices

which totally fulfil the needs and requirements of it

users. But they are often received by consumer-users as

‘cool’ media – that is; not quite matching their expected

purposes and demanding a ‘filling in’ of use, usage,

usefulness and purpose.

Just like language, device or service features and

functions inevitably enable and constrain the

communication between producer and recipient and

therefore the prospects for meaning-making and

interpretation. This should be of great interest to

producers, as this impacts how they come to be characterised

by users and the way in which they develop attributes. But

they are always built as if they simply enable – full stop.

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The most enthusiastic technological determinists are

one’s who have an interest and right to be, they are

designers and engineers and their managers.

Applying these ideas to that of McLuhan’s hot and cool

media. We lay the foundation of consideration of a hot

and cool usability. Hot usability would leave less

complexities for the user to get lost in, this catagory

would concern consumer goods. Cool usability would

concern devices which needed a considerable amount of

training and practice like nuclear power station control

panels and that of aircraft.

Are you a “human factor” or “actor”?

Do you consider yourself to be just a "factor" in a

“system”? I doubt it. But if you were involved in

planning or design production you may “act” as if you

were. But implicitly you would be placing the interests

of the system ahead of the interests of people.

Bannon (1991) who citcises the role of the person in

[experimental] human factors research. In a paper

entitled “From human Factors to Human Actors” he writes17:17 Bannon, L.J. (1991) ‘From human factors to human actors: The role of psychology and human-computer interaction studies in system design In Greenbaum, J. and Kyng, M. (eds.) Design At Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems (pp.25-44) Hillsdale, NJ:

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“Within the HF (human factors) approach, the human is often reduced to being another system component with certain characteristics, such as limited attention span, faulty memory, etc., that need to befactored into the design equation for the overall human-machine system. This form of piecemeal analysis of the person as a set of components de-emphasizes important issues in work design. Individual motivation, membership in a community of workers, and the importance of the setting in determining human action are just a few of the issues that are neglected. By using the term human actors emphasis is placed on the person as an autonomous agent that has the capacity to regulate and coordinate his or her behaviour, rather than being a passive element in a human-machine system.” (pp.27-29)

Part of Bannon’s summary of how to remedy this problem

was to move from “product to process in research and

design,” also to move from “user-centred to user-involved

design” and from “user requirements specification to

iterative design.”

Designers often have to act out the use and use dynamics

of their creations. When it is part of an overall system,

say, an interactive media system this may be intertwined

concurrently with views of system functioning and

specifications. This is a creative ‘to and froing’

Lawrence Erlbaum

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between human actions and technical responses. So what

comes first, chicken or egg, technology or people?”

Bronowski (1973)18 suggests that the first tools were:

“. . . the fundamental invention, the purposeful actwhich prepares and stores a pebble for later use. Bythat lunge of skill and foresight, a symbolic act ofdiscovery of the future, he had released the brakewhich the environment imposes on all othercreatures.”(p.40)

Their may be substance to this proposition of ‘original

use’, and its correlation to the development of human

consciousness. Such an idea has substance in recent

archaeological thought by authors such as Schiffer

(199219) and Stick and Toth (1993)20.

Schiffer views that human societies have always been

characterised by a dependence on artefacts, from

prehistoric stone tools to modern electronic devices. He

sees that technology responds to and affects virtually

all human behaviour; yet the interdependence of behaviour

and artefacts have never been studied intensively.

18 Bronowski, J (1973) The Accent of Man London: BBC19 Schiffer. M.P. Technological Perspectives on Behavioural Change Tuscon, AZ: The University of Arizona Press20 Stick, K.D. and Toth, N. (1993) Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology London: Weidenfeld &Nicolson

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Schiffer draws on his discipline's familiarity with

artefacts - and the processes of change they reveal - to

offer new insight into the study of behavioural change.

He draws on case studies that deal with changes in

architecture, ceramics and electronic technology, where

he emphasises the central idea that the explanations of

change must focus on the nexus of behaviour and artefacts

in the context of activities.

Quite obviously if one takes a archaeological view it is

difficult to pick, as the development of human

consciousness, societies and learning stem from the

intimate interaction of human and tool, but from a

product testing perspective one can argue that you cannot

learn of a product unless a ‘subject’ is exposed to it.

But people going about their everyday quotidian actives,

at work and a play, precede the advent of a massive

procession of new innovations, aimed at helping them. At

every given time, although we dwell in infinite

possibilities we do not follow so many of them. There is

a social and cognitive glue, emerging from out social,

economic and technical environments which keep us on

apparent paths of habit, actions and behaviours. But are

they structures, like physical buildings, with their

epitome in the idea of Bentham’s panoptican, or are they

negotiated, seamless webs or matrix like, full of

feedback nuances and interaction complexities, the

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subtleties that only human beings can manufacture and

appreciate?

The language of the domains of commerce, societal

governance and technological development is insidious.

Noticing change in the policy stance of centralist

political parties manifestoes is hard. It requires

subtlety. But it is not about the success of people, but

the success of parties and candidates, of the economy and

of interactive systems. They say they are citizen- user-

centred, but they think and act system-centred. This

critique of system-centeredness is hardly new. The

industrial era is replete with complaints that, in the

name of progress, firms and political institutions

wilfully subjugated human interests and rights to the

interests of industrialization and the machine. User

knowledge is always situated. What people know about

technology is always located in a certain time and place.

Designing for real life, then real contexts, have to be

part of the process of modelling use and usage. Design is

increasingly about appropriateness; appropriateness is

shaped by context; and the richest kinds of contexts are

places and social institutions and organisation.

Back to the crux of the matter, in a world of metaphor

and symbol exchange, what about the idea that most

‘technical’ systems in fact social systems, only technically

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implemented? Or when Institutions define structures for

the behaviour of human actors, is it as Nelson and Sampat

(2001) put it, they become social technologies? xxxv What about

the notions that “technology is society made durable,”

(Latour, 1991) and that we consider technology as

“congealed social relations” (Woolgar, 1991). How about

Products and buildings, for example, which someone so

insightfully described as “frozen software” bearing in

mind that they often began their shape in a CAD program.

Conversely sociocultural advocates argue that humans are,

to a great extent, reflections of technology.xxxvi

Artefacts as well as people are certainly capable of

conveying meaning (Csikzentmilhalyi and Rochberg-Halton,

1981)

There is the claim that engineers tend to ignore the

social concerns of their work, and that social

scientists, on the other hand, do not know very much

about technology and are reluctant to consider the

artificial reality of technical objects or even their

diversity and relative power to ‘impact’.

But what is the ‘social’. Latour defines the social as

"[an] adjective… [that] now codes, not a substance, nor a

domain of reality (by opposition for instance to the

natural, or the technical...), but a way of tying

together heterogeneous bundles, of translating some type

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of institutions into another” (Latour 2000: 113). Black

boxes are "taken-for-granted elements (well-established

facts, unproblematic artefacts) that can be employed,

risk free, for a variety of purposes" (Latour

1987:p.398). Within system design engineers may ‘black

box’ either human or non-human elements.

Actor network theorists argue for impartiality in the

description of human and nonhuman actors, of things and

non-things. Their main proposition is that the split

between nature, society and artefacts is artificial and

arbitrary in itself. Latour argues that modernity relies

on the “complete separation between the natural world

(constructed, nevertheless, by man) and the social world

(sustained, nevertheless, by things)” (Latour 1993: 31).

Perhaps what matters is not the distinction between

“real” and “artificial” environments, but the complexity

of the relationship among the behaviour of the agent, the

percept sequence generated by the environment, and the

goals that the agent is supposed to achieve. In other

words the interactions that happen in use, the mutual

shaping that occurs through usage and the coevolution of

artefacts and humans when things are viewed as so useful

they become essential. Heidegger argued that the ontological

structure of the world is not a given, but arises through

inter-action. The task is to reconnect the two spheres,

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natural and artificial, not through the construction of

bridges, but through observing the multiple networks that

compose the social, and that, in turn, are composed of

actors, human and nonhuman, which possess the same

ontological status. For Latour, the world is ontologically flat,

that is, people and artefacts are part of a continuum.

Their differences, rather than pertaining differences in

kind (to an ontology, to an essence that is given a

priori), are differences in degree.

Goals just provide a crude distinction between “happy”

and “unhappy” states, whereas a more general performance

measure should allow a comparison of different world

states (or sequences of states) according to exactly how

happy they would make the agent if they could be

achieved. Because “happy” does not sound very scientific,

the customary terminology is to say that if one world

state is preferred to another, then it has higher utility

for the agent. The word “utility” here refers to “the

quality of being useful,” First, when there are

conflicting goals, only some of which can be achieved

(for example, speed and safety), the utility function

specifies the appropriate trade-off. Second, when there

are several goals that the agent can aim for, none of

which can be achieved with certainty, utility provides a

way in which the likelihood of success can be weighed up

against the importance of the goals.

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Some “real” environments are actually quite simple. For

example, a robot designed to inspect parts as they come

by on a conveyer belt can make use of a number of

simplifying assumptions: that the lighting is always just

so, that the only thing on the conveyer belt will be

parts of a certain kind, and that there are only two

actions—accept the part or mark it as a reject. The

interaction of pervasive computing, with social and

environmental agendas for innovation represents a

revolution in the way our products, our systems are

designed, the way we use them – and how they relate to

us.

But are the social and technical really interchangeable,

even as metaphors? Is there any benefit in adopting this

view? The goal of the actor-network approach is not to

provide solutions, but ways of looking at the world and

our interactions with it. This is of interest

academically but how does such a view present value to

commerce or contribute to design? Within all the rich

theoretical sophistication of actor-networks I identify

the key issue to be that artefacts constitute the social

glue between humans. What makes humans “human” are

material entities and what makes the social “social” are

nonhuman entities. The social is constituted by ‘hybrid’

networks, or sets of relationships created among people

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through the use of artefacts. Without these artefacts,

the relationships could not be established/maintained.

I mean in doing so there appears in the first instance an

air of ‘scientific management’ - the notion of underpaid

workers as cogs in the machine; workers as cyborgs,

pawns, or sullen unitary entities in a manufacturing

process with high job specialization. In the popular

management literature such a view of labor has been

largely discredited, and while Taylorism, Fordism and time and

motion studies still have a place in increasing work

efficiency in sweat shop operations, they have been shown

to erode job performance (Lawler, 1986)xxxvii Core job

characteristics which link to positive psychological

states and outcomes are skill variety, task identity,

task significance, autonomy, and feedback.xxxviii These

emphasize individualism and autonomy in determining tasks

and developing and utilizing skills – the worker in

control or the worker as manager, neither necessary - nor

perhaps desirable - for the sweat shop mass production

line.

The new imperative of autonomy is not a simple expression

of democratization of the factory and the shop floor – it

is a negation of simplistic and functional views of a

functional unitary worker as a ‘black boxed’ component of

the manufacturing system. It is part of a wider picture

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that sees symmetry in studies of the consumption of

technologies. This views the consumer as unitary measure

who in good Cartesian Fashion either buys a product or

service or does not. What they do with it or what they

think of it, or why they did or not buy it is of little

commercial or engineering interest. An architecture of

passive relationships between user and system is

massively inefficient. If a thing is worth using, people

will figure out how to use it. And in figuring out how to

use products, services technologies, users make them all

better. Early spreadsheet packages are a case in hand,

notoriously difficult to use, there poor usability was

nevertheless surpassed by their usefulness to small

businesses.

Rather a picture is emerging which is much more rich and

complex. This advances a notion of smart or intelligent

actors, with individual talents, experiences and skills;

biographies of use and ‘extra-use’, and acting in a

complementary and meaningful manner within social groups.

These are taken as semi-independent social ‘sub-systems’

participating and contributing to an overarching social

system which aimed at meeting organizational goals and

objectives which is true if one considers the workshop or

the office or home. Or in the mobile age anywhere in-

between. What emerges at the end of production processes

in this way is considered to possess a higher degree of

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innovativeness and carry the prospect of heightened

customer satisfaction and delight, through being more

appropriate, novel and meaningful.

Linked very closely to these propositions by recent

commentators on consumption (e.g. Firat et al., 1995;

Silverstone and Haddon, 1996). They view reversal or

collapse in the roles of production and consumption as a

distinguishing feature of recent society. Production,

especially mass production, loses its privileged status

in culture to consumption, which has become the means by

which individuals define their self-images for themselves

as well as others. This clearly illustrates the new

sovereignty of the consumer in processes of selection,

use and re-use, which will influence production directly

or indirectly. Gone forever is the Cartesian consumer or

audience.

This is also a period marked by changes in the outlooks

of designers, design theory and technology. The

perspectives listed above regarding human resource

management and production and consumption find correlates

directly in technical systems now boasting ‘smart’ or

‘intelligent’ components or functioning. Under various

rubrics – ubiquitous computing, ambient intelligence –

are technology systems capable of making adjustment to

individual and system performance depending upon changes

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in local external conditions and reduced interactions

with users. What earmarks such systems as ‘different’

from the human perspective is that they should benefit

users while being totally independent of their attention.

Not only is this a problem to defining such product

characteristics as usefulness and usability, benchmarks

for product effectiveness, this places new imperatives

upon designers to consider in much more in more granular

form the human factor in prospective deployment contexts.

For example, if the clock manufacturer was prescient

enough to know that the clock’s owner would be going

overseas at some particular date, then a mechanism could

be built in to adjust the hands automatically by the time

difference at just the right time. This would certainly

be successful behaviour, but the intelligence seems to

belong to the clock’s designer rather than to the clock

itself. An agent’s behaviour can be based on both its own

experience and the built-in knowledge used in

constructing the agent for the particular environment in

which it operates. A system is autonomous to the extent that its

behaviour is determined by its own experience. An interesting

development of these technologies applied to the built

environment is that if devices and building are described

as ‘frozen software’ then the addition of ‘smart’ or

intelligent’ elements start to melt them. They are no

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longer static, but alike living systems dynamic, even

unpredictable. But this comes at a cost.

“To be modern is to live a life of paradox andcontradiction. It is to be overpowered by theimmense bureaucratic organizations that have thepower to control and often to destroy allcommunities, values, lives; and yet to be undeterredin our determination to face these forces, to fightto change their world and make it our own. It is tobe both revolutionary and conservative: alive to newpossibilities for experience and adventure,frightened by the nihilistic depths to which so manymodern adventures lead, longing to create and tohold on to something real even as everything melts.”(Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air [New York:Penguin Books, 1988]:13-14.)

The innovation dilemma is simply stated: Many companies

know how to make amazing things, technically. But we are

increasingly at a loss to understand what to make. We

have landed ourselves with an industrial system that is

brilliant on means, but pretty hopeless when it comes to

ends. Indeed it will have to be as Silverstone (2003;

p.4) says that: “all those involved in directing policy

or developing markets in this emerging digital world

will, likewise, need to take what ordinary people are

doing in their everyday relationships to communication

and information technologies.”xxxix

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Failure to do this will lead to at best ineffectual and

frustrating systems, or at worst, to dangerous safety and

privacy compromising situations. Heller (1989) points out

that one of the contributory factors to the Three Mile

Island accident in 1983, was a technical control fault

caused through over-confident engineering design. Kopec

and Michie, (1983) later attributed this fault with lack

of awareness of the human factor, in the layout of

control functions and consistency of warning lights.

Mumford (1986) also notes in relation to this potential

catastrophe that if the human factor can be so blatantly

ignored in a nuclear plant, there may be justification

that problems to do with technologically intrinsic design

may happen anywhere. Heller sees that the underlying

philosophy of technologists is that;

“Engineering solutions are often designed tomaximise the effectiveness of the technology on theassumption that human beings are almost infinitelyflexible and can be relied on to make all thenecessary adjustments needed to work the systemwithout too much disturbance. We have seen that suchone-sided solutions can fail completely or in thecase of the motor car assembly line, the vandalisedtelephone boxes, or the ticket control; mechanisms,operate at unexpectedly low levels of efficiency . .. it is unlikely that a solution based on maximisingthe advantages of technology alone can functionwithout reducing the overall effectiveness of thesystem which, by definition, is a system requiringthe co-operation of the human component” (Heller,1986:p.23).

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The history of humankind’s relation to technological

products is one of both endless acts of design and user

compromise and adaptation (as Silverstone has it:

“Everyday life is not biddable to the desires of

technology”)xl.

But the learning loop of this relationship is much, much

shorter in an age of rapid response – in the product

development cycle as well as consumer-users being able to

fill feedback through interactive media and retail

systems, and via system-logging and reporting of their

actions.

“Ultimately, ICTs are domesticated when they are“taken for granted”, when they are no longerperceived as technologies, as machines, but almostas a natural extension of the self. By claiming tomove technologies to the background and people tothe foreground, Ambient Intelligence promises thedisappearance of the technical artefact and itsunderlying technologies. As a result, it can be seenas the ultimate stage of domestication. However,domestication also highlights that the process ofacceptance and use of ICTs is not necessarilyharmonious, linear or complete. Rather it ispresented as a struggle between the user andtechnology, where the user tries to tame, gaincontrol, shape or ascribes meaning to thetechnological artefact. This is not resistance to a

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specific technology but rather an active acceptanceprocess.” xli

But before getting carried away with well-publicized

potentials forecasts of technical prowess to radically

redefine and shape everyday reality, we should remember

that the great promise of agent technology and artificial

intelligence has yet to reach its epoch. A dedicated

computer which can beat the world chess champion is not

one sentient enough to fulfil Turing”s Law or make a cup

of coffee. It is not autonomous. More successful

technology deployments which are labelled smart, do not

manifest an exclusively ‘global’ notion of intelligence,

benchmarked against statistical ‘norms’, but rather a

more mobile intelligence which successfully maps global

concerns to all forms of local conditions – be they

cultural, economic, regulatory, or organizational – and

back again. A truly autonomous intelligent agent should

be able to operate successfully in a wide variety of

environments, given sufficient time to adapt.

Linking the social and technical, and the cultural,

separating them conceptually, frames important questions

in debates regarding in the development of not only

organization but also technology. Why? Consider the

category ‘task significance’ and what it is taken to

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represent; “the degree to which the job has a substantial

impact on the organization and/or larger society.”

(McShane and Glinow: p.133).xlii Invariably, the notion of

‘tasks’ in industry tend to be facilitated by

technologies and many firms use technology to make

technological products. The way in which ‘impact’ is

made is through and by technology, and by organization and

re-organization. Neither technology, nor re-organization

possibilities are infinite. Like technologies in general

they enable and constrain interactions and

communications. This carries vast implications for

production and also for the development of societies

itself.

The changes in outlook towards human resources and

organization, the relations between production and

consumption and use, and to the nature of technological

development itself are indicative of the rise of the

emergence of the Information or Knowledge Society with its

precedence upon the management of knowledge and expertise

and of learning. (see Webster, 1995). xliii

However, there are differences in development of

organizations and technology, and how businesses view

markets.

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“We are moving from business strategies based on the"domination" of markets, to the cultivation ofcommunities. The best companies are focusing moreon the innovation of new services, and new businessmodels, than on new technology per se. They arestriving to change relationships, to anticipatelimits, to accelerate trends. Designers andusability experts need to study, criticise and adaptto these trends. Not uncritically, but creatively.”xliv

Certainly both are intentionally developed, both can be

exploratory such as R&D teams building experimental

prototypes, but regardless of extraneous influences,

social and otherwise, technology developments have a

linear nature in their development. Ideas such as

scenarios convert to prototypes, prototypes to final

products released to the pubic domain. One can only

‘reverse engineer’ something which has been ‘engineered’

in the first place, but ideas and scenarios are more

fleeting and mutable. Technological projects have a

beginning, middle and end, and while this ‘end’ may

signify the break-up of the project group involved in the

development. They do not usually mean the ‘end’ of the

firm.

Social scientists, economists included, interested in

technology, have tended to ‘black box’ technology in some

way or another. Indeed complexity demands that we narrow

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our scope of understanding or involvement in phenomena or

large scale systems. Technology is depicted as something

which has inputs and manifests outputs. Indeed, not only

do social scientists reduce the role and implications of

technology, many of us in everyday life consider

technology for what it does over how it does it. We do

not have to know about the in and outs of TCP/IP to surf

the net, and we do not need to know about he laws of

thermodynamics to drive a car, or consider all that is

necessary in technology and businesses processes to

facilitate the working of the ATM machine.

If we consider that technology ‘does’ something then can

we consider a firm as a technology? After all, a firm’s

function is to create products and services. They feature

particular configurations of competencies, skills and

expertise. They characterize themselves under their

brands and the look, feel and quality of their product

and services. And moreover they develop communication

skills; “If every product is really a service, then every

contact or communication with customers is also the

product” (Kantor, 1992: p.10) They come to develop

attributes through all of to above in the eyes of

stakeholder, customers, suppliers, partners, regulators

etc. Can we view the hardware of the mobile phone as

social? We certainly use it for social purposes but is it

itself social, if so in which ways?

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“…the freestanding material-technical artifacts andwhat they do by themselves should be takenseriously. This means that their actual operations(not just their design) and the actual, embodiednorms (standards) governing these operations shouldbe conceptualized as genuinely social processes of aparticular kind.”xlv

Indeed some scholars from the social studies of

technology have emphasized that ‘the technical’ needs

unpacking. Molina for instance considers the complexities

involved with specific technologies. This emphasizes that

the nature and state of development of given technologies

do condition the strategic limits and opportunities for

the processes of development “i.e. creation, production

and diffusion”.xlvi. He urges us to consider within our

social analysis of technology “the-role-of-the-

technical”. (p.3)

The reality of the job at hand is that there are much

broader concerns within the organization concerning the

way an individual views themselves as having ‘impact’

either upon the organization or the wider society.

Similarly, it is a broader concern that technological

change ‘impacts’ the organization either in a ‘positive’

or ‘negative’ manner. Such a notion of impact may be a

chimera created from a biased view of the world at large,

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or simply buying into the propaganda of the marketing

dept. Many firms and their employees, as well as

commercial or domestic users, view the world through

glasses tinted with the features and perceived benefits

of products and services. After all, the firm has a

boundary, and one of the means by which it invents itself

and the relevance of its offerings are through accenting

and highlighting, perhaps at times exaggerating, the

propensities of its developments in their contribution to

the wider world outside. The reputation IT and

biotechnology to radically alter our lives for the better

precedes its actual abilities to do so.

In reality however, outside the firm’s boundary is an

environment which affects the firm, and it is much more

complex as a system or a collection of systems and sub-

systems to anything constructed or emerging within the

firm. Some environments are more demanding than others.

Complex interactive systems are strongly situated, and so

is any actual design of them. E.g., in some cases there

is no possibility to approach prospective users, in other

situations; certain decisions are prohibited by

constraints from the client. Environments that are

inaccessible, nondeterministic, nonepisodic, dynamic, and

continuous are the most challenging. This is the root of

uncertainty in business, and the risk or failure is much

higher for innovative products and services – those that

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do not have a distinctive relation with the world

outside. The behaviour of the firm – the behaviour of any

particular firm - arises from the nature of the firm and

of the systems set up within it to cope with

environmental change (not as a random event). Included

here are the rules and codes of operations, the sum

expertise of its staff to leverage resources, its

abilities to crate working conditions and appropriate

organizational structures and competencies, and the

means, methods and style of communications.

Structural view is essentially a static picture – it

talks about what a system looks like – like the pattern

on an organisational chart - not what it is attempting to

do. So such structures are designed, usually by those

further up the hierarchy and have much more loosely

defined goals towards an aim of accenting creativity. The

bottom line is that structures either carry out processes

competently or are acted on by (external) processes to

highlight incompetence and weakness.

Firm’s are often characterized by having hierarchies of

management held in a structure. Structures vary between

‘orthodox’ mass manufacturing hierarchies with

centralized and narrow spans of control, and more

‘organic’ structures which emphasize the use of semi-

autonomous teams. A third hybrid form - the matrix -

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addresses the need for functional specialism whilst

remaining responsive to product and customer needs.

In the traditional hierarchal model the lower levels of

the organization are typified by operative employees such

as machine operators or even engineers. Most directives

come from the higher echelons, and communication is

typically top-down. They are expected to narrowly define

their skills, knowledge and activities. Decision-making

here is quite focused upon aspects such as design

specifications, problem-solving, maintenance or ‘fixing’

things. That is, their training includes the development

of a sound knowledge of materials and components, their

specifications, properties and tolerances, their

compatibilities and limitations, their uses and

applications. This is largely what they were taught at

university or college, and what they largely practice and

continue to develop knowledge in during their everyday

work routines. In organic structures there is a broader

participation, the use of more creativity as take their

place as a member responsible for some aspect of the

overall project, as well as feedback upon the advice and

recommendations of other team members.

Technical and middle managers or team leaders facilitate

and organize work flows and teams within whatever social

structures and systems chosen to shape organizational

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performances. They have ‘working knowledge’ of what each

engineering specialty possesses ‘expert’ knowledge of,

and they know how to organize and monitor projects to

meet goals and deadlines.

Other functions of the organization bring different forms

of knowledge and expertise to the boardroom table where

options are played off by senior managers and business

policy and strategies formed. This level affords the

greatest latitude for change in direction. These will be

operationalised via middle mangers, technical managers or

team leaders. Structures can often have a significant

constraining impact on system communications.

Policies and strategies are built upon the products of

internal and external scanning. This concerned with

conceptualizing the inner state of the organization –

financial reporting, competencies, human resources etc. –

and issues pressing from without the organization –

competitors’ behaviours and products, consumer reactions

to existing product lines and so forth. In addition to

forming business policy and strategy, knowledge of the

internal and external environment should help solve any

managerial dilemma that appears. That is, anything that

hinders stability or growth, or stands in the way of

improving effectiveness and efficiency. Power relations

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also feature. The insight from David Noble’s (1979)21

study of numerical control of factory machine tools is

that the technical change does not necessarily come from

technical rationality, namely effectiveness and

efficiency, as always claimed by technological

determinists. Power struggles appear to be an

21 Noble, David. (1984) Forces of Production: A Social History of IndustrialAutomation. New York: Knopf.

i Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesise a large body of research related to human motivation. In an ranked order of priority they included the needs to address: 1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc. 2) Safety/security: out of danger. 3) Belongingess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted. 4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition. 5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore. 6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty. 7) Self-actualisation: to find self-fulfilment and realise one's potential. 8) Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfilment and realise their potential. Patrick Jordan, an advocate of pleasurable design, describes how this progression from functionality to pleasure is similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, wherein people move up the hierarchy as their needs are fulfilled at lower levels. Usability practitioners have tools to understand functionality and usability, but they must now add tools for understanding what products need to move to the highest, or pleasurable, level of the hierarchy. These tools can include Kansei (pleasure) engineering, the Kano method, the repertory grid technique, and laddering.

Jordan, P. W. Designing PleasurableProducts: An Introduction to the New Human Factors. London: Taylor & Francis, 2000.

ii Dobbin, F and Dowd, T.J. (1997) “How policy shapes competitions: Early railroad foundings in Massachusetts” Administrative Science Quarterly (Sept.) pp.501-529iii Senge, P.M. (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Science of the Learning Organization New York: DoubledayGarvin, D.A. (1993) “Building a learning organization” Harvard Business Review (July/August) p.80iv Hit, M.A., Keats, B.W. and DeMarie, S.M. (1998) “Navigating in the new competitive landscape: Building strategic flexibility and

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http://www.zip.com.au/~cee_gee/psych.html

http://www.valdosta.edu/~whuitt/psy702/motivation/motivate.html

underpinning factor in technological choices. There are

means of control and communication which promote survival

of the social system, in this case, the firm. Of course

the nature of business, indeed, living, is the emergence

of unforeseen events, which require flexibility in

response.

competitive advantage in the 21st century” Academy of Management Executive(November) pp.22-42v Utterback, J. M. (1994). Mastering the dynamics of innovation. Boston: Harvard Business School Pressvi Morone, J., (1993), Winning in High Tech Markets. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

vii UE differs from UCD on this dimension by broadening the perspective from being simply user driven to being business value driven. The UE process starts by collecting detailed market requirements, business requirements, and user requirements, creatinga business model that rigorously integrates all of these requirements and focuses on the design aspects that affect the “bottom line.”

viii Druker, P.F. (1987) Innovation and Entrepreneurship New York: Harper-Collinsix Usher, R. et al (1997) Adult Education and the Postmodern Challenge, London: Routledgex Davis, F.D. (1993) User acceptance of information technology: system characteristics, user perceptions and behavioral impacts. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 38, 475-487. Fishbein, M. & I. Ajzen (1975) Beliefs, Attitudes, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research. Reading: Addison-Wesley.

xi Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, Harper and Row.xii Argyris, M. and Schön, D. (1974) Theory in Practice. Increasing professional effectiveness, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.xiii Winograd and Flores (1986) cite Heidegger when he speaks of breakdown to represent this phenomena. This is a bringing to consciousness awareness things, objects and thoughts through their 'lack of fit' or 'lack of flow' in the course of purposeful use is an important concept to the functioning, as well as evaluation of technologies.

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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875847404/donnormanA/

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0875847404/donnormanA/

Against this scenario, which is a snapshot of many modern

organizations, it is easy to see the seductiveness to

build an organic analogy of the firm or indeed a

technical project – one that urges us to view the firm as

a kind of living system comprised of social and technical

elements. These are structured in hierarchies and

manifest processes and actions.

A basic definition of a system

Systems do not exist in an absolute sense – a system is

an idea or convenient metaphor, often used to help

someone understand or solve problems in a real situation:

systems can often be purely "in the eye of the

beholder"

systems have an "out-there" aspect, and an "inside-

us" aspect

A system is an assembly of parts or components connected

together in an organized way. In general, the parts are

affected by being in the system and they are changed if

they leave the system. Addition or removal of a component

changes the system. The assembly of parts does something

(but behavior may be not doing something when the

environment changes) – there are processes and outputs.

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The particular assembly has been identified by a human

being as of particular interest – in essence, the system

is owned by someone. Wilson (1990) uses a classification

of several types of systems adopted from Checkland

(1971). These are natural systems, designed systems,

human activity systems, and social and cultural systems.

In this classification designed systems are treated

separate from human activity systems and social and

cultural systems.xlvii The notion of an ‘open’ system is

one which is accessible by extraneous elements, or even

other systems, without its on intergrity as a system

being compromised. Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems

is perhaps the most advanced model of modern society. It

is the first major sociological theory that opts for

communication as the constitutive element of society and

other social systems. Causes and reasons for this

theoretical decision are reconstructed, first in terms of

problems internal to Niklas Luhmann"s social theory (the

distinction of psychic and social systems; the

distinction of action and experience; formal properties

of the concept of communication; the implications of

autopoiesis) and secondly in terms of processes of

societal change (the rise of the information society; the

genesis of world society), which favour the switch

towards a communication-based (instead of action-based)

systems theory.

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He borrows from concepts of living systems to the

description of mental and social systems. Living systems

act in the medium ‘life’, mental systems in

‘consciousness’, social systems in ‘communication’. Both

mental and social systems operate, within language and

meaning. Communication does not take place without

presupposing consciousness, and vice versa. This is a

convenient characterisation of various levels of human

and social existence which will be drawn upon extensively

in this book. The following diagram could be thought of

as a concept map and helps us to see some key terms and

concepts from systems and how they might be related.

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One of the great challenges in recent engineering design

is the increased complexity of the designed objects; they

are both more sophisticated in structure and materials,

and more information intensive. The contextual

implications of a deployment of genetically modified

living entity are of grave concern to those who believe

that we should not interfere with the ‘mechanisms’ and

complexity of nature.xlviii In this view the implications

of genetic modification are inherently systemic.

Similarly, the manufacturers of chips closely monitor for

new opportunities to get product deeper and further into

the vagaries of ‘everyday’ life, the lifestyles of

consumers. Every nook and cranny of quotidian life, at

home and work (and in the mobile age – in-between) is

being researched, with firms and universities prospecting

for new digital deployments in the minutiae of human

activity and meaning. This demands that technology firms

place increased imperatives upon their knowledge and

abilities to research and produce compelling arguments

for their products and services.

While engineers originally designed relatively simple

objects like bridges, the artifacts they design have

become more complex and gradually they became involved in

designing not only single artifacts but also the

relations between the artifacts. Several methods and

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theories have been used to analyze and design systems,

e.g. o[pen and closed systems Hard and Soft System

Theory, Cybernetics, Operations Research.

Technical development is a social process; science and

technology are necessary conditions of this process, but

they are, by no means, sufficient to determine its

performance. Evolution is primarily based on the

emergence of new variants of existing system elements.

New variants have to prove their fitness in competition

with existing ones. Development of a wide range of

different elements is costly and restricted by available

resources. The concept of the socio-technical system was

established in the 1950s to stress the reciprocal

interrelationship between humans and machines and to

foster the program of shaping both the technical and the

social conditions of work. in such a way that efficiency

and humanity would not contradict each other any longer.

Efficiency can be seen as the primary selection criterion

in nature. System efficiency is determined by efficient

constituent elements and processes. Unlike close systems,

open systems have purpose (objective), possess porous

boundaries with their environment, and process

information.

The aim of this book is to explore the nature of hybrid

(socio-technical) systems and its implications for

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engineering design. As Thomas P. Hughes observed in

Rescuing Prometheus:

“System builders preside over technological projectsfrom concept and preliminary design throughresearch, development, and deployment. In order topreside over projects, system builders need tocross-disciplinary and functional boundaries—forexample, to become involved in funding and politicalstage setting. Instead of focusing upon individualartifacts, system builders direct their attention tothe interfaces, the interconnections, among systemcomponents.” (p. 7)xlix

In order to do so the concept of socio-technical systems

will be analyzed. Social, technical and social-technical

systems, as well as the way such systems are designed,

will be compared. Changes in design tasks and the

(changing) role of engineering knowledge, due to the

increased importance of socio-technical systems, will be

studied. The results of this comparative analysis will be

integrated into a characterization of socio-technical

systems.

What are socio-technical systems, what do they consist of

and how do they compare to technical and social systems?

ii. What are the differences and similarities between

technical, social and socio-technical design tasks? iii.

What changes are there in design tasks when shifting from

technical to socio-technical design, and what are

implications on the role of engineering knowledge?

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The economist Nathan Rosenberg (1982: p.39) suggests that

“Technology is . . . at the centre of those activities

which are distinctly human.” Cole (1995)22 assumes that

the species-specific characteristic of human beings is

their ‘need and ability to inhabit an environment

transformed by the activity of prior members of their

species’ (p.190). He views this as a ‘common starting

point’ of all socio-cultural-historical viewpoints. The

transformation of this environment, and the means by

which the ability to transfer the means of

transformation, are;

“ . . . the result of the ability/proclivity ofhuman beings to create and use artefacts - aspectsof the material world that are taken up into humanaction as modes of co-ordinating with the physicaland social environment . . .The idea that mediationof activity through artefact (often refereed to bythe slightly reduced concept of tools is thefundamental characteristic of human psychologicalprocesses and the human environment).” (ibid, p190)

Cole goes on to quote several examples of this, including

Henry Bergson:

22 Cole, M (1995) ‘Socio cultural-historical psychology: some general remarks and a proposal for a new kind of cultural-genetic methodology’ in (Wersch, J. V., Pablo, D.R. and Alvarez, A. eds.) Sociocultural Studies of Mind Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp. 187-214)

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“If we could rid ourselves of all pride, if , todefine our species, we kept strictly to what thehistoric and prehistoric periods show us to be theconstant characteristic of man and of intelligence,we should say not Homo Sapiens but Homo Faber. InShort, intelligence, considered in what seems to beits original feature, is the faculty ofmanufacturing artificial objects, especially toolsfor making tools, and of indefinitely varying themanufacture.” Bergson (1911/1983; p.139)23

23 Bergson, H (1911/1983) Creative evolution New York: Henry Holt xiv Bateson, G. (1988) Angels Fear London: Riderxv Schön, D. A. (1973) Beyond the Stable State. Public and private learning in a changing society, Harmondsworth: Penguinxvi Hawkes, J. (1963) History of Mankind Cultural and Scientific Development, Vol. 1. Part 1. Prehistory London: Mentorxvii Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. How professionals think in action, London: Temple SmithSchön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner, San Francisco: Jossey-BassSchön, D. A. (1991) The Reflective Turn: Case Studies In and On Educational Practice,New York: Teachers Press, Columbia University

xviii Schatzberg, E. (1999) Wings of Wood, Wings of Metal. Princeton:Princeton University Press. p. 16xix Ranson, R. (1998) ‘Lineages of the learning society’ in S. Ranson(ed.) Inside the Learning Society, London: Cassellxx Hawkes, J. (1963) History of Mankind Cultural and Scientific Development, Vol. 1. Part 1. Prehistory London: Mentorxxi Shackel, B. (1991). Usability--context, framework, definition, design and evaluation. Shackel, B. and Richardson, S., Ed. Human Factors for Informatics Usability. pp.21-37. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. xxii IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 42, NO 4, 2003 VREDENBURG 519xxiii Another aspect of this role would be to pull together the various sources of data on users and their work (or play, depending on the product) and facilitate the sharing of this information at every level in a company or organization. The role of strategic UCD facilitator would require a high level of business savvy, knowledge of social psychology (quite useful for understanding how groups and stakeholders interact), and extremely well-honed listening,

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Technology is certainly a symptom of the human condition.

It is manifestation of a desire to relate to, monitor and

control natural and human processes and activities. It is

human intervention. Humans influencing or determining

ecological systems should be aware that, at least in the

enabling, and interviewing skills. The UCD facilitator wouldfocus on building a usability infrastructure and institutionalizing usability.Wilson, C.E. ‘Usability and user centered design : The next decade’ Intercom Jan 2005 p.8xxiv Finger, M. and Asún, M. (2000) Adult Education at the Crossroads. Learning our way out, London: Zed Books.xxv Kaptelinin, V., et al. (1997). Activity Theory: Basic Concepts and Application. CHI 1997, Los Angeles.

xxvi Bannon, L. xxvii Mitchell, T.R. (1997) ‘Matching motivational strategies with organisational contexts’ in Cumings, L.L. and Staw, B.M. (eds.) Research in Organisational Behaviour vol. 19 Greenwich: JAI Press pp.60-62xxviii Engeström, Y., et al., Eds. (1999). Perspectives onActivity Theory. Activity Theory and Individual andSocial Transformation, Cambridge University Press.

xxix potentialIBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 42, NO 4, 2003 KARAT AND KARAT 539-540

xxx Donoghue, K. Built for Use: Driving ProfitabilityThrough the User Experience. NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 2002.

xxxi Usher, R. et al (1997) Adult Education and the Postmodern Challenge, London:Routledgexxxii Wilson, C.E. ‘Usability and user centered design : The next decade’ Intercom Jan 2005 p.8xxxiii “Concept tests and product tests do not work . . .The limitations of concept and product tests as predictors of subsequentsales are borne out by empirical investigations and literature surveys . . . Furthermore, they are generally of value only in the case of continuous products where consumers are well aware of standard attributes and functions; for discontinuous innovations they are unlikely even to predict trial.” (Tauber, 1981: p.182)xxxiv Valentin H. Pashtenko

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mid-term, efficiency determines which elements from flora

and fauna are dominant under the conditions set by those

humans. In this perspective the entire history of

agriculture and animal husbandry is genetic engineering.

As the command of the natural sciences of physics,

chemistry and biology has grown, so has the ability toxxxv Nelson, R. R. and B. N. Sampat (2001), 'Making sense of institutions as a factorshaping economic performance'. Journal of Economic Behaviour andOrganization 44: 31-54.

xxxvi xxxvii Lawler III, E.E. (1986) High-Involvement Management San Fransisco: Jossey-Bassxxxviii Skill variety is the degree to which a job requires employees to use different skills and talents to complete a variety of work activities; task identity is the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole or identifiable price of work; task significance is the degree to which the job has a substantial impact n the organization and/or larger society; autonomy is the degree to which ajob gives employees the freedom, independence, and discretion to schedule their work and determine the procedures to be used to complete the work’ job feedback is the degree to which employees can tell how well they are doing based on direct sensory information form the job itself.

Hackman, J.R. and Oldhan, G. (1980) Work Redesign Reading: Addison-Wesley p.90xxxix Silerstone .R. p.4 Media and Technology in the Everyday Life of

European Societies Final DeliverableThe European Media and Technology inEveryday Life Network, 2000-2003

xl P.19 xli xlii McShane, S.L and Von Glinow, M.A. (2000) Organizational Behavior: Emerging Realities for the Workplace Revolution Boston: McGraw-Hill

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create new substances, material and machines which

intervene in all aspects of worldly existence, and of

course predictions of that of worlds beyond (i.e. we do

not expect Mars to require a new version of physics in

its understanding, and we expect ‘intelligent’ human

beings to decipher the plaque which adorned the voyager

spacecraft we sent into the universe).. The pervasiveness

of information technology extending into all aspects of

everyday experience and practice, and the profound

connotations of genetics to modify aspects of living

xliii Webster, F. (1995) Theories of the Information Society. London: Routledge.

xliv n abridged version of the keynote speech held by John Thackara atthe CHI2000 conference in The Hague.

xlv Large Technical Systems and the Discourse of Complexityin Lars Ingelstam (ed.), Complex Technical Systems, Swedish Council forPlanningand Coordination of Research, Stockholm: Affärs Litteratur 1996, 55-72Bernward Joerges p.5

xlvi Molina, A. (unpublished) The Role of the Technical in Innovation and Technology Development: The 0perspective of Sociotechnical Constituencies Management School; UNiv. Of Edinburghxlvii Wilson, B. (1990). Systems: concepts, methodologies and applications. Chichester,John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Checkland, P. B. (1971), 'A systems map of the Universe'. Journal of SystemsEngineering 2.

xlviii I think here of the unfroseen by-product of over-use of anti-biotics – the use of human organisms to produce drug resistant strains of bacteria. Other examples have been the introduction of rabbits to Australia, where there populations got out of control. One must also comsider bollgaurd montosamoxlix

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things suggest a future marked by mutability, re-

configuration and change.

Since temples and other buildings were constructed and

aligned in proportions related to the stars there is the

intention of creating the mediation of technology in our

experiential and metaphysical realities. The formal

structured proofs of maths and rationalism are perhaps

the inheritors of such an arithmetic logic based upon

geometry and measurement.

But technological mediation is also empirical, it is

observable and concrete. Following McLuhan in his famous

work such as The Medium is the Massage technology mediates

our relationships with the natural and man-made worlds;

it mediates our relationship with energy, and mediates

communication between us as humans. Science, scientific

method and inquiry produces proportions, periodicities

and measures that confirm or deny postulations, offering

patterns as securities to engineers and designers in

their endeavour to translate these patterns into

functions and applications. Moreover, how these can be

formed into useful, functioning systems. Every object in

reality that is modelled by systems theory exhibits an

"outside" and

an "inside," an external behaviour and an internal

construction. In this case is the inner workings of the

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system, built by system architects, which are based upon

engineering principles. External behaviour is how such a

system represents itself to intentional users or

operators, and how it appears to provide benefit.

Following from the earlier discussion on organizational

form, it is not so easy to speak about the designing of

social systems. Particularly in complex socio-technical

systems, usually not all elements and relations are

designed in all detail. While certain elements of such

systems can be designed or redesigned, other elements

and, therefore the system as a whole, can behave much

more irregularly. Some system theories treat systems as

evolving rather than being designed. In that case

activity to control the behavior of systems is a form of

manipulating rather than designing.

Beginning with those such as Comte there is the

application of principles and techniques drawn from the

natural sciences applied to the analysis of people and

particularly groups. Peter Drucker in Industrial Man (1965)

considers Comte as the first thinker who focussed on

industry, in particular how societies can organise around

the industrial producer.l The project of a social science

is the production of proportions, periodicities and

measures that suggest patterning in the activities and

practices of human groups and populations – their

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structures, their knowledge, their traits, their

motivations, their outcomes and goals. It also deals with

individual and group differences and similarities,

behaviours and interactions. The ‘outer’ aspect of a

particular social system is how members of such a group

behave or look to an observer, how they express

themselves - particularly in terms of some functions or

purpose, how they organise etc. ‘Inner’ aspects is how

they organise themselves, how they develop knowledge of

the world without the group, how they develop

communications to express meanings and purpose within

themselves.

A notion of ‘intervention’ here is the identification of

individuals, groups, organisations and their

communications. How do their structures and the action

and interaction of human and non-human elements impact

outcomes?

The goal of eliciting pattern in the social continuum is

largely an attempt to acknowledge, dispel, infer or

predict future behaviours and perceptions and actions and

reactions. It questions first; how social structures and

systems develop out of pre-existing social structures,

and how they are similar and unique. And second; how do

social structures shape individual decision-making and

action. Third: how do these processes feed-back upon each

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other and within themselves to generate individual

development and social innovation and evolution? It can

also be a means by which to understand or better

interpret past events – positive or negative - with

relation to organisational effectiveness and efficiency.

In economic systems, efficiency is measured as the ratio

of financial output and input. Efficiency is a decision

factor. A small number of input and output factors is

easy to measure but may provide insufficient information.

For better decision making, efficiency should be based on

a wider scope considering the above mentioned principles.

For example, the Balanced Scorecard approach takes

several

weighted ratios into consideration.

In industry, opposed to other forms of institution such

as academia, the aim is always to modify responses and

structure actions at the individual or group level -

especially towards some internal or external threat or

occurrence. This can be failure in product components to

adequately benchmark against competitors’ products or

changes in policy, regulation, technology, consumer

tastes etc. Identifying system boundaries can sometimes

be quite difficult, and different analysts can often

disagree with where it should be set. The boundary may

have a physical presence, I am thinking here of a case

for a PC, or a corporate headquarters, but often does not

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– the business system of a virtual or actual organization

may view all stakeholders such as suppliers, customers,

regulators etc as an integral part of their operations.

An alternative view is that Usually thought of as all

parts of the world outside the system, but in practice,

is restricted to those parts that interact with the

system Important as it determines where the analyst sets

the boundary between what is inside of the system and

what is outside One rule of thumb is to set the boundary

where interactions between the system and its environment

are minimized. An alternative approach is to identify

components which affect the system, but which the system

is unable to control directly and is unable to affect to

any significant extent for example, the environment of

the overall management system of an organisation is

likely to include public policy, legislation, the

economy, technology, product markets and so on

Vincenti (1990) tentatively refers to engineering design

knowledge as, among others, methods and tools engineers

use, general design concepts and quantitative data.liIn

the standard received view, it becomes the purpose of a

rigorous scientific method to insure that knowledge is

obtained by 'objective' and 'verifiable' means. The

ultimate object is attaining knowledge of particular

features or functions of the object of study. It then

attempts to infer causes and predict effects or outcomes.

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In the grading of levels of knowledge according to their

degree of objectivity, knowledge is most certain that

which has the smallest amount of personal contamination.

Mathematics and physics would be pure sciences in this

view. And knowledge would be most problematic where the

personal element is greatest - arts, literature,

philosophy, as well as in those 'complex' sciences such

as biology or psychology, and moreover in the social

sciences. These however are also the domains often most

associated with the recursive propagation of culture, as

their products also shape the values and meanings people

have for things in the world. In design for consumer

markets these are as important in everyway a much as

function.

Social systems and systematic forms of management and

governance rely entirely upon identification and

consideration of constituent components – in particular

their interactions, their skills, their abilities to

sense-make and their abilities to generate, communicate

and disseminate meanings. In order to develop these

competencies firms must have adequate models and theories

of management and governance which can attempt to order

actions, thoughts and behaviours within the organisation.

These come through education and training, either formal

or informal learning. But they must also possess some

worldview of their operating environment. That is, they

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must have a command of adequate theories and models of

influences and pressures coming in and influencing from

without the organisation. These must correlate and balance

with internal responses and resources within the

organisation that cope with and address these changes.

However there are problems producing 'objective' and

'verifiable' knowledge in the pressurised development

environments of modern industry. Rather than ‘correlating

and balancing’ external pressures are often dealt with on

an issue by issue manner rather than in a collected

strategic and rationalised way. This is common reaction

to complexity and apparent chaos.

The philosophy of the social sciences is an extensive and

dense field of critical theory that highlights why the

application of a positivist or hypothetico-deductive

views drawn from the ‘physical’ sciences is a problem,

but it has never the less been deemed as relevant and

convenient for firms wishing to understand the wider

population out with boardrooms, offices, workshops and

production lines. With the rise of ‘mass production’ in

the 20th century was the corresponding rise of a ‘mass

society’ and other forms of ‘massification’ (like mass

‘hysteria’, mass audience etc.). This considered

populations as an amorphous whole comprised of atomised,

unitary members.

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With its roots in the natural sciences, where properties

are deemed to lend themselves more to measurement and

control, positivist approaches in social and human

sciences have been exposed to a number of critiques (i.e.

in psychology in the early 70s with Gergen, 1973; Harré

and Secord, 1972; and Shotter, 1975). Commentators

manifested discontent with positivist method, and the

exclusive dominance of quantification. Harré and Secord

(1972) for instance were concerned with the mechanistic

model of human beings which academic psychology seemed to

subscribe to. These were believed to derive from the rise

of behaviourism as the regnant force in psychology. lii

The popularity of behaviourism and 'big project'

sociology, and other disciplines such as anthropometrics

and ergonomics co-evolved with the ‘massification’ of

industry, the mass media, and urbanisation. It provided

answers to a society increasingly reliant on science to

solve problems derived from vast changes in lifestyle and

living conditions. Again, this clearly illustrates the

importance of the consumer and consumption in processes

of selection, use and re-use, which will influence

production directly or indirectly. They must still be

categorised and typed and segmented into groups which can

be studied.

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These include populations which are the target audience,

representative sample, market or ‘demographic’ for their

product and services. This has led to the prospect of

further understanding of how new products, drawn from

science or re-configurations of and improvements upon

pre-existing technical elements, may be best offered and

presented to the market. It provides insights on how they

can be positioned and packaged.

Other methods of interfacing with consumer-users have

been developed by technology firms and their business

clients, and these draw from an eclectic range of social

and human science disciplines. The aim is to reveal

aspects of human behaviour and cognitions with direct

respect to technology and the development of business.

These include usability tests, marketing and technology

trialling, prototyping, system-logging and reporting and

so on.

As with other cultural products and their creation,

dependent on wider societal shifts in emphasis and

interest, research methods in disciplines such as

psychology have evolved to ask new questions, “asked and

answered in new ways." (Smith et al., 1995: p.1) Also

within the business world, analysts are increasingly

dissatisfied with using simple aggregated market

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statistics that reveal little about the underlying

sociocultural dynamics that affect acceptance of advanced

technical systems (i.e. Gonzalez, 1997). People

influencing social systems - such as policy-makers,

managers, designers, regulators - should be aware that

the processes of interaction and behavior of the persons

involved are evolving toward more efficient forms. To

pursue objectives, these have to be represented. To

develop objectives, models of

the surrounding world and of desired states of the active

part within this model have to be represented, too. There

is a wide range of representation mechanisms in existing

systems: from physically manifest implicit

representations like the simple reflex in nervous systems

to explicit knowledge representation like computer

programs and beyond to models of

cultural evolution of societies with a shared body of

knowledge, as described by Karl Popper.liii

However, as explored earlier, according to the

objectivist, neo-positivist or hypothetico-deductive

view, authentic knowledge is acquired when the

"subjective" - emotional, aesthetic, moral, and religious

- elements in knowing are strictly and rigorously

eliminated. Such elements, it is held, taint or distort

knowing and the derivative knowledge by introducing

elements of ambiguity and commitment. A large part of the

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project in what has come to be regarded as the 'dominant'

view in research method has been to eliminate extraneous

influences from the object of the research other than

those introduced or known by the researcher. If not

isolated, these 'extra-scientific', subjective elements

would determine the foundational paradigm upon which

science is erected and leave science in the realm of

opinion and 'rationalised superstition' (Gergan, 1973).

But the design of technologies are often optimised in

various ways according to intended or 'aimed use' within

the specific environments of factory floor, workshop,

office, schoolroom, kitchen, living room, garden etc.

Within the lives of their occupants these spaces accrue

rich and deep meanings. They form an integral part of the

multiple flows and networks of activities and energies

which constitute and sustain the space we call 'home' or

‘work’ and most importantly, its relevance to everyday

life and activity.

Henri Lefebvre (1992) warns against taking such kinds of

metaphors too seriously lest one abstracts too much from

properly comprehending the lived experience of things:

"Consider a house, and a street, for example. Thehouse has six storeys and an air of stability aboutit. One might see it as the epitome of immovability,with its concrete and its stark, cold and rigidoutlines . . . Now a critical analysis would

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doubtless destroy the appearance of solidity of thishouse, stripping it, as it were, of its concretewalls, which are glorified screens, and uncovering avery different picture . . . permeated from everydirection by streams of energy which run in and outof it by every imaginable route: water, gas,electricity, telephone lines, radio and televisionsignals, and so on. Its range of immobility wouldthen be replaced by an image of a complex ofmobilities, a nexus of in and out conduits . . . theoccupants of the house perceive, receive andmanipulate the energies which house itself consumeson a massive scale. Comparable observations, ofcourse, might be made apropos of the whole street, anetwork of ducts constituting a structure, having aglobal form, fulfilling functions, and so on . . .The error – or illusion – generated here consists inthe fact that, when social space is placed beyondour range of vision in this way, its practicalcharacter vanishes and it is transformed inphilosophical fashion into a kind of absolute. Inface of this fetishized abstraction, 'users'spontaneously turn themselves, their presence, their'lived experience' and their bodies intoabstractions too." (pp.92-93)

As social scientists or as market or consumer researchers

or as designers and creative managers we abstract systems

of living and social systems. We then we focus this

abstraction into a suitable construct and attempt to

match our products and services to suit.

To illustrate, when designing an object (e.g., anATM), we do not have to take into account the "wholeperson" (whatever that might be). But we do have totake care of the communicative/interactive needs of

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persons related to the specific situations far asthese are recognizable. What is the whole person?Those who can observe it from the outside, cannotobserve it from the inside, and those who canobserve it from the outside, cannot observe from theoutside. Everything else is, in my view, amisconceived and idealistic/romantic concept of"wholeness" which does not work. This means: don'tcater for individual people (they are inaccessibleanyway). Instead, care for their communicativepatterns of behavior. This should not be consideredas anti-humanistic, but as methodliv

The analysis of rational agency as a mapping from percept sequences to actions probably stemsultimately from the effort to identify rational behavior in the realm of economics and other formsof reasoning under uncertainty (covered in later chapters) and from the efforts of psychologicalbehaviorists such as Skinner (1953) to reduce the psychology of organisms strictly to input/outputor stimulus/response mappings. The advance from behaviorism to functionalism in psychology,which was at least partly driven by the application of the computer metaphor to agents (Putnam,1960; Lewis, 1966), introduced the internal state of the agent into the picture. The AI researcher and Nobel-prize-winning economist Herb Simon drew a clear distinctionbetween rationality under resource limitations (procedural rationality) and rationality as makingthe objectively rational choice (substantive rationality) (Simon, 1958).

In contrast, some software agents (or software robots or

softbots) exist in rich, unlimited domains.

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One regards systems as accepting inputs from their

environment and providing outputs to it. An

"input/output analysis" is a common tool to help with the

understanding of systems The so-called IPO-paradigm

(Input-Process-Output). This paradigm conveys a teleological

system definition, i.e. a definition that is concerned

with the function and the (external) behaviour of a

system, disconnected from its construction and operation.

The above is the position of the contextual usability

framework presented later. It considers meaningful facets

of a technology and service as communicative aspects

between designers and users, producers and consumers.

These are not strictly semiotic as these acts focus as

much on outcomes as they do upon technologies or users

themselves. This perspective on ICT in everyday life is

in continuity with research areas on domestication (Lie

and Sorensen, 1996; Silverstone, 1994), social

construction of technology (Bijker and Law, 1992;

Chambat, 1994) and research on ‘human agency’ (Loader,

1998; Wyatt et al., 2000), where the research focus is

the user and not the technology. But what is presented

here is a further distinction, I is a focus upon use, as

opposed to what is used (i.e product or service), or the

user (those that operate technologies or services towards

some goal).lv

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Although specific system definitions do not match, they

seem to agree on the fact that systems consists of

elements and relations. What these elements and relations

are, and how they are conceived differs from theory to

theory. While the social sciences emphasize behavioral

models and therefore the actors, their actions and their

motives for these actions, engineering focuses on the

physical elements and the (causal) relations between

these elements.

The ubiquity of technology

We have spoken earlier of the prevalence of pattern and

symbols but what of our technological environment. How

our everyday world is populated with devices and

machines? Everyday we act and interact with the natural

world, with materials and with each other through the

mediation of technology bound to intention, goals and

objectives. Technology both enables and constricts –

channels - how we act, interact and transact with each

other and other institutions. Thus, it realises, defies

or negotiates the fulfilment of intentions and

objectives, and as it does, it shapes behaviour, as well

as how we perceive technology, the world, ourselves, and

reflexively, our behaviour.

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What is relevant to the discussions raised in this book

is that designers explore or understand how they can

enable but do they in their training and practice

understand how they can constrict? Is it even possible in

their in their effort to enable to conceive of how they

themselves are constricted by forces beyond the material,

say by the multiplicity of internal and external social

and organisational influences that have interests in the

end product and its diffusion? It is here that a wider

recognition of commercial and development contexts and

environment may be useful. This will be especially true

when there are also attempts to consolidate social levels

with others addressing technologically mediated

motivations, interpretations, goals and aims.

Technology’s in all its myriad appearances - as

application interface, a chemical applied or a drug

ingested, or even the hard, physical manifestation of a

simple technological product like a cog – are always a

product and process of contextualising, all within in a

unique social continuum which highlights their relevance

and power to enable and drive revenues. This is

especially true in a management environment where

differentiation between product and service collapse,

global exchanges intensify in density and reach, and

premium is being placed on richer more pervasive

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communications and use of digital technologies and

networks.

The ‘impact’ of digital technologies and networks is a

well hackneyed path in the literature of many fields from

economics to human computer interaction studies. I am not

interested in it here. My preference here is to focus

more upon the ‘softer’ side of the human, social,

organisational is currently being conceptualised. Some of

this parodies technical networks but human social systems

and organisation imply decision and policy making,

knowledge generation and sharing, motivation and choice

Technology is designed and produced by firms who

specialise in improving their specifications and

performance. They are sold to, or used by, firms who wish

to capitalise upon these improvements and commercialise

the products (these include system integrators, retail

outlets and service providers).

Technologies then are used by individuals and groups who

have specific functions and purposes in mind. Building

technology was not enough. Office automation

practitioners needed to learn more about how people work

in groups and organizations and how technology affects

that

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.

The intersection between technology, business and user is

the space where technologies succeed or fail to satisfy

their intentional purpose. There are three, perhaps four

junctures of intentionality involved.

1. The intention to provide technology which cancompete on price and performance. The function hereis continual innovation of product and process.Example: Mobile phone exchanges.

2. The intention to sell technologies which compete onprice and performance, The aim here is to acquirecomponent products which can be sold competitivelyor may help lower costs of system integration,example: mobile phone exchange system integrators –

Commerce

TechnologyConsumer Users

Commercial enterprises realising technological potentials – technology realising commercial applications

Commercial enterprises

realising new market potentials – consumer users

realising new products and

services The space where technologies linked to goods functions and services succeed or fail – where everyone is happy and where balance between all stakeholders

Technology developers realising potentials of their

products via consumer user

understandings – consumer-users

realising technological capabilities

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those who install and build exchanges for and onbehalf of operators

3. Or the intention to integrate and utilisecommercially technologies which can improveorganisation efficiency and effectiveness. Here thecommercial enterprise is the user and it hasacquired technology in order to produce gains in itsown effectiveness and efficiency. Example: Mobilephone operator

4. The intention to quickly learn the use of technologyand to invoke quick assimilation into skills bases.Here we are speaking of the individual worker whomust learn of its operability. Example; mobile phoneexchange operators, billing, etc.

5. Or an end consumer who has bought a technology andintends that it will be a useful contribution toeveryday life and activities. Example’ mobile phoneuser

The various intersections illustrate interactions between

the various players’ or rather more specifically their

fundamental motivations for interaction. In a perfect

production world, designers and managers would know

precisely what to make to satisfy the market. The

illusion of this occurs when a firm operates as a

monopoly. When you are the only show in town, you can

confuse being sold out every night with successful

content. In a perfect business world, every technology

you purchase harmonises perfectly with your business

processes and immediately improves efficiency and

effectiveness. Or component you buy can be incorporated

into your own product considerably increasingly its

value-add. Or every technology you purchase you can sell

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on at greater profit. In a perfect user-consumer world

every product you acquire suits your needs, its features

and functions matching your ambitions perfectly, it is

easy to operate and learn, and is provided at a price

which seems fair.

Mobile phones cannot perform their main function on their

own, they need to be embedded in a network, using send-

and receive antennas, operators, cables, a billing

system, laws and regulations, agreements between cell-

phone builders and network providers, et cetera. the

massive use of SMS by the users of cell-phones was

something that was not anticipated by the

telecommunication companies. While the technology to do

so was available, a social (billing) agreement to deal

with this was not available and had to be designed based

on the behavior of the users. It could therefore be said

that the users played a role in redesigned the system.

ATMs are, or at least were initially, designed froma purely technical perspective. This is not amazingsince the people who designed and implemented ATMswere technicians. For at most ten years after theirintroduction, the banks that used these machines astheir new outlets, maintained a wrong mental pictureof them. Instead of keeping their ownresponsibilities, bank managers thought that theyshould blame the technicians for all problems theusers had in using the ATMs. Apparently, they didn’tconceive of an ATM as one of their business

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processes, only technically implemented. The core ofthe problem can very convincingly be revealed if onetakes the social stance.lvi

However, here are many more worlds that ft into the mix

of production and consumption, regulators, standards

organisations, consumer groups, legal entities, investors

and so forth. They also foster overlaps in a less than

perfect system of technology propagation and deployment.

Du Gay et al. (1996) have elaborated on earlier work by

Johnson in establishing a notion of a 'cultural circuit'.

This views the perpetuating and development of, and

subsequent diffusion of, both ideas and actual products

between various institutions and actors.lvii

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Representation

Identity

Production

Regulation

Consumption

Fig. 2.1 Du Gay et al's 'circuit of culture (after du Gay et al.,

1997)

For instance technology companies do not develop nor

develop products in a vacuum. They must appreciate both

the overall needs of commercial organisations and

business goals, whilst simultaneously keeping an eye upon

issues of usability and operability at the individual

level. Conversely, a single user has preferences for

certain mobile phone operators partially based on

technical issues (such as connectivity and reception).

Commercial entities have business models of how the

technology can be deployed or sold to drive revenues, but

they will also remain conscious of their market, and may

have a much more pervasive level of interaction with the

consumer-users of technological products. The

intersection between technology, business and user is the

much reduced interaction space or juncture where

technologies succeed or fail to satisfy their intentional

purpose. Information and communication technologies are

often built with configurability in mind so as to best

fit the needs and requirements of both business and

users.

These domains are never mutually exclusive. They

constantly jostle and reassert themselves against the

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pressures of new technological breakthroughs and

discontinuities. But they do so not driven, in a

technological determinist sense, by innovation in

technology, but also by wider social, economic and

cultural changes. For instance to what extent does the

rise of China as economic super powers rely on the power

of digital networks against social and economic reforms?

Technology remains at this time innate; it does not make

decisions or choices on how to innovate upon itself

structurally. The science fiction proposition of robot

managed factories that update, innovate and redesign

robots that recursively reinvent themselves all in a

closed autopoetic system are a long way off indeed. They

exist in some future alien environment bereft of the

alignments and lack of alignments which typify the human

endeavour and struggle to come to terms with the natural

environment, its own complex and contradictory human

nature and its own social creations – the institutions,

competitors, customers, stockholders which comprise their

operational contexts and environments.

Under the rubric of a ‘constituency’ or a ‘network’ or

‘environment’ there is value recognised in the mapping of

all elements that give rise to, and hinder development

and innovation, and then to employment, acquisition and

diffusion. This also links to the possession of, and

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development of, a divestiture of cognitive abilities and

knowledge spread across this universe of institutions and

the individuals that set the conditions for success or

failure. The very notion of success or failure here is

not confined only to commerciality; it can equally refer

to more diverse ideas such as popularity, ease of use, or

robust functioning, the inspiration for new product

classes, or even ability to become a ‘classic’.lviii

The unique configuration of cognitive abilities and

knowledge across this universe provide for a foundation

to the acts of design and of use and utility. Known or

foreseeable benefits or profitability of a technical

product is the motivation that equally drives design,

acquisition and consumption. It also drives competencies

and abilities to use regardless if we consider the

designer’s role or the technology’s adoption and use by a

firm or an individual consumer. It is always ‘lust for

result’ that acts as the intrinsic motivator to employing

technics towards achieving some aim or goal. In the

producers world ‘list for result’ is ‘drive profit’ in

the world of users, application and use it is to ‘have

effect’.

Other considerations

Many other considerations come into play when we build or

employ the use of technology. These include how it will be

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best employed and operated, and then retrospectives and

evaluations ex post of how it was or is actually came to be

employed and operated.lix Both designer/producers and

user/consumers are privy to this feedback loop. In the

first case the impetus is to create better products

cheaper, and in the second it is to find new products

with unique features that delight, or to find better

replacement products cheaper. Sometimes this learning is

explicit and sometimes tacit. Chris Argyris and Donald

Schön (1973) suggested that two theories of action are

involved. They are those theories that are implicit in

what we do as practitioners and managers, and those on

which we call to speak of our actions to others. The

former can be described as theories-in-use. The words we use

to convey what we, do or what we would like others to

think we do, can then be called espoused theory. If we

started with a clean slate, if we had no preconceived

notions about how TV, radio or the phone should be, we

would never design what we have today. VisiCalc was the

first spreadsheet package, and along with word

processors, tangible value for PCs was understood by

business people. Western society's epistemology of time

and space was changed dramatically by the diffusion of

the car; however, the notion of knowledge itself was

changed by electronic media.lx

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We must consider that there is always an anticipatory

component to how we view technology. This true if one is

speaking of a car, a complex biochemical process or a new

hand held portable media device. Strategically,

technologies anchor anticipations of outcomes. They

anchor an infinite universe of context and content by

their specifications, their features and functions, their

attributes and characteristics. As they anchor

perceptions so they cluster groups of people in efforts

to develop and produce and then to market and advertise.

Whether by a management committee considering retooling

their factory or producing a new technological product,

or a high-street shopper browsing new devices, prospects

offered by a technology drives a plethora of

considerations and thoughts, as well as dialogues and

debates. These anchor in most cases to its design - its

raison d’ etre. The successful technical product,

functionally, operationally and commercially also

clusters consumer-users. As it does so the conditions are

set for a richer understanding of how to improve product

and service indexed to the situating and use of the

product or service in its anticipated naturalised

environment. The expectation would be that, as in beta

software releases, that weaknesses and bugs would be

uncovered by a relatively large population of trialists.

These could be addressed in a statistical manner with

those weaknesses indemnified by the largest amount of

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users headlining the fix list of software engineers.

However, such practices while cost effective for firms to

test complex code do not serve to cover all potential

feedback regarding the look and feel, the experience, of

using a product. Other methods must be employed such as

focus groups and usability tests in order to uncover more

specific weaknesses or presumptions in the design.

Human purpose and industry

Regardless of form, technologies are born to express and

to serve industry and human purpose. Designers ‘act as

if’ their ideas of purpose are identical or similar to

that of anticipated users. Sometimes this is essential,

such as technologies providing safe water, sometimes it

is for more fickle reasons such as our craving for

entertainment. If it does not serve purpose, or is simply

viewed as not by relevant stakeholders, then it decays,

it falls away, becomes disused. Technology never arises

without index to human intention and design or to human

interpretation, society and organisation. Indeed,

operating only in concert with human motivations,

interests, agency, activities and needs can technology be

employed to create any conditions of perceivable and

experiential change. Our power to change technology

varies according to what kind of stakeholder we are

relevant to its development. But ability to change

technology, contribute to its innovation, lends us the

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view that changes in technology can lead to changes in

ourselves as individuals, the way we express ourselves

and communicate, as well as changes to organisation or

society.

"Interactive TV will transform the way we manage ourlives, the way we work, rest and play, the waybusinesses market and sell their services. It willchange the rules forever."lxi

But while it may have unintended consequences in

deployment, technology never has unintended function.lxii A

television show from my childhood intrigued me. Each week

it featured some long forgotten agricultural tool

originally created to perform a unique function - to

obviously improve upon existing practices and means of

doing something. People had to guess at this function and

as I recall they were often more wrong than right. It

was great entertainment hearing them, these were not

laypeople but to some degree or another agricultural

experts. They mused over possible uses and deployments.

Some were close while others were way off mark.

Every technical product—take the pocket calculator for

instance—incorporates functions which originally had been

personal abilities, knowledge and intentions. What has

been inside certain individual persons is externalized

and objectified in the technical system, and it is thus

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generalized beyond the individuals. This process of

transindividual generalization of value and behaviour

patterns is called institutionalization in sociology, and

hence, technical development has to be understood as

technical institutionalization. Institutions (in the abstract

meaning), on the other hand, channel and shape the

behaviour of the individuals, and integrate them into a

common culture, an effect which is called socialization

in sociology.(p.70)lxiii

This draws attention to the fact that technology, its

function and its interpretation are shared phenomena,

that is, social knowledge contingent on utility. Ropoh

(1999’p.70) goes on: “Utilizing technical products means

making use of alien abilities and knowledge, sometimes

even to be overwhelmed by alien goals, which may be

incorporated in the artefacts as well.

Function and utility is commonly viewed as something

objective, something that belongs to a thing. But David

Pye (1964) urges us to consider that when people speak of

‘function’ all you get from them is: “talk about the

purpose of the thing” which is a statement of opinion:

“and can never be anything else” (p.8)lxiv People share

views of objects, utility or function or they do not. This

is where the genesis of new markets occurs or does not.

Consumer-users self organise around various functions and

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features, similar to what Stewart has referred to as

“poles of attraction” lxv these are key technologies or

technological concepts which align industries and other

technologies. This is similar in actor-network theory

Artefacts, then, constitute the social glue between

humans. What makes humans “human” are material entities,

and what makes the social “social” are nonhuman entities.

The social is constituted by ‘hybrid’ networks, or sets

of relationships created among people through the use of

artefacts. Without these artefacts, the relationships

could not be established/maintained.

Indeed in certain cases objects, can be matters of

disputed use and utility – a clear case here being nuclear

power. If it is not subject in part to the laws of common

sense then the use and utility of an object or tool is

lost on us. If a technology evolves or is replaced

through time and the knowledge of its use and function

becomes redundant, not past on, it becomes an anomaly.

You cannot look at it and intuitively imagine function.

Nor can you simply go to, or have knowledge only of its

operating environment and ‘work it out’. Nor is it due to

the difficulties of eliciting tacit knowledge simply a

case of asking. Common to craft tools, the secret of its

use was in its use – in the practice of use, the culture

of use and crafting of use, the activity of use, and the

interaction effects. Each provided for learning loops of

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various dimensions and complexities over time frames

which consolidated this use.

The perplexities of these ‘lost’ technologies are true

for laypeople apprehending the control panel for a

nuclear power station, or that found in the cockpit of

jet liner. A layman has no idea of what certain dials and

switches do. They need substantial training in order to

interpret them to allow monitoring and training in how to

adjust them towards desirable or favourable or even safe

outcomes. Whilst sounding like a parody of distopic

science fiction in the vein of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,

this is increasingly the act of labour in the information

age. The function, the understanding of use has been

codified, abstracted or even improved upon in subsequent

designs.lxvi New technical systems are also put to work

alongside old technologies, and new functions improve

upon or augment old functions.

How often do we know what something ‘does’ but we may not

know how it ‘does it’? People drive cars to work everyday,

or switch on the light knowing what they do without fully

understanding the principles of the internal combustion

engine or the generation and distribution of electricity.

A similar theme is picked up in the literature on the

strategic management of innovation in technology.

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Huntington and Maidique (1979) for instance raise the

question of just how much technical knowledge is needed

for one to become a technical manager.lxvii Even if we know

what technologies do we may, as users or managers, not

are able to employ them ‘right’. We may fail to realise

and understand the clues if any, regarding the

motivations of design and production. We may not realise

its value or market, or we can fail to organize its use

‘properly’. What I am alluding to here is; can the

contexts of use be adequately captured to inform the

contexts of design and production? What are the benefits,

if any, of such a venture?

Singularity of vision

It is a rare occasion indeed when merely the visions,

projections, perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs of

individual people – mental phenomena and their reporting

influences the success or failure, adoption and non-

adoption of technologies in homes, workplaces, factories

and in marketplaces. The most powerful product champion

and Sunday supplement technical editor are still limited

in their influence to sway opinions.

Mental phenomena such as beliefs are, after all,

cognitive constructs that rest upon one’s experiences,

background and cultural dispositions. In technology it

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can be even more specifically based upon working

experiences on a certain machine or performing a

particular task. That is, what we think of a technology

is itself a product of information, rules and codes that

lie beyond our individual development. It is a product

developed through formal and informal social interactions

which happen within our firms, organisations, cultures

and communities. Education, apprenticeship and working

experience contribute to forming examples of these ‘ways

of seeing’. But they can also be the ephemeral and

fickle, but nevertheless pervasive influences, of our

changing fashions and tastes.

But economies of scale are never driven by a single

persons’ endorsement, but only when a mass of people come

to cohesively recognise the benefits of using and come to

be identified as a ‘market’.lxviii The promise of a mass

market is a sure driver of development activity.

Important to note however is that the primary purpose of

design for the market is creating products for sale.

Conversely, the foremost intent of social design is the

satisfaction of human needs. lxix

Not only does the content and manner of people’s thought

and thinking share traits, technologies, successful

technologies, are largely social phenomena and cultural

artefacts, where there is a general societal acceptance of

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their use and utility whether we use them directly or

not. They are part of the everyday quotidian landscape.

But unitary singular meanings can be disputed by groups.

Consider that conceptually most of us would recognise the

articulated lorry on the road is performing the function

of shifting goods to supermarkets. But acting in a more

immediate fashion we are of the opinion that they are a

nuisance to the roads as I am in a hurry and I can’t get

passed them. Albert Pacey showed quite clearly the

alternative relevance of the Snowmobile between Eskimos

utilising them for their everyday hunting and that of

other groups using them for recreation. The recognition

and widespread acceptance of technologies, their use and

utility, remain largely matters of social and cultural

construction which can defy or deny the intentions of

designers and producers. Technologies are now understood

to be themselves privy to a complex of influences in

their design and shared (negotiated or disputed) meanings

in their adoption and use. What Paul Dourish calls

‘embodiment’;

“When I talk of “embodied interaction”, I mean that interaction is an embodied phenomenon. It happens inthe world, and that world (a physical world and a social world) lends form, substance and meaning to the interaction. Like the example of a conversation,interaction is embodied not merely in the fact that there is phys-ical contact between real fingers and a solid, three dimensional mouse; it is embodied in

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the sense that its occasion within a setting and a set of specific circumstances gives it meaning and value. By implication, it loses both if removed fromthose circumstances again.” lxx

Technology as a cognitive product, is perhaps best

realised when it is described as; “knowledge related to

some physical object,” or “the socially conditioned

knowledge of the use of an object or tool,” (Howells,

1991; p16)lxxi A Robinson Crusoe character marooned on a

dessert Island is constrained in what he can build, not

only by availability of material in the natural

environment. He is constrained by what tools if any, he

has to hand, and how to go around doing what is necessary

to achieve satisfaction of his needs (techniques -

socially conditioned knowledge of use). He is further

constrained by socially conditioned knowledge of what it

is he needs, what he must look for, and what he can

substitute for the known qualities of a tool or material

not to hand (i.e. to cut wood he must find a sharp stone,

hard enough, like an axe to do the job). Even if he

‘learns’ to do something it likely derives from socially

conditioned knowledge and basic pedagogy as much as it is

a response to environmental conditions. Even if we build

something ‘alone’ using ‘ingenuity’, we call upon a wide

range of socially acquired and developed knowledge some

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of which is explicit and some of which is not (Brown,

Collins and Duguid, 2001)lxxii.

The embodiment of intention and the social in technology

Individual perspectives inform product and process

innovation and development, and their acceptance as

useful and worthy of investment, but they cannot

guarantee their success as commercial entities as they

diffuse into the public domain.lxxiii All too often

‘acceptance’ in this context is part of a complex socio-

cultural process such as that granted by a committee, or

a management team, or even a family living together in a

household considering the pros and cons of broadband. In

industry CEOs or senior government figures responsible

for innovation are counselled by a multitude of advisors

before making crucial decisions. This is why

technological diffusion can always be treated as matters

of social learning. Learning can also be social:

A social system learns whenever it acquires newcapacity for behaviour, and learning may take theform of undirected interaction between systems…[G]overnment as a learning system carries with itthe idea of public learning, a special way ofacquiring new capacity for behaviour in whichgovernment learns for the society as a whole. Inpublic learning, government undertakes a continuing,directed inquiry into the nature, causes andresolution of our problems.

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This is not only the concern of social scientists. Kolb

and Fry’s four stages in their model of experiential

learning apply both to a model of research methods and to

the use of technologies. When we begin to use a

technology the concrete reality of its functions and

features open up new possibilities (as well as close

others – as no technology does ‘everything’). Our

apprehension of the experience of using and its relevance

to purpose and goal help shape our more general

cognitions of the product – its usefulness to us, and its

value. This in turn shapes our perceptions of how the

device or product will suit different circumstances and

situations – and so will shape usage patterns (frequency

and periodicity of use) and will condition our response

to good or bad usability.

Other disciplines such as human computer interactions

studies have similar concerns regarding the ‘fit’ between

technological potentials and human aims and objectives:

A computer system does not itself elucidate themotivations that initiated its design, the userrequirements it was intend to address, thediscussion, debates and negotiations that determinedits organization, the reasons for its particularfeatures, the reasons against features it does nothave. The weighing of tradeoffs, and so forth. Suchinformation can be critical to the variety ofstakeholders in a design process: customers,services and marketers, as well as designers, whowant to build upon the system and the idea it

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embodies. This information comprises the designrationale of the system. (Carroll, 1997: p.509-510)

Earlier John Carroll (in Carroll and Ronson, 1991) had

developed an approach that considers systems to be

“embodied” social and behavioural claims about the needs,

abilities, and activities of their users; their rationale

seeks to articulate the social and behavioural theory

implicit in a design. They see a programming environment

as embodying a range of claims about what the programmers

know, what they do and what they experience and about the

nature of programming tasks and the contexts within which

these tasks are carried out.

Of all the potential technical products that could exist

in the world today, only those who have came to a more

general level of employment of use are those deemed as

‘successful’. They are sustainable and persistent and

they create business. The classic examples are

automobiles, televisions and mobile phones. Once novel

and new to the world they are now the familiar objects

populating the very fabric of everyday existence.

The hard aspects of technologies and their component

parts and functions appear to evolve, pushed forward by

the commercialisation of scientific breakthroughs or the

momentum of firms acting competitively (Howells, 1991).

Successive generations of cars, audio-visual formats and

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units, and new mobile phone designs with enhanced

features and functions appear to the high street shopper

as if by magic in showrooms and on shop shelves. More

than social or cognitive products, technologies are also

comprised of hard, physical components, mechanisms, and

discrete devices subject to the laws of engineering

physics. Nevertheless, knowledge of these laws and their

application are essential ingredients to the new product

development mix. They must be translated into feature and

function with expertise.

Innovation on look, feature and function do seem to

follow lineages, and it is only so often does more

radical changes come in function and format (such as VCRs

replaced by DVDs, or digital television replacing

analogue). This is due to limitations upon technical

choices and apparent irreversibility along certain

trajectories of development (Rosenberg, 1994;

Collingridge, 1992, and Callon, 1993).lxxiv Rosenberg

(1994) sees that the frameworks which are developed by

major innovations constitutes the initiation of path-

dependent activities which extend over decades, and by

which later developments cannot be understood except as

part of an historical sequence;

“. . . there is always a huge overhang oftechnological inheritance which exercises a powerfulinfluence upon present and future technological

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possibilities. Much technological progress at anygiven time, therefore, has to be understood as theattempt to extend and further exploit certaintrajectories of improvement that are made possibleby the existing stock of technological knowledge.There are continuities of potential improvementsthat are generally well understood by engineers andproduct designers. Expert knowledge of the workingof the vacuum tube did not provide an adequate basisfor a “discontinuous leap” to the transistor.However, once the transistor was invented, itcreated a set of opportunities for furtherimprovement by pursuing a trajectory ofminiturization of components (including integratedcircuitry) which has occupied the attention oftechnical personnel for nearly half a century.”(p.16).

The technological regimes put forward by Nelson and

Winter (1977) also allude to a somewhat autonomous vision

of gradual and incremental developments, rather than all

out innovatory activity, as they see technology

developing along a “natural trajectory.”

Such funnelling of innovation is to do with capabilities

and constraints upon knowledge and expertise, and it is

to do with the technical capabilities of the firm (cost

of re-tooling etc.). It is also to do with related

product, services and service offerings which create an

infrastructure or ‘constituency’ of supportive and

interdependent products, services and knowledge-based

environments in which the product situates. Two key

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themes arise out of Donald Schön’s discussion of learning

systems: the emergence of functional systems as the units

around which institutions define themselves; and the

decline of centre-periphery models of institutional

activity (ibid.: 168). He contrasts classical models of

diffusing innovation with a learning system model.

Classical models for the

diffusion of innovations

Learning systems’ models

around the diffusion of

innovationThe unit of innovation is

a product or technique.

The unit of innovation is

a functional system.The pattern of diffusion

is centre-periphery.

The pattern of diffusion

is systems transformation.Relatively fixed centre

and leadership.

Shifting centre, ad hoc

leadership.Relatively stable message;

pattern of replication of

a central message.

Evolving message; family

resemblance of messages.

Scope limited by resource

and energy at the centre

and by capacity of

‘spokes’.

Scope limited by

infrastructure technology.

‘Feedback’ loop moves from

secondary to primary

centre and back to all

secondary centres.

‘Feedback’ loops operate

local and universally

throughout the systems

network.

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In this we can see the significance of networks,

flexibility, feedback and organizational transformation.

At the same time we have to recognize that the ‘ways of

knowing’ offered by the dominant rational/experimental

model are severely limited in situations of social

change.

A case in hand here is television shifting from analogue

to digital formats. This requires considerable alteration

not only in the functioning and make-up of the technology

itself (i.e. television sets), but in all its supporting

infrastructures (i.e. broadcasting technology and content

production). The same is true if new environmental laws

dictate that automobiles shift from internal combustion

modes of power to electric (electric cars with electric

charging stations); or that mobile phones shift to

accommodate ever-more impressive multimedia capabilities

(such as that offered by 3G technology).

Technology today is not only hardware, software is

increasingly important as microprocessors populate ever

more everyday objects. Other forms of digitally enabled

engineering tools such as computer aided design

applications (CAD) key roles in the design and production

of new products. Since many designs never reach physical

formation until manufacturing and production places

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increased emphasis upon cognitive skills and tools.

Technology, in every instance, whether in software

production, design, consumption and use represents

interaction with facets of socio-cognitive and socio-

cultural continuums the (Silverstone, 1996). Education,

apprenticeship, invention, crafting, innovation,

development, design, manufacturing, management,

marketing, selling, distribution, buying, all rest upon

wider social contingencies and trends in learning and

human communication. A view of learning as a social

phenomenon brings us to what Woolgar (1991) suggests when

he offers a definition of technology as ‘congealed social

relations’. Utilising this concept, he emphasises the

primacy of social attributes in technology production and

use. He is not alone. Much of the social studies of

technology field and that of the management of technology

and innovation places a renewed emphasises upon the

social and political dimensions of technology production,

adoption and use (see for instance Williams and Edge,

1996 in their review of the STS field). Social

constructivist studies of technology (for instance

Bijker, 1995) places emphasis on a combination of

historical and sociological perspectives (with

“infusions” from economics and philosophy) for

understanding the exigencies of the innovation of

technologies. He further stresses that: “. . . one should

never take the meaning of a technical artefact or

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technological system as "residing in the technology

itself." Instead, one must study how technologies are

shaped and acquire their meanings in the heterogeneity of

social interactions.” However, reifying 'technology'

involves treating it as if it were a single material

thing with a homogeneous, undifferentiated character.

This notion can be seen as a kind of 'essentialism'. As

mentioned earlier in many sociological accounts of

technology, the word 'technology' is variously used to

refer to tools, instruments, machines, organisations,

media, methods, techniques and systems. And as Jonathan

Benthall notes, 'virtually any one of a wide range of

technical innovations can stand symbolically for the

whole of technology . . . The symbolic field of

technologies is interconnected' (Benthall 1976, p. 22).

There is a co-shaping of social and cognitive

contingencies and that of technology. Particular

organisations of features and functions call for the

development of expertise and knowledge. Particular

organisations of expertise call for particular technical

resources. Similarly particular organisations of

technologies, in systems and networks can call for the

reorganisation of human activities and other resources.

Since the work of the Tavistock Institute’s

groundbreaking studies of the UK coalmining industry

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organisations have been classified as two mutually

exclusive open systems – A social system of individual

skills, needs, and interpersonal relations and a

technological system of machines, tools, and production

processes. The interlinking of these systems, with

sympathetic changes to both, is what lays the ground for

organisational effectiveness and efficiency, and lays the

grounds for product and process innovation efforts.

Technologies are typically a product of a wide-ranging

multitude of social contingencies as they come to influence

reorganisation of human activities and perceptions

towards meeting some goal or aim. They are so in every

way as much as they are a legacy of how things came to be

done before, how previous versions or models were built,

or how things used to operate. Managers can learn of

this reorganisation and, if they can, innovate to suit in

terms of accommodating and optimising against information

flows such as ‘user needs and requirements’ and matters

of purely technical decision making. In the case of the

sociotechnical systems work it suggests how the

introduction of new technology along with organisational

slack, the creation of self-directed work teams led to

more effectiveness and efficiency in the work process.

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Chapter 2 – Multiplicity - views of things

The Blind Men and the Elephant“It was six men of IndostanTo learning much inclined,Who went to see the Elephant(Though all of them were blind),That each by observationMight satisfy his mind”John Godfrey Saxe's (1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend.

But as Ulrich Neisser indicated in Cognition and reality (1976)

we do not perceive things in themselves – i.e. pure

stimulus - but the meaning things have for us. Meanings

are attributed to things by a range of individuals and

institutions, and so they are conditioned by a complex of

influences including the symbolic attributes of the

product group (i.e. the status attributed to certain

models of cars or watches). These symbolic elements are

afforded sense through the propagation of myths - utopian

or dystopian discourses, marketing and PR, and moral

panics (via marketing and/or press reports). These always

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accompany products in their diffusion through to

consumption and use. Further, there are the tensions and

resolutions regarding how these situate within the pre-

existing networks of social and technical relations and

use functions within the household, as well as lives,

lifestyles and everyday practices of potential consumer-

users.

As Schostak (1993) puts so vividly:

“The world is an imaginary construct formed out ofthe multiple presentations circulated by family,school, church, media, workplace and so on. Itextends beyond our reach; it is populated bybillions we will never meet. Yet we grasp it inimagination and we say we know it exists, that it isreal, that indeed, we know the ways of the world.However, our knowledge of the world is second-,third- fourth- hand at best.” (p.229)

Most things in the world carry a multiplicity of

meanings. What things mean depends on who we are and why

we are considering them. The Weltanschauung or world-view

concept is an important concept in systems work and the

study of human activity systems including design.

each person interprets the world in terms of aunique and dynamic set of experiential influencesand biases

dynamic set of attitudes, beliefs, values,assumptions, motivations and opinions on how theworld functions

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individual and group weltanschauung will affecttheir understanding of, and actions relating to,organizations and changes being made to them

Indeed, Sergent (1998) sees design is the “accommodation

of incommensurate world-views.” Each world-view or

lifeworld can be simplistically thought of as a set of

design spaces (search spaces or problem spaces) and one

type of creative action corresponds to creating new

design spaces that make an accommodation between these

world-views.

“The use and meaning of information andcommunication technologies in the home . . . canonly be understood within the class, gendered,geographical and generation context of itsconsumption.” McKay (1995) p.47)

This is the basic realm of study tackled by semiotics. As

MacKay (1995) notes;

“Design and development processes may encodepreferred forms of deployment in a technology (viaits technical possibilities), which are reinforcedthrough marketing. It is in this semiological sensethat one might propose that a technology is a formof text.” (MacKay, 1995; p.45)

For instance, we can consider the PC as a product, a

tool, as a means of entertainment, a communication

device, or as a system of discrete devices.

Incommensurate views should not be viewed necessarily as

detrimental. Goodenough (1994) has suggested that it is

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activity which binds people together and creates the

conditions for such logics;

“People who interact with one another regularly in agiven kind of activity need to share sufficientunderstanding of how to do it and communicate withone another, doing it so that they can work togetherto their satisfaction. All they need to share, infact, is whatever will enable them to do that . . .the cultural makeup of a society should not be seenas a monolithic entity determining the behavior ofits members, but as a melange of understandings andexpectations regarding a variety of activities thatserve as guides to their conduct andinterpretation.” (1994, p. 266 -267)

Proctor and Williams (1994: p.4) speaking of the design

of computer – supported co-operative work systems, put

this down simply to the fact that “end-users and

designers don’t inhabit the same environment and share a

common practice.” Its acceptance in the public domain

outside of the workshop, development lab or factory can

be viewed as a: “a negotiation of the intent of the

designer and manufacturer and the expectations of

communities of use. The product is, in Buchanan’s view “

. . . a mediating middle between two complex interests,

and the processes of new product development are

explicitly the negotiation between those interests.”

(p.12)

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We can more abstractly consider a PC as a set of direct

and indirect social relations between the manufacturers

of its various components (as suggested in the Woolgar

perspective). The same is true for many other man-made

structures. For instance a house is so many bricks, a

home, an investment, a retreat, desirable, a prison, a

design, an idea, an address, an institution and so on -

definition depends upon interest. Even an individual has

multiple roles within the conductance of their life where

they may be father, brother, adversary, friend,

confidante, manager, worker, co-worker, team member,

user, consumer, a colleague, a mentor, a CEO etc. A

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single human being can be each and any of these depending

on which other individual, party or social group

considers.

In the wider world of society, commerce and business

perceptions and beliefs regarding either technology

and/or people can make significant contributions as they

translate into policy, projects, standard operating

procedures, and recommendations (Wheelen and Hunger,

2001). They do so as they circulate within the public

domain, in shops, in universities, in magazines,

newspapers, and books and in the halls and offices where

policy-makers, decision-makers and regulators reside. In

a classic example from 1879, Sir William Preece, the then

chief engineer of the Post Office, was very guarded

regarding the potentials of telephony:

"I fancy descriptions we get of its use in Americaare a little exaggerated, though there areconditions in America which necessitate the use ofsuch instruments more than here. Here we have asuperabundance of messengers, errand boys and thingsof that kind . . . the absence of servants hascompelled Americans to adopt communication systemsfor domestic purposes. Few have worked at thetelephone much more than I have. I have a telephonein my office, but more for show. If I want to send amessage - I use a sounder or employ a boy to takeit." (Preece, quoted in Dilts, 1941: p.11)

Contrast this with a vision of Alexander Graham Bell from

roughly the same period:

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"At the present time we have a perfect network ofgas pipes and water pipes throughout our largecities. We have main pipes laid under the streetscommunicating by side pipes with various dwellings,enabling members to draw their supplies of gas andwater from a common source. In a similar manner, itis conceivable that cables of telephone wires couldbe laid underground, or suspended over head,communicating by branch wires with privatedwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories,etc, etc. uniting them through the main cable withcentral office where the wires could be connected asdesired, establishing direct communication betweenany two places in the city. Such a plan as this,through impractical at the present moment, I firmlybelieve, would be the outcome of the introduction ofthe telephone to the public. Not only so, but Ibelieve, in the future, wires will unite the headoffices of the Telephone company in differentcities, and a man in one part of the country maycommunicate by word of mouth with another in adifferent place." (Quoted in Winston, 1986: p.338)

Both men refer to the same technology, but many things

distinguish the vision of Bell with the evaluation of

Preece's. Preece performs a kind of substitution and

calculus of function. It is a culturally biased view of

technology, where he considers that the social exigencies

of the UK negate needs for its propensities. For

instance, one's ability to draw labour from a

'superabundance' of human servants negates need for any

technical solution or ‘fix’ to a human communication

need.lxxv In many senses, it is as much a commentary on

class relations and social status in the late 19th

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century UK as it is on technical function and utility.

One must wash clothes by hand, for instance, if they

cannot afford to pay someone to do this for them or they

cannot pay for a washing machine. Preece’s vision may

also hint at institutional interests – i.e. the threat of

the telephone towards the human conveyance of written

messages (which were, after all, the mainstay of the

business of postal services at that time).

With all the benefits of hindsight, we know that Preece

missed what is perhaps the most striking aspect of Bell’s

vision. Bell highlights the most prevalent feature of

telephony, when he describes abilities to communicate in

real time, naturally, that is word of mouth, over

considerable distance to many people.lxxvi Moreover, he

emphasises the network and connection or connectivity as the

real distinguishing features, beyond simply ‘what it

does’ or ‘what it replaces’.

Difficulties in forecasting

Sometimes it is simply not possible to predict outcomes

at all. Potter (1969; p38) states that: “The ‘goodness’

or ‘rightness’ of a design cannot easily be estimated

outside a knowledge of its purpose, and sometimes also of

its circumstantial background.” Cooper and Press (1997;

p.43) further suggest that design has a “diverse and

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changing role as an activity or process that links the

realm of technology, production and economy with that of

consumption culture and ideology.”

The global economy is an increasing service economy. If

one is not a knowledge worker, then one works to service

the knowledge worker. Technical solutions have made many

forms of labour seem quite distant from providing for the

lower echelons of Abraham Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of

needs.lxxvii Nevertheless, it remains a truism that the

design of many products, if not all products, involves a

wide complex of social activities, perceptions and

anticipations, as well as needs and requirements. They

combine in complexes to inform shape, purpose and

function – and success as commercial entities.

This vision articulated through various types of rhetoric

advocates and helps to lobby new product ideas within the

firm to senior management. They are similar to the

'pitch' that promotes the new idea to outside agencies

such as venture capitalists and other funders. They also

bear relation to proposals to regulators and standards

authorities, and to potential partners (i.e. Schneider,

1991)lxxviii.

In addition, is also the ‘look’ of a product, its

physical appearance, and also the ‘look’ of the people

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depicted in promotional material and product

advertisements. Advertisements create and foster

impressions of use and value to the public; they suggest

context, they highlight purpose. Opening the casing of a

PC presents archaeology of different manufacturers’

products. These manufacturers have clearly communicated

with each other, at least by accepting and adhering to

certain technical specifications and standards that

permit interoperability.

Each of these examples indicates communications beyond

any simple, direct and consorted addressing of basic

human needs. Moreover, they definitely disavow any notion

of a single common interest necessarily existing between

parties, presenting, instead, the prospects of a

multiplicity of perceptions regarding a single technical

product as it diffuses through the firm and into the

public domain.lxxix Some of these are aligned (i.e.

adherence to standards), some which may not be (i.e. a

technology being used for a different purpose other than

that depicted in advertisements). What we have left is

innovation as a contradictory and uncertain process:

“ . . . not just a rational-technical `problem-solving' process; it also involves `economic andpolitical' processes in building alliances ofinterests (amongst, for example, supplier firms,technologists, potential users, funding bodies

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regulators) with the necessary resources andtechnical expertise, around certain concepts orvisions of as yet unrealised technologies.” (Willamsand Edge, 1996; p. 866)lxxx

As much as technologies are typically social products,

that is products that comply (or do not) with social,

group and individual needs, they also influence social

practices, practicalities, organisation and

possibilities. They reorganise existing practices,

activities and perceptions (Pacey,. Mapping the

multiplicity of perceptions in an age of ‘information

intensive’ products is critical for organisational

learning and governmental policy-making.

Changing perceptions

Perceptions and interests are never static features they

are dynamic and they evolve. Emily Dikenson suggested

that she “dwelled in possibilities” and certainly, we

have an infinite range of interaction possibilities

available to us at every moment in time. However, we do

not neither see nor take advantage of these possibilities.

Habits, routines and various kinds of social structuring

act to limit cognitions and behaviours. Although reality

always exists in a present, the telos of this reality is to

be found in the future, the future is a factor, perhaps

the main factor, in directing our conduct. It is the

nature of intelligent conduct to be future-directed

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(Mead, 1936). Fundamentally, human action is always

action directed toward a future. The past does not

determine (although it can and does condition) human

conduct; it is human conduct which then recursively

determines the past. Visions, associations and

perceptions - mental phenomena – rightfully or

wrongfully, motivate or mitigate, help or hinder

innovation. Technology, when considered as ‘congealed

social relations’, contrasts with human thoughts, beliefs

and perceptions. These certainly seem more ‘uncongealed’.

They are more fleeting, fickle and mutable, open to

change, fashions, trends – their gestalts dependent on

environment, context, and political and other kinds of

ideology.

Nevertheless, common sense dictates a notion of such flux

is only partially true. Structures of thought and

behaviour, like our technologies and buildings show

persistent qualities. They do so as they are conditioned

culturally, and most definitely, socially (as in the

construction of laws and regulatory policy). It is easy

in hindsight to criticise Preece's failure to appraise

the potential of the telephone, and this is a common

occurrence in the history of innovation.lxxxi We look back

and are amused at their apparent ‘lack of vision’. But

appraisals such as his are an index of not only his

personal experience and knowledge, but of his socially

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ascribed position, his social status, his social milieu

(including advisors) and political climate at the time.

However, and perhaps most importantly, Preece had himself

considerable political clout, and this led to a hiatus in

the technology becoming adopted and implemented in the

UK.

Bell's visions of the telephone came to be realised. This

century, along with plumbing and electric mains,

telephone networks pervade, link and informate businesses

and homes. Mobile data and telephony networks join land-

based networks of twisted pair and fibre optic cable to

add additional layers of communications network. A

buzzword is the 'local loop' – Local Area Networks (LANs)

– for the home, each room wired with fibre optic cable or

equipped with wireless LAN (Wi-Fi). Another standard is

Bluetooth, which extends the functionality of infrared

devices aimed at connecting various devices such as

mobile phones and printers. The new imperative is to

enabling entire suites of intelligent and networked

devices to work together in concert. It is also possible

to link their functioning in ever more relevant ways to

the outside world (such as telematic control over

domestic functioning or fault self-reporting of

electronic products). As technical possibilities for

connection and connectivity proliferate, firms are

increasingly keen to realise desirable new possibilities

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in services that can utilise and capitalise upon this

potential.

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Chapter 3 - Technology systems

Many independent technologies only achieve their

potentials to fulfil needs when they connect to a larger

network of components, services and utilities. Most

obvious are digital and analogue television and radio,

Internet enabled PCs and hand-held devices, mobile and

land based telephony. Reiterating the earlier point that

many mediatechnologies also come to have meanings only

when they are “plugged in an infrastructure of ongoing

social relations.” (Tuomi, 2003; p.8)lxxxii This emphasises

that telephony and television are invariably social in

nature, not only in the production of technology and

content development, but in use and how they organise

information and communication between users. Weick (1990)

also points out that most discrete technologies are

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usually in fact technological systems; combinations or suites

of technologies coupled together into a whole.

Technologies can be said to contain hardware parts - the

machines and tools - and software parts - the knowledge that

built them, and that expertise which is required to use

them (Rogers, 1995). The knowledge involved in technology

may be formal – that is laid down in heuristics - or tacit

– in the sense that action is governed more by intuitions

developed through constant exposure to particular

problems (Polyani, 1962, 1966; Dosi, 1988). This suggests

also one way on which technology, and technological

development helps anchor perceptions and thought. It also

sets the tracks along which technologies can evolve.

Technological trajectories bind and focus development

effort at various social levels. The technology strategy

of firms is rooted in the evolution of its technical

capabilities, themselves a product and legacy of broader

trends (Burgelmann et al, 2001)lxxxiii.

My object in this chapter is to outline something of the

recent thinking regarding how we can conceive of the whole in

processes of technological and service development and

innovation. 'Conceiving of the whole' has been the

prerogative of general systems theory (GST) and related

disciplines. With respect to technological development,

this means accounting for cognitive, social, symbolic and

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technical elements that combine or mesh to produce

usable, manageable technical system and its technologies.

Moreover, it considers how both social and technical

elements interrelate. It examines the merits and

shortcomings of two particular approaches to this problem

– actor-network theory (ANT) and sociotechnical constituencies and

considers the applicability of these approaches to

mapping the 'big picture' of the case study presented

later.

The present study came first to accommodate a view that

both traditional broadcast and interactive forms of

television required a modified or expanded view of

usability as a defining quality of their operation.

A second very distinctive strand of development within

the study in this book was a shifting of focus from a pre-

occupation with users (i.e. their reporting on their

experiential aspects of the system), to one which

considered a deeper question. How is ‘user research’ situated

within the wider social continuum of the trial? More specifically,

this concerned the organisational and knowledge

generating aspect of technology and marketing trials in

general. Little direct work has been done on this

subject, and the literature drawn upon to help with this

aspect of the study is relatively recent. It does

however, have direct and indirect roots within a systems

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theory perspective. As such, these approaches form the

main impetus of this book.

The case outlined later – The Cambridge trial - was a

formidable social and technical undertaking especially

when viewed from an innovation or organisational

perspective. Indeed, considerable effort was placed on

engineering the social aspects of the trial.lxxxiv While the trial

was clearly driven by a range of opportunities, fuelled

by a succession of strong and often flamboyant beliefs

and visions, the governance and organisation of the trial

and technology evolved. It did so subject to the

succession of unforeseen internal and external stresses

and influences – commercial, technical, organisational

etc. – influences which in the business world continually

plague and hamper intentions, plans and anticipations.

Since the pioneering work of Lucy Suchman in the 1980s

(i.e. Suchman, 1983, 1988, 1991, 1992), the design,

innovation and diffusion of many technological systems

have come under a wider scrutiny as subjects which are

sensitive to the situations and conditions of use.

"Situated action is an emergent property of moment-by-

moment interactions between actors and between actors and

the environments of their actions." (1988: p.179). She

also stressed the contrast and disparity between rationalist

plans and situated action, as well as the role of language

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in constituting human interpretation of situations (which

she shares with Berger and Luckman, 1966; Winograd and

Flores, 1988 and others who take a more interpretist and

constructivist slant on inquiry). What people plan and

what subsequently comes to pass are often two different

things. This is the bane of strategic management.

To affect proper design, many systems simply cannot

ignore depth understanding and sensitivity towards local

knowledge and experience on behalf of developers. Nor can

they ignore social contingency that demands a closer

collaboration process between those who produce products

and those that use and consume them.lxxxv The value of a

service or product, and the proper establishment of their

consumption and use can only be properly realised, indeed

comprehended, by their deployment into the environments

and conditions of their operation, consumption and

appropriation. This includes the home as well as the

workspace, or with the rise of mobile communications, it

means in practice ‘anyplace’.lxxxvi

This is why many companies while still relying upon

environmental scanning and more traditional modes of

understanding their business contexts are employing a

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more experiential, ‘learning by doing’ attitude to new

product development.

A ‘learning by doing’ attitude prevailed in the present

study itself. The study was shaped by the action of

conducting the research (in a 'grounded theory' style of

approach, i.e. Glaser and Strauss, 1967).

The trial's evolution itself influenced and shaped the

present study, most obviously with respect to access to

the trialists. Who could speak to them, what could or

would be asked, as well as where and when they would be

asked, were each originally the sole prerogative of Om.

However, it eventually came under the jurisdiction of a

working group responsible for all marketing and user

research issues within the trial. This was a group

comprising of representatives from the consortium

producing content and services, or wished to explore the

new channel for interfacing with consumers. Each belonged

to quite distinctive, but in many ways, complementary,

industry sectors. Each also had quite specific interests

in both the processes and outcomes of the user research.

They had quite different, at times conflicting views, of

the ‘user’ or ‘consumer’, often due to differences in

corporate cultures or ways in which the firms perceived

people - customers, viewers, subjects etc.

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The different perceptions of the notion of 'user' or

'consumer' led to competing or conflicting interests not

just in what should be investigated, but how it should be

investigated. There emerged very different and specific

requirements regarding critical issues in research. For

instance concerning the confidentiality of material gathered

from the trialists, or the occasions when one could

legitimately contact them for the purposes of questioning.

Other factors quite apart from social considerations

prompted continual iteration and revision to the

originally proposed research. Chief amongst these was the

status of the technological system. The functional system

and content material varied over time. This had a direct

impact upon user (and partner) perceptions of the system.

There were also considerable problems with trialist

recruitment. The technological system and its content

could not be taken as an independent variable in the

process of understanding the trial.

Taken together, all these events or processes constituted

a major influence hindering or demanding change to

research proposals. After all, what was one evaluating?

Bluntly, if users were only able to view half a film due

to technical problems, what was the value, in exploring

the usability of the remote control interface? Problems

with trialist recruitment occurred largely because of

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'rumours' regarding the impotency of the system to convey

meaningful programming that people had any interest in

watching or interacting with. At the very onset of the

study, such hurdles came to demand agility and

flexibility in approach. It also constantly drew

attention to the fact that the trial should be considered

as a whole, that is, of social and technical elements

working together in concert.

Coping with these developments, as and when they arose,

became a necessary condition of the present study. This

laid the foundation for a shift in emphasis within the

study to include observation of the social and

organisational process of the trial. This expanded view

of the trial and its processes included consideration of

how user research was negotiated and managed, how

knowledge was not only created, but how it flowed and

coped with emerging issues, all of this within a very

complex and pressurised high-tech organisational

environment.

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Chapter 4 - General systems theory and holism

Richard Bucannan (2001) views that Instead of focusing on

symbols and things, designers today have turned to two

quite different places to create new products and to

reflect on the value of design in our lives. They have

turned to action and environment.lxxxvii He also goes on to

discuss that the relevance of environment an system.

System thinking and theory has a long pedigree

culminating in the development of general systems theory.

With origins widely associated with the biologist Ludwig

von Bertalanffy in the 1940s, GST proposes that real

systems are open to, and interact with, their

environments (i.e. Von Bertalanffy, 1949). GST is

described as a series of related definitions,

assumptions, and postulates about all levels of systems

from atomic particles through atoms, molecules, crystals,

viruses, cells, organs, individuals, small groups,

societies, planets, solar systems and galaxies (Miller,

1978). As such, it may be applied to analysis linking

human and physical, social and built entities, micro and

macro linkages, local as well as global effects.

"Systems are bounded regions in space-time,involving energy interchange between their parts,

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which are associated in functional relationships andwith their environments . . . All behaviour can beconceived of as energy exchange within an opensystem or from one system to another . . . and thatall living systems tend . . . to maintain steadystates of many variables . . . in an orderly balancebut within a certain range of stability." (Miller,1956: p.32)

Such thinking has proven useful to studios of people and

technology. They frame why some social phenomena,

institutions and technologies appear to remain in a

steady state for some time, while others dissipate or

fall apart, or are replaced under the forces of

innovation. Scott (1961: p.23) argued that "the only

meaningful way to study organisation is to study it as a

system." He observed that the distinctive feature of

modern organisation theory lay in its conceptualisation

of an organisation as an open system – that is a system of

parts which are open to influence to outside influence

(suppliers, customers, partners etc.).

Rather than reducing an entity (e.g. the human body) to

the properties of its parts or elements (e.g. organs or

cells), GST focuses on the arrangement of and relations

between the parts that connect them into a whole. Holism

refers to a perception of the relatedness of things in

approaching reality or a problem. Ramstrom (1974)

encourages an increased emphasis on systems thinking to

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comprehend the increased interdependencies between the

system and its environment, and between the various parts

of the system. If a conceptualisation may be made

regarding a useful network of these interdependencies,

one has in fact defined a system (Heylighen, 1992). Quade

(1975) sees that the systems approach is a way of dealing

analytically with complexity in the organisation of

things. One abstracts from reality and forms an image of

the interdependencies that appear to exist among diverse

elements. This is distinct from the fragmented or

piecemeal approach, such as often marks the pursuit of

reductionist science. Designs can be hierarchical

ordered, the designed object can be seen as a whole, can

be considered a group of components (or elements), which

on their own can

probably be split up again in components and so on. The

more in detail you go into the more mono-discipline the

components tend to become and the less social elements

are used in the design and vice-versa (Kroes, Franssen et

al. 2004).lxxxviii

Such abstraction, however, denotes that one must have a

clear picture of the potency of each component part, and

must then propose a ‘snapshot’ of the system at any given

time. Such analysis often denies proper address of the

dynamic nature of living, evolving systems. However, of

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importance is how they can provide proper means to

understanding relationships.

Systems thinking is a way of looking at real world

systems for the purpose of understanding and/or

improvement. There are two pairs of ideas that are at

the core of systems thinking (we will cover some aspects

of these later):

emergence and hierarchy

communication and control

Systems thinking has been extended in to various systems

methodologies for undertaking more formalised studies

into systems. Many of these have been picked up and

adapted by other disciplines:

systems analysis approaches

hard systems methodology and systems engineering

soft systems methodology (SSM) and human activity

systems

other approaches including systems failure thinking

note a distinction between "method" versus

"methodology"

Are found at both ends of the size scale

solar system << galactic system << universe

cell systems

atomic systems

Mechanical and other mechanistic systems

engines

bicycles

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electrical and electronic things

Biological systems

people

other animals

plants etc

Social systems

political parties

families

factories

organisations and their parts etc

Natural systems

forest systems

weather systems

river systems etc

Boulding's Framework of Systems

This provides a means of classifying systems, essentially

based around their level of complexity.

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Level of

ComplexityExample Characteristics

Level 1Structural

FrameworkThe organisational chart

Level 2 ClockworkDynamic, moving, predictable,

must be controlled externally

Level 3

Cybernetic

device such as

thermostat

Dynamic, predictable, capable of

self-regulation within certain

limits.

Level 4 The cell

Open, dynamic, programmed for

self-maintenance under changing

external conditions

Level 5The plant

system

Open, dynamic, genetically

determined, capable of self-

regulation through wide range of

changing external and internal

conditions.

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Level 6The animal

system

Open, dynamic, genetically

determined system that adjusts

to its environment by making

internal adjustments and by

forming simple social groups.

Level 7 Humans

Open, dynamic, self-regulating,

adaptive through wide

circumstances because of ability

to think abstractly and

communicate symbolically

Level 8The social

system

More complex than an individual,

more open to environmental

influence, more adaptive to

circumstance because of

collective experience and wider

reservoir of skills.

Level 9 The Most freely adaptable to

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transcendental

circumstance because it rises

above and extends beyond the

boundaries of both individuals

and social systems.

A number of fields are closely associated with the

systems approach, and of these perhaps most notable are

cybernetics, complexity theory and chaos.

Cybernetics, Complexity theory and Chaos

Cybernetics - from the Greek 'kubernetes', which means

'steersmanship' - is a term recently given a new lease of

life through association with virtual reality (VR) and

the Internet (e.g. 'cyberspace' as coined by Gibson,

1984). Its origins derive from Wiener (1948/1961) who

defined it as; "the science of communication and control

in the animal and the machine." In a similar fashion to

GST, this is a domain now encompassing many of the

traditional disciplines: mathematics, technology,

biology; but also economics, philosophy and sociology.

The focus of GST is the study of the structure of systems

and models. However, the comprehension of a system cannot

be achieved without a constant study of the forces that

impinge upon it and this invariably means communication

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or control in one sense or another (Katz and Kahn, 1966).

Cybernetics studies the communication and control in a

system and with other systems – i.e. how the systems

function.lxxxix Whilst the ideas and principles of

cybernetics and systems science are applicable to various

phenomena. They are most often applied to the study of

complex systems such as organisms, ecologies, societies

and machines. These we can regard as multidimensional

networks of information systems.

Systems never appear in a vacuum. Natural systems, such

as the weather are the product of larger systems, such as

the global ecosystem and so forth. This makes them always

complex, beyond their own integral complexity (i.e.

having many disparately connected and interrelated

parts), in their linkages to larger systems.

Man-made systems, with social or technological elements,

such as those that make commercial flight possible, are

always susceptible to failure. Man-made systems, without

constant update, maintenance or renewal, become subject

to entropy, become unwieldy, unusable, or redundant.

Complexity theory and the notion of self-adaptive systems are two

further closely linked concepts to GST and cybernetics,

as is chaos theory. Santosus (1998) presents a vivid but

simple account of complexity theory:

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"What is complexity theory? One way to understand itis to look skyward to the avian manoeuvrings ofbirds. A lone bird follows simple rules of behavior,such as when and what to eat. However, a group ofbirds flying together exhibit complex,unpredictable, creative behaviors that emergenaturally from the interactions of individual birds.For example, a flock in v-formation is able to flyfarther and faster than an individual bird. Theflock that is formed when autonomous agents - birds- interact is known as a complex adaptive system. Tofly in a flock, a bird need follow only three simplerules: Don't bump into anything, keep up and stay inclose proximity. Yet following these rules leads toa cohesive, seemingly complicated group of birdsflying with the speed and precision of the BlueAngels." (p.6)

According to McMaster (1996: p.13) complexity is "at the

edge of chaos." In this state, patterns can be seen and

even understood, but the rich interplay of individual

elements cannot be reduced – as they would in GST or

cybernetics - to easily identifiable units and relations.

They are more like the cluster of birds in flight, where

patterns can be discerned, with one bird leading. But

this is emergent rather than agreed by committee, or

based purely upon physical prowess or other determining

factors. Complexity theory looks at these systems in ways

that are organic, non-linear and holistic. In an article

that appeared in the New Scientist in 1987, Paul Davies

speaks of non-linear complex systems:

"The behaviour of nonlinear systems is enormouslyrich and diverse. When driven away from equilibrium,

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they are liable to leap abruptly and spontaneouslyinto new, more complex or highly organised states.Alternatively, they may become chaotic. Often thereare certain "singular points" where predictabilitybreaks down, the system becoming enormouslysensitised to minute fluctuations. It is as if thesystem had a "free will" to choose between differentpaths of evolution, to explore new possibilities."(Davies, 1987: p.43)

According to Mitchel Resnick of MIT complexity is arising

across many phenomena and mental processes partially due

to decentralization:

"Ideas about decentralization and self-organisationare spreading through the culture like a virus,infecting almost all domains of life. Increasingly,people are choosing decentralized models for theorganisations and technologies they construct in theworld – and for the theories that they constructabout the world." (Resnick, 1994: p.4)

Living systems are non-linear dynamical systems which,

although comprising physical material to which all the

laws of classical and quantum physics apply, show

emergent characteristics like self-organisation. Examples

include complex metabolic self-regulation in cellular and

organismic structures, and various manifestations of

consciousness and cultural emergence. Emergences such as

consciousness show well-defined laws of dynamic behaviour

when looked at from certain perspectives such as

cybernetics and psychology and psychotherapy, but can

often appear chaotic to the untrained eye.

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In constructing human organisations and technical systems

it is clear that some aspects can be predicted whilst

others cannot. Both surprising and undesirable

consequences arise or emerge from systems. Their

construction, however, at the ‘edge of chaos’ is a

premier site for learning and development of knowledge.

I believe that one of the most significantdevelopments in systems thinking is the recognitionthat human beings can never see or experience asystem, yet we know that our lives are stronglyinfluenced by systems and environments of our ownmaking and by those that nature provides. Bydefinition, a system is the totality of all that iscontained, has been contained, and may yet becontained within it. We can never see or experiencethis totality. We can only experience our personalpathway through a system. And in our effort tonavigate the systems and environments that affectour lives, we create symbols or representations thatattempt to express the idea or thought that is theorganizing principle.xc

A focus upon there ser experience encourages

practitioners to look beyond traditional usability

concerns such as ease of learning and effectiveness to

broader user issues such as aesthetics, collaboration,

accessibility, credibility, persuasion, and pleasure.

These qualities can be considered a system of use.

Chapter – 5 The social and the technical

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The historian of technology, Thomas Hughes (1987), views

that one of the defining aspects of 'system technologies'

is that they contain messy, complex, problem-solving

components. In addition, a notion of chaos may apply to

the rich social and physical environments of the home.

The networks and infrastructures of electric mains and

the plumbing that sustain homes have long raised

idiosyncratic problems for builders. Domestication the idea

raised in chapter one suggests how the networks that

comprise daily life and ritual concur with the

interconnections of the built environment and the

technologies of the home.

Lucidly presented in Geography of Home (1999), design

commentator Akiko Busch gives an account of the

unforeseen complexity of the modern habitat and

habitation. In particular, she draws attention to the

multi-dimensional contexts and non-linear processes that

comprise everyday life and one of its key environments.

Many of these dimensions, sublimated within our

consciousness, nevertheless have real impact in smoothing

the 'chaos of experience'. She wished to establish the

reason for an uncharacteristic electricity bill. This

took her on an exploration of the electrical functioning

of her home. The result was a review of her home as; "a

network of social and cultural currents, those habits,

beliefs, and values that also make it function." (Busch,

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1999: p.163) In conclusion, she points out that the most

banal, tacit, and familiar activities and phenomena can

be made explicit as problems of a complex nature. Most

importantly, she stresses social and cultural aspects as

much as the hard technological and decorative aspects in

the creation of the complex of our domestic space.

Technical artefacts have many functions that can only

find proper explanation in terms of their wider social

and symbolic contexts (economic, personal, legal,

symbolic, aesthetic, etc.) This is often because

engineers explicitly design them to manifest these

functions and contexts; there is always an argument that

this further erodes the distinction between technical

artefacts and social 'artefacts'.xci

Social systems

Following earlier propositions; we not only interact with

'things', including various natural and mad-made systems,

but also, via various meaning systems, with each other as

people. Communication is the transference and

understanding of meaning (Robbins, 2001). This can be

directly; for instance, ‘in person’ or ‘face-to-face', or

indirectly through body language, dress and behaviour. It

can also be via various pictorial representations and

through art and crafts. It can also be via technology

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such as the mediation of the telephone, semaphore,

newspaper, radio, TV, letter and e-mail.

Opposed to suites of technologies the structures and

networks of groups, communities and societies are largely

invisible to the eyes. Nobody can walk into a workspace

in an office or factory and witness easily witness social

structures. However, their outcomes are generally not.

As indicated earlier, knowledge, visions, beliefs etc.

are not only mental phenomena but also essentially social

phenomena, socially constituted, the result being a

complex of social and technical aspects, operating at

many levels, culminating and interrelating in the

creation and operation of useful technical systems.

Knowledge and to some extent, individual powers of

interpretation, planning and design are social phenomena,

socially shaped and socially constructed. Polyani (1962,

1966) argues that tacit knowledge belongs to the personal

domain, but is still embodied in the meeting, the

interaction, between the individual and the culture he

belongs to. Lao *1996)

Attributes much of the Silicon Valley's success to aculture that promotes informal sharing of technicalknow-how, amidst intense competition, among the manysmall firms that populate the area. In contrast, thestaid, larger, and more vertically integrated, firms

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located in the Route 128 region near Boston prefertraditional self-reliance and secrecy. . . [T]hisdifference between the two regions . . . is a majorreason for Silicon Valley's phenomenal growth andRoute 128's relative stagnancy.xcii

This contrasts somewhat with Vygotsky (1978, 1986) who

strongly points out that all knowledge is social in some

way or the other, and thus contingent on social

structures pre-existing in social systems. Thus to

Vygotsky knowledge exists in the collective structure

existing in social systems.

Simon (1987) argues in favour of the view that tacit

knowledge can be made explicit by 'unfreezing social

habits'. Simon focuses on organisations, while Vygotsky

focuses on social structures, and Polanyi has his

attention directed towards the meeting between individual

and culture. Regardless of which view is adopted the

essence of interaction between the individual and other

human beings and objects remains uncontested. Development

effort, problem-solving, and translation of commercial

interests into technical solutions focus thoughts

regarding technological choice and innovation.

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Theories of structure in sociology derive from its roots in

the work of Comte, Karl Marx, Emile Durkeheim and

perspectives that are more recent derived from structural

linguistics. These commentators were interested with

questions of determination, reproduction and power

relations. Their work also opened relevant questions

regarding the relations of the social self, to the

cognitive, inner self. In many respects, the view here is

of processes constituting a subject as a product of the

structures to which they actively subscribe or

unconscious participate.

"Crucial to the idea of structuration, is thetheorem of the duality of structure . . . agents andstructures are not two independently given sets ofphenomena, a dualism, but represent a duality . . .the structural properties of social systems are bothmedium and outcome of the practices they recursivelyorganise." (Giddens, 1984: p.25)

This suggests a co-shaping of the individual and the

social. In Action Systems and Social Systems (1971) the most

distinctive features of Talcott Parsons's social theory

are illustrated. First, he understands the social system

to be a distinct entity, different from, but

interdependent, with three other action systems: culture,

personality, and the behavioural organism. Second,

Parsons makes explicit reference to Durkheim in his view

that social systems are sui generis things in which values

serve to maintain the patterned integrity of the system.

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The individuals who come to subscribe to their relevance

sustain them beyond their formation.

Social systems, unlike technological systems are not

always visible beyond observation of the various groups,

their interactions and perceptions. Thus, they define as

'soft' systems, as they are to an extent, more mutable,

and flexible than technology that is described in terms

of being 'hard'. It is common knowledge in studies of the

organisation that, organisation and reorganisation of at

the human level is often, but not always, easier to

achieve than the revision of technical systems. Thus,

especially in certain sectors, there is the persistent

need for human craftsmanship and agency that persists in

an age of automation and mechanisation.

Another notable contribution to social theory relevant to

technology is social network analysis. This focuses on patterns

of relations among people, organisations, states, etc.

and so is roughly equivocal to cybernetics (Berkowitz,

1982; Wellman, 1988; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Of recent

popularity in studies of computer mediated communications

(CMC) social network analysts seek to describe networks

of relations. It aims to do this as fully as possible, by

teasing out the prominent patterns in such networks. It

also traces the flow of information (and other resources)

through these patterns and aims to discover what effects

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these relations and networks have on people and

organisations. As such, it reflects a shift from the

individualism common in the social sciences towards a

structural analysis. This method suggests a redefinition

of the fundamental units of analysis and the development

of new analytic methods. In a wonderful critique of the

state of social sciences

The unit is [now] the relation, e.g., kinship relations

among persons, communication links among officers of an

organisation, friendship structure within a small group.

The interesting feature of a relation is its pattern: it

has neither age, sex, religion, income, nor attitudes;

although these may be attributes of the individuals among

whom the relation exists: "A structuralist may ask

whether and to what degree friendship is transitive. He

[sic] may examine the logical consistency of a set of kin

rules, the circularity of hierarchy, or the cliquishness

of friendship." (Levine & Mullins, 1978: p. 17)

Luhmann's theory asks for the function of systems. The

purpose of system formation is, generally speaking, the

creation of separated regions which allow the system to

record and process the complexity of the world. Systems

establish a difference between inside and outside, acting

as a sense-making, symbolically mediated interface

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between delivered and processable complexity. Thus a

system defines, for itself the boundary which allows it

to create its own identity according to internally

produced and processed rules, and to maintain it against

an external reality.

No analysis of consciousness will ever reveal anything

about communication - and vice versa - as no analysis of

mental processors will reveal anything about brain

processes, which are the domain of living systems.

Autopoletic systems act in operate closure; mental and

social systems being totally distinct The construct of

person is that, structural coupling of mental and social

systems, allowing both references to communication and

consciousness.

Any manifest form of human design and behaviour can be

considered as broad acts of communication between people.

Indirect form of communication manifests in ‘statements’

such as architectural buildings, designer clothes, road

signs, maps and via the design, operation and public

display of features and functions of technologies -

interfaces. Supporting this idea, the field of semiotics

dictates that each action, every perception, constitutes

some act of interaction between the environment of

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people, objects, nature and symbols (i.e. Eco, 1976;

Fiske and Hartley, 1978).

There are always limitations and constraints on human

communication and behaviour.xciii No act of communication

is perfect, as there is no law that can be designated

which adequately covers all exigencies. Similarly, from a

technology view, Bandwidth enables and restricts digital

interaction possibilities such as what can be

successfully downloaded via digital networks.xciv

There is always ambiguity, misinterpretation, lack of

comprehension and so forth. Thus, laws like design

objects are always under review. For instance arranging

the inside structure of a building impacts upon

interaction possibilities within that space. Christopher

Alexander has spoken of a ‘pattern language’ suggesting

the subjective aspect of encountering spaces. The pattern

approach has its origin in architecture and was adopted

by software engineering and areas related to software

engineering, dealing with organizational and pedagogical

questions. It suggests a typology of patterns that recur

according to tacit selectivities. Likewise, interaction

design of websites denotes the space of interaction

possibilities when using interactive media. In a similar

vein, there is a well-hackneyed polemic in human and

social sciences. It considers what has primacy in shaping

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human social affairs and individual behaviours and

attitude formation. Is it a case that the cognitive

dominates the social, or is it vice versa?

As a species, our brains and neurological systems have

evolved in concert with our interaction in the world.

Indeed the very distinction between the human species and

that of the animal kingdom is attributed to only our

development and use of tools:

“The size of the brain relative to that of the bodywill not do as the final distinction. Tools not onlyoffer proof of mental concentration with at leastsome slight skill and forethought, but, when theyare of stone, posses the supreme advantage ofdurability. Therefore both theoretically and forexpediency the dictum that manufacture maketh man isa sound one.” (Hawkes, 1965: p.210)

Rising beyond the level of neurological phenomena, we

never perceive pure forms, unrelated objects, or ‘things'

as such. Rather it is our 'reaction' to external stimulus

that relates to the meanings that things have for us

(i.e. Neisser, 1976). Perception has been defined as “A

process by which individuals organise and interpret their

sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their

environments” (Robbins, 2001; p.122). An environment

comprised of man-made objects and symbols quite obviously

texture this meaning. As will one where natural phenomena

dominate. Education and training, past experiences,

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motives, attitudes, interests, and expectations each have

a role in shaping perceptions, as does the nature of the

target (what is being perceived) and the situation (the

context). Values represent basic convictions that “a

specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is

personally or socially preferable to an opposite or

converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence”

(Rokeach, 1973; p.5.)xcv

Rokeach indicates a duality in values as being personally

or socially based, but values – what we consider right,

good or desirable are more often than not socially

learned. However, values and meanings can vary according

to socio-cultural determinants. Rationales and logics can

also vary, as rational decision-making for instance has

been defined by Herbert Simon as a person making

consistent value-maximising choices within specified

constraints (Simon, 1986).xcvi Toulmin, et al. (1984)

suggest that:

" . . . reasoning is less a way of hitting on new ideasfor that we have to use our imaginations - than itis a way of testing and sifting ideas critically. It isconcerned with how people share their ideas andthoughts in situations that raise the question ofwhether those ideas are worth sharing. It is acollective and continuing human transaction." (p.10)

We are aware of, and attach meaning to people, symbols

and structures in the world, but as Toulmin sees it: "Our

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ideas are our own, but our concepts are shared".xcvii This

is an important idea for any understanding and analysis

of social and individual reality.

The belief that there is not one objective reality, but

various realities that individuals create forms the

thesis of socially constructed realities (i.e. Berger & Luckman,

1966). This alludes to another idea introduced earlier -

that meanings derive, and evolve, through communication

with others. It also states that the realities individuals

create (and may take for granted) influence their

patterns of interaction and emphasises the formation of a

relational reality via conversations, actions and

reactions, and sequence of events (Von Foerster, 1984;

Gergen, 1985). Meanings derive from what we share and are

not an intrinsic product entirely particular to

individuals (Vygotsky,1978,1986;Toulmin,etal.,1984)

Interactions also feature as critical events within each

individual person's growth and development into the

society to which they belong, this forms the basis of

much of the work of developmental psychology.

Civilisation and culture inherently denotes both ways of

seeing and ways of doing. A person's acceptance into a

given civilisation and culture often depends upon

abilities to conform to social norms. While in some

senses, this acts as a tunnelling or focusing of vision

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towards what is culturally deemed as important, it can

also mark the development of skills that lead to a sense

of belonging. Here the precedence is upon social

interactions with parents, siblings and others as one

grows and develops as an individual. These interactions

shape the person, their behaviours, attitudes, and their

worldview.

"The activities of a domain are enframed by itsculture. Their meaning and purpose are sociallyconstructed through negotiations among present andpast members. Activities thus cohere in a way thatis, in theory, if not always in practice, accessibleto members who move within this social framework.These coherent, meaningful, and purposefulactivities are authentic . . . Authentic activities,then, are most simply defined as the ordinarypractices of the culture." (Brown et al., 1989: p.25)

Interactivity in learning, learning-by-doing is; "a

necessary and fundamental mechanism for knowledge

acquisition and the development of both cognitive and

physical skills." (Barker, 1994: p:1). As individuals

develop cognitive and motor abilities as children, they

have available at any moment a myriad of possible

interactions. However these are constrained and made

finite by cultural considerations, individual

differences, physical abilities and so forth.

The most dominant shared meaning systems in groups,

communities and societies is the language they use – “The

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meanings of words are not are not in the words; they are

in us” (Hayakawa, 1949; p292).xcviii The methodological

positions of phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, and

ethnomethodology are upon action and its meaning. Each

approach has a strong focuses methodologically upon

language and its use. 'Interaction' here is in its

essential sense, and can be taken as the profusion of

interpretative and reactive acts that infuse nearly every

moment of existence. Whilst some of these are tacit and

implicit, many are described and considered in language.

Theories of action and theories of structure have formed

a broad debate in the field of social and human sciences

(Giddens, 1979). Whereas theories of action tend to be

micro-social, focused upon individual's views, theories

of structure tend towards the level of organisation at

various levels. It is also clear that neither dominates,

as both interpolate laying the foundations for the other.

This is clear in two sets of theories emerging from

within psychology and sociology. The first is activity

theory, and theories of social structure.

Chapter - 8 Trials as social systems

Talcott Parsons (1971) discusses the notion of social

systems, defined by the interaction of two or more persons in

which each actor attempts to account for the action of

other actors or in which there are common goals of

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interaction. This is similar to Rogers (1995) when he

defines them as "a set of interrelated units that are

engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common

goal." (p. 24) However, if we consider the case of the

Cambridge trial, each group, each individual firm on the

trial, performed quite distinctive roles, with each often

seeking quite different aims and objectives with respect

to participation. Such influences can lead to mis-

alligment in the entire system detrimental to sharing and

negotiating goals (Molina).

Technology and marketing trials: Their social groups

In many large scale technology and marketing trials, the

Cambridge trial as an example, there are three distinctive

social groups, constituncies or networks. The trial itself was

founded through the efforts of two consortia of

companies. First, was the consortium of technology and

communication infrastructure companies – and second, another

consortia responsible for providing content and services.

Members of both these groups had a relatively well-

defined, easily understood and common goal - to test the

technology and market for i-Tv.

However, there was a third distinctive social group - the

trialists. These were the participants of the trial. From the

perspective of the first two groups, the trialists were

intended to act out roles as surrogate consumer-users- that

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is, they would provide feedback regarding the efficiency

and satisfaction with using the system.

Intrinsically, this group had its own agendas in getting

involved with the trial, curiosity and novelty being the

most likely motivation. Important to stress is that they

had quite different objectives or goals in being involved

with the trial. (c.f. the earlier discussion on the

‘logic or use’ in comparison with the ‘logic of design’).

The trialists wanted to explore the potential of the new

system to deliver entertainment. They were to be central

to the resolution of visions. They would provide data and

responses that would first ground the potential of the

technology to perform its functional purpose. They would

also come to comment upon the viability and value of the

system of content and services. Finally they would

provide some benchmark of the overall system's business

and market potentials – i.e. what people would be willing

to pay for, and how much.

More than this, interests, aims and objectives did not

remain static. Rather like the technology which developed

and metamorphosed functionally throughout the trial,

interests, aims and objectives were dynamic and not fixed

features. The interplay of elements, their interaction,

co-shaping and co-evaluation, created chaos and

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indeterminacy confounding any realisation of anticipated

outcomes.

Social systems are definitely not self-maintaining,

because they do not directly generate the components

which realise themselves (their participants in fact

generate the new components) (Hejl, 1984). The

applicability of self-maintenance also complicates by the

fact that these components may participate in multiple

social systems at any time, and they have the ability to

withdraw from participation entirely. This is

particularly true in the artificial use environments or

‘controlled conditions’ of trials, tests and experiments

of any kind.

Researching complexity

Alan Ganek summarized it best when he stated that; “The

computer industry has spent decades creating systems of

marvelous and ever-increasing complexity. But today,

complexity itself is the problem.”xcix Establishing the

relation of technology to people, commerce and

institutions is complex and has meant that considerable

focus has been levelled at creating theoretical

structures which can cope with its analysis.

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Another polemic that arises in social science is that of

technology and the individual as object or subject,

background or foreground in such analysis. Herbert Simon

for instance describes a scene that truly captures the

determining relations of subject, structure and

environment. An ant is walking on a beach. Simon notes

that the ant's path might be quite complex. The

complexity of the path (structure), however, is not

necessarily a reflection of complexity of the ant

(subject). Rather it might reflect the complexity of the

beach (environment or context). The point of Simon's

scenario is the suggestion that the environment or

context plays an often-underestimated role in influencing

and constraining behaviours. Following Simon, Resnick

(1994: p.142) suggests that people often think of the

environment as something to be acted upon, not something

to be interacted with. And as Marshall McLuhan (1964: p.viii)

has it: “Environments are not passive wrappings but

active processes.” Here is a defining aspect of

environment, structure, or context viewed as an open and

dynamic rather than closed and fixed system. This is a

critical concept underpinning the notion of many of the

frameworks discussed in this chapter. It also underpins

the “contextual usability’ approach developed in this

book – that is usability defined and realised contingent

with other experiential use elements.

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Until recently mechanistic, linear models typified much

organisational and managerial thinking. This is often

characterised by simple cause and effect and associated

predictable outcomes. These approaches also possess

legacy to the notion of 'scientific management' (Taylor,

1911) or even Weber (1947) when he refers to the

'bureaucratic phenomena'. These ideas inspired most

mechanistic models of the organisation, and are now

largely discredited in modern organisational theory. For

instance, Kling (1987) came to consider the trend in

mechanistic models of technological systems. While often

justifying economic, physical and information processing

aspects of developments, such perspectives often ignored

the context of complex social actions in which

technologies are developed and deployed. Many information

systems professionals, for instance, remain locked into a

mechanistic viewpoint of organisations that tends to

neglect the socio-political and socio-cultural elements

of information systems.

Wheatly (1992:p.27) asserts that: "Many management

strategy theorists either were engineers, or admired that

profession . . . There has been a close connection . . .

between their scientific training and their attempts to

create a systematic, rational approach to business

strategy."

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Complexity theory in its application to the study of

business, technology and society is viewed provides an

alternative view. A complex system is defined in Holland

(1995: p.124) as:

“a system that cannot be fit in a fixed model,whatever the complexity, the sophistication, thesize of the model, the number of its components andthe refinement of their interactions... The conceptof complexity implicates unpredictability andpossible emergence of unprecedented events.”

Holland accords that a complex adaptive system exhibits

emergence and self-regulation. This means that the outcome of

a process is the result of the interaction among a

variety of people (agents or actors if we consider the

sociological definition) that pursue better performance

in co-evolutionary co-operation and collaboration with

each other. Emergence can best be defined as the

behaviour that surfaces out of interaction of a group of

people, whose behaviour cannot be predicted on the basis

of individual and isolated actions (Coleman, 1999).

Complexity theory applied to organisation suggests that

most phenomena and processes in the real world do not

reflect such linear thinking. (Wheatly, 1992; Santosus,

1998; McMaster, 1996)

Anderson (1999) identifies the following characteristics

that complex adaptive systems share:

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1) A group of agents with cognitive schemata. Agents can beindividuals, groups of employees, managers orcustomers. Each agent’s behavior is dictated by aschema, a cognitive structure that determines whataction an agent takes given his/her perception ofreality. Cognitive schemata are mentalrepresentations of reality defined in terms ofnorms, values, principles, rules and models (Shermanand Schultz, 1998). Agents are connected to eachother via an intricate web of relations.

2) Self-organisation and emergence refers to the way agentsinteract with each other and the outcome of thatinteraction. Self-organisation results if people arelet free to network with each other and interactwhereby they are not restricted by organisational orfunctional boundaries. The assumption is that thiswill influence the outcome in a positive way sinceinteraction will not be constrained by rules andregulations. Emergence is what results from this wayof interaction, i.e. behaviour that cannot beaccredited to the individual actions, but becomesmanifest in the outcome of the group behaviour.

3) Co-evolution at the edge of chaos. Living systems tend tooperate at their most efficient level in thetransition phase between stability and disorderpoised “at the edge of chaos” (Kauffman, 1993). Thesame applies to people organized in a network: anetwork that strives for equilibrium and reaches anequilibrium state is in principle a “dead” system.People have to stay poised and alert “at the edge ofchaos” since it fosters creativity, collaborationand team-spirit.

4) Recombination and system-evolution refers to the way thesystem can evolve under the influence of changingcircumstances like different agents, or differentcircumstances.

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The open systems approach has been chosen to study

complexity because it has been commended for its

potential usefulness in "synthesizing and analyzing

complexity" (Simon, 1969) in "live" organisations.

Leavitt, Pinfield and Webb (1974) also recommended an

open-systems approach for studying contemporary

organisations that would come to exist in a fast-changing

and turbulent environment.

Complexity is an area is of great significance to

researching phenomena, as it is indeed the area of most

information. (McMaster, 1996) One thinks immediately to

the occasion of landing in a strange airport, in a

country where one does not speak the language.

Debilitating at first, one becomes accustomed to the

chaos. Patterns are seen to emerge, to become

recognisable and familiar, and one is returned to a sense

of what Giddens refers to as ontological security. Szent-

Gyorgyi (1971) speaks of something similar with respect

to the practice and process of research:

"If I go out into nature, into the unknown, to thefringes of knowledge, everything seems mixed up andcontradictory, illogical and incoherent. This iswhat research does; it smoothes out contradictionand makes things simple, logical and coherent."(pp.1-5)

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The implication here is that research provides the

necessary medium or lens through which the chaos of

natural world can be 'smoothed' in order to show

underlying patterns. These can make sense to the

investigator, or to other trained and interested 'others'

– managers, politicians, regulators, users etc.

Patternless chaos is the nemesis of decision-makers, long

range forecasters, scientists, economists, stock market

dealers, policy makers etc. Each desire to reduce and

simplify causal effects giving rise to phenomena, for the

purpose of representation and generalisation or the

identification of trends. Trends are things we actively,

not passively, create, as Mary Douglas so well pointed

out:

“. . . whatever we perceive is organized intopatterns for which we the perceivers are largelyresponsible.. . .As perceivers we select from allthe stimuli falling on our senses only those whichinterest us, and our interests are governed by apatternmaking tendency, sometimes called a schema.In a chaos of shifting impressions, each of usconstructs a stable world in which objects haverecognizable shapes, are located in depth and havepermanence. . . .As time goes on and experiencebuilds up, we make greater investment in our systemsof labels. So a conservative bias is built in.It gives us confidence.”c

Tom Peters (1982) book “Thriving on chaos”, suggested new

kinds of organisational theory and thinking influenced by

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systems theory and associated concepts. Evolutionary

theory and organic models of organisations emerged as a

consequence. And many of these kinds of ideas manifested

in the firm studied here. I have already cited a senior

manager on the Cambridge Trial who made strong allusions

to chaos, complexity and feedback. He cited new

management philosophies and styles of governance that he

viewed as essential to new technological potentials and

their need for governance. He took the view that what

they were creating was a 'infinitely reflexive' style of

management and company, not only the apotheosis of total

quality management and other customer-centred marketing

philosophies, but even an entire generation even beyond

this:

" . . . given that the whole process isinteractive . . . we're actually building in quality. . . its an inherent process . . . and you don'tneed to bring it in from outside as a separateprocess." (Marcus Penny - senior manger for contentand services)

Indeed he viewed that such a system as inherently non-

linear, and one of the problems that he was wrestling

with, was the expectation, particularly in the process of

management, that issues could be reduced to a linear

process. More than this, Thomas Hughes’ notion of

technical systems comprising of ‘messy system components’

guided technical innovation as did ‘messy human

components’ which guided organisational innovation.

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When this is not possible, it seems a problem. Not just

applicable to the Cambridge Trial he viewed this as an

industry-wide perspective - that there is a linear

management process at the core, and everything else is

chaos. Indeed, Westrum (1991) has pointed out that:

"What is not understood cannot be controlled. If wedo not unpack the way in which technology is shapedby society, we cannot change the shaping . . .before we can expand the area of intelligent humanchoice, we must understand how technology andsociety interact." (p.79)

Rycroft and Kash (1999) assert that leaders of companies

and countries are: "continuously in search of new

concepts, rules, and models that will be useful in

dealing with ever-changing reality." (p.17) Indeed

Shackle (1963: p.13) argues that the entire field of

economics resulted from: " . . .the study of how men seek

to cope with two of the great basic, inescapable

conditions of life: scarcity or lack of means; and

uncertainty or lack of knowledge."

Providing scope to understand, contain, control and

channel complexity represents the endeavour, and

challenge, of recent social scientific theories aimed at

distinguishing the products of, and influences upon,

social and technological action.

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Chapter 9 - Techniques of understanding and mappingsociotechnical systems

Within the field of strategic management ‘environmental

scanning’ is defined as “the monitoring, evaluating, and

disseminating of information about the external and

internal environments to key people within the

corporation.” (Wheelen and Hunger, 2000; p.9)ci External

environment variables according to this model include

economics, technology, political-legal, and

sociocultural. The aim is to identify trends that may

affect a companies business and to inform strategic

reorientation.

An immediate question arises concerning how best to map

relations within an overall system that comprises social

and technical elements, both within and without the

individual firm. Frameworks such as the ‘Issues Priority

Matrix’ (Lederman, 1984) do little to help here as it

focuses upon possibilities of impact of external factors

against probability of occurrence.cii Both social and

technological elements can manifest considerable levels

of complexity within themselves, let alone considered

together as a 'meshed' whole. GST and its complementary

theories have directly or indirectly influenced a number

of approaches whose chief aim is to chart and illustrate

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the way in which cognitive, social and physical elements

combine and interact. They do so in complex manners in

the production of processes of technical and social

innovation and development.

What many frameworks for analysing development processes

share is a description of the space or environment where

the social or the cognitive encounters the technical. This

space or environment is variously called the 'system',

'network', 'constituency', 'web' or 'matrix' amongst

other terms. Each conveys a strong sense of connection

and interrelatedness between various elements, especially

social and technological elements, and so bears direct

relation to the core principles of GST. This

interrelatedness can manifest in purely hardware terms (as

in a cable communications network or the flows of

electrons in a public transport system), or in terms of

software (the decisions, politics, lobbying, expertise and

advice etc.). It may also manifest in the passage of more

symbolic collateral, such as information and knowledge

exchanges and flows that come to inform and shape the

perceptions of multiple interest groups.

Systemic views of organisation (such as suggested by

Simon, 1996) have suggested that functions can be broken

down into component parts for the purpose of analysis.

However, recent frameworks coming from academia move in

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quite a different direction. Actor-network theory goes as far

as deliberately blurring of any distinction between human

and technical components contributing to an overall

system in its development and use, in favour of

uncovering outcomes.

Approaches, frameworks, tools

Vygotsky suggested that we have two kinds of tools:

technical ones and psychological ones. Technical tools

are intended to manipulate physical objects (e.g., a

hammer) while psychological tools are used by human

beings to influence other people or themselves (e.g., the

multiplication table, a calendar, or an advertisement).

In a similar vein, some sociotechnical approaches have

been created and aimed at practitioners – i.e. studies of a

'managerially relevant' or policy-making nature, or

cognitive tools for use within industrial settings and

projects. Other approaches are more academic in nature,

aimed at providing frameworks of analysis for academic

reporting. There is a similar tension between the notion

of 'tool' and 'framework', as that which exists between

'practice' and 'theory'.

In certain cases, industrial and academic approaches are

not mutually exclusive.ciii Many of the industrial 'tools'

have roots in public and private research projects. For

instance, the sociotechnical approach - used to optimise

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organisation - arose from research conducted at the

Tavistock Institute (the first was an investigation in

British coalmines by Trist and Bamforth, 1951). Another

stream of research into information systems was inspired

by contingency theory, as introduced by Woodward (1965). This

has come to inspire the majority of the earlier

literature on identifying the notion of user requirements

(e.g. Ives et al., 1983; Bailey & Pearson, 1983; Davis &

Olson, 1984; Baroudi et al.1986). This work explores the

relationship between organisational structures and

technical systems. She revealed that organisational

effectiveness was the consequence of a match between a

situation and a structure – part and whole.

There are also tools aimed at optimising technology with

respect to addressing consumer-user needs and requirements.

This group includes Quality Function Deployment (QFD),

developed in the 1960s out of work conducted by Japanese

academics into research and development, design and

manufacturing processes.civ It is also worth noting that

ergonomic and usability testing of products also emerge from

the fields of physiological research, experimental

psychology and cognitive and computer science.

Macroergonomics (Hendrick, 1991, 1995) is a recent

contribution making a concerted effort to place the

ergonomics of machines and interfaces at the centre of a

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more holistic, integrated and systemic view of

development. It is a top-down approach to system design

based on a sociotechnical system perspective.

Macroergonomics focuses on the optimisation of work

system design through consideration of relevant

personnel, technological, and environmental variables and

their interactions. Hendrick (1995) further defines

macroergonomics as the "third generation" of ergonomics,

where the first generation was characterised by

human/machine interface technology, and the second

generation by user/interface technology. The goal of

macroergonomics is a fully harmonised work system at both

the macro-and micro-ergonomic levels.

A more scholarly and sociological style of analysis is

witnessed in the work arising from Science and Technology

Studies (STS) school. Chief amongst this group are perhaps

the 'social shaping' (i.e. MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1985) or

'social constructivist' (i.e. Bijker & Law, 1992)

perspectives. These seek to explicate the relation of

technology to society, and have presented this as a

dynamic two-way process of co-evolution and co-influence.

The constructivist way of approaching the analysis of

technology development and the processes of innovation

show how they may be interpreted as matters of wider

social explanation, in every way as relevant to the

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success or failure of projects as purely physical and

functional matters.

According to historian Merritt Roe Smith (1994), the

concept of technological determinism dates back to the

early stages of the Industrial Revolution, and it is

grounded in the belief that technology is a key governing

force in society. cvIn his critical analysis, Andrew

Feenberg (1999) identifies two problematic premises of

technological determinism. One is unilinear progress in which

“technological progress appears to follow a unilinear

course, a fixed track from less to more advanced

configuration,” and the other one is determination by the base

in which “social institutions must adapt to the

“imperative” of the technological base.”cvi Hence, “if

there is no logic that drives innovation, then

technologically determinist explanation will not do”

(Bijker and Law, 1997). In his classic Autonomous Technology,

Winner (1977) asserts that in modern society technology

has become a moral standard. As “technologies are

structures whose conditions of operation demand the

restructuring of their environment,” they create imperatives.

Political studies of technology proceed to studying the

implications of the politics in society. From this

standpoint emerges democratic studies of technology that

seeks to understand how democratic principles are to be

incorporated in technological construction (Winner,

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1992). Richard Sclove (1995) offers the possibility of

inducing democratic principles into technological

construction processes. This requires deeming

technologies as social structures, for technologies have

profound capabilities to function politically and

culturally in society. Furthermore, Sclove argues, “If

citizens ought to be empowered to participate in

determining their society’s basic structure, and

technologies are an important species of social

structure, it follows that technological design practice

should be democratized.”cvii

To understand the cultural construction of technology,

David Hess (1995) draws an attention to what he calls

technototemism, which refers to “the co-production of

technical and social difference” and by which “social

groups achieve coherence and distinctiveness by being

identified with natural phenomena.” Here Hess

appropriates Levi-Strauss’s concept of bricoleur, “a

jack-of-all-trades who takes whatever is at hand—pieces

of wood, metal, etc—and reassembles them to build a new

objects or to fix old ones.” Yet Hess disagrees with

Levi-Strauss for distinguishing engineer from

bricoleur.cviii For Hess, technology today operates

according to the patterns of the bricoleur in which the

cultural interpretation of experts and communities

construct different versions of technology. Within this

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kind of process, technical experts in one community are

engaged in a process akin to bricolage by taking

technologies of other communities and reconstructing them

so as to produce a “new” kind of technology better fits

with their own culture.

While Hess analyzes cultural meanings of technology from

group frameworks, Arnold Pacey (1999) seeks to understand

technology from a more personal, more involved inward

level that takes account of feeling and imagination.

Pacey argues that human imagination is important in

dealing with practical experience of the material world

because it is an outcome of human sense of the purpose

and meaning of life. Personal values and individual

experiences of technology are different from shared,

social meaning. Pacey is concerned with tacit knowledge

constituted by unstated assumptions, skills that can be

applied without thinking, and inarticulate visual

awareness that includes a sense of what the knowledge

means and how it is related to human purposes.cix

Clifford Geertz's (1973: p.5) definition of culture as

"webs of significance sown by man," suggests the cultural

circuit as the conduit between human discourse and

knowledge of a product and technology. Johnson (1986)

viewed the diffusion of technologies as a process of

semiotics, meaning making and representation. Following

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Johnson others, such as Du Gay et al. (1996), have

elaborated this work establishing a notion of a 'cultural

circuit'. This views the perpetuating and development of,

and subsequent diffusion of, both ideas and actual

products between various institutions and actors.

Grant McCracken is another who subscribes to a 'current'

of meaning that is; " . . . constantly flowing to and

from several locations in the social world, aided by the

collective and individual efforts of designers,

producers, advertisers and consumers." (p.71) They convey

a picture of a very live, perpetuating, dynamic process

where 'meaning' is constantly circulating, picking-up,

laying the foundations for, and developing new forms of

interpretation and re-interpretation. Such processes can

operate on micro (i.e. small group) as well as macro

(i.e. societal, cultural) levels. However, this model

does little to explain the processes which motivate and

direct the energies creating change. Nor does it provide

insights to problems regarding emergent aspect of a

sociotechnical system. But it does emphasise that

technical innovation is not simply a matter of

production, and highlights human agency in term of social

interest groups.

Bijker (1995) draws attention to the design

specifications of fluorescent lights catering to the

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needs of different interest groups rather than for

performance or economy. The 'dominant' design was a

product of the Nela Park Conference - where representatives

of Mazda met with representatives of the electricity

utilities - two highly prominent relevant social groups.

Bijker suggests that the now familiar lamp was designed by

committee – i.e. the managers around the conference table,

rather than by engineers and designers in a workshop:

"At that meeting a third fluorescent lamp wasdesigned - not on the drawing board or thelaboratory bench, but at the conference table."(p.238)

What is important to stress from this observation is that

managers’ invariably bring more to the table than

discussions of merely technical propensities or

standards. They may employ for instance entirely

different logics such as business acumen or negotiate

from a position of company culture and mission.

Design as a subject of analysis is at its most rich

viewed as the interaction between the various elements –

social, individual and technical - at different periods

in development (or even depending on where the researcher

casts, or is given permission to - cast, their gaze). Pinch and

Bijker acknowledge this in their notion of sociotechnical

ensembles. While maintaining a distinct prejudice for the

social dimensions in their accounts, this acknowledges

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the idea that social and technical elements constrain and

shape each other in the processes of development.

These approaches emphasise a contextualist approach that

attempts to show; "the internal design of specific

technologies as dynamically interacting with a complex of

economic, political, and cultural factors."

(Staudenmaier, 1985: p. 11) Current trends in the history

of technology tend to favour contextualist history. Such

approaches emphasise the particularities of the social

and historical conditions in which different technologies

have developed. In so doing, they have avoided the

excessively deterministic implications of so many

histories that focus on the technology as an intrinsic

phenomenon in itself. Contextualist history builds on an

earlier consciousness of technical differences as

illustrated by more traditional historical accounts, but

also reflects a concomitant awareness of how social

factors influence design and development.

A significant contribution arising from the category of

more academically orientated work includes actor-network

theory - ANT (i.e. Callon, 1980, 1986; Bijker and Law,

1992; Latour, 1987, 1996) and sociotechnical constituencies

(i.e. Molina, 1989, 1990). These approaches represent

alternative and contrasting attempts to straddle the

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realms of complexity in studies of the social and

technical.

Chapter 11 - Actor-network theory

Actor-network theory or ‘ANT’ is most prominently

associated with the French sociologists of science Bruno

Latour and Michel Callon. ANT deals with two different,

though connected, subjects: scientific facts and

technological artefacts. It is, in a sense, a logical

(yet highly disputed) extension of David Bloor’s (1976)

“strong programme” which defended the need for

impartiality in the explanation of true and false

scientific beliefs.

It is unfortunately a school of thinking beset with

obscure terminology. Like Activity Theory, applying

actor-network theory is difficult for the beginner as it

is hard to find any clearly defined set of procedures for

"doing" research.

ANT represents an attempt to describe how heterogeneous

human and non-human, social and material entities are

related to one another within networks, built and

maintained in order to achieve a particular goal, for

example the development of a product. This reflects the

ideas of a number of commentators not least McLuhan:

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“By continuously embracing technologies, we relateourselves to them as servomechanisms. That is why wemust, to use them at all, serve these objects, theseextensions of ourselves, as gods or minor religions.An Indian is the servomechanism of his canoe, as thecowboy of his horse or the executive of his clock.”(1964; p.55)

But in ANT’s most radical stance is a lack of privileging

either humans nor non-humans in its analysis, as both are

viewed as equal actors and are treated largely in a

semiotic sense. Beyond a kind of anthropomorphism with

respect to physical objects, or a glib mechanising of the

human being, theANT perspective has been apllied to a

range of studies.

Such a view is reflected in other writers. Igor Kopytoff

(1986) for instance, has drawn attention to the

'biography of the thing'. He suggests that an object,

artefact, or technology, much like an individual human

being, can possess a biography. Throughout their 'lives'

there is change and transformation, and through these,

they "can reveal the changing qualities of the shaping

environments through which they pass." (Silverstone et al.,

1992: p.17) Stewart Brand's (1994) book How Buildings Learn

is another superlative example of a semantic switch

between the primacy of human affairs over that of

'things'. He suggests that the transformations of

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buildings over time and the changes that successive

occupants make to it represent a manifestation of the

‘learning’ of a building. Such ‘animist’ perspectives can

highlight previously tacit, unseen relationships which

are nevertheless important for understanding and

evaluating human relationships to the built environment,

and the objects, messages and symbols that populate it.cx

The view of actor-networks has it that social, physical,

cognitive and economic elements fuse in a 'seamless web'

where human action is constrained as much by

technological functions as social elements such as the

rules and regulations which may govern use. On analysis

this approach owes much to systems theory, as another of

its distinguishing aspects is its stress upon the

complete dependency of one 'actor' on every other 'actor'

in the network to maintain cohesion. Each part of the

network is at the same time representing several

different smaller parts of a whole, while being minimised

into a small part of an even larger whole.

This is hardly a new idea as it relates to GST and to

what Herbert Simon (1996) suggested when he spoke of the

'sciences of the artificial'. This describes objects and

phenomena – artefacts – that result from human intervention

in the natural world. Material artefacts, the knowledge

to build and use them, as well as the outcomes of their

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operation and use – this means climate controlled air,

through to cars and the laws that governs their operation

- are each examples of such intervention. Each is equally

as worthy as any other part to be considered in the

operation and integrity of an overall system.cxi

This is a very similar notion to another ANT theme – that

of 'hybrids', or 'quasi-objects', which can be

simultaneously real, social, and discursive - ANT

highlights the significance of each of these in its

analysis (see, e.g. Latour 1993: p.91). The key term

‘actor’, for example, is not used as in conventional

sociology where actors are usually defined as "discrete

individual, corporate, or collective social units"

(Wasserman, 1985: p.17). Rather actors' identities and

qualities are defined during negotiations between

representatives of human and non-human 'actants'. In this

perspective, representation is understood in its political

dimension, as a process of delegation. The most important

of these negotiations is translation - a multifaceted

interaction in which actors:

Construct common definitions and meanings: Define representativities, and: Co-opt each other in the pursuit of individual and

collective objectives.

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In the actor-networks, both actors and actants share the

scene in the reconstruction of the network of

interactions leading to the stabilisation of the system.

But the crucial difference between them is that only

actors are able to put actants – the non-human elements -

in circulation in the system, such as when a local

government decides to implement a new means of public

transport (Latour; 1996). The development of actor-

networks is a concatenation of translations - effort by

actors in the network to move other actors to other

positions, thereby translating these actors as well (i.e.

the local government bringing in engineers to implement

the work). This concept of translation is the crux of the

ANT approach.

In essence, networks allow actors to translate their

objectives, be they conscious human choice or

prescription of an object, into other actors and adding

the other actors' power to their own. "By translation we

understand all the negotiations, intrigues, calculations,

acts of persuasion and violence thanks to which an actor

or force takes, or causes to be conferred to itself,

authority to speak or act on behalf of another actor or

force." (Callon and Latour, 1981: p.279) Networks emerge

and come to be shaped by aligning more and more actors.

In this way a network and an individual actor can develop

and grow. The importance of an actor depends therefore on

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the number of other actors within his/her/its networks

which he/she/it can employ to a particular purpose.

The size and shape of actor-networks is not a priori but

the result of a long development. There is no fundamental

difference between a large structure and a small

structure; the only difference is in the number of actors

that can be employed. It is a mistake to take differences

in size of a network for differences in level, because

networks always connect at the same time what

conventional sociology differentiates into micro and

macro levels. This interconnection renders such a

distinction less significant, because; "that which is

large is that which has successfully translated others

and has therefore grown. Since size is nothing more than

the end-product of translation, the need for two

analytical vocabularies is thus avoided." (Callon, et al,

1986: p.228)

Networks comprise of network-actors that are always

localised yet these networks can extend around the globe.

Networks can be so large and stable that they appear to

be independent from the actors (such as technical

standards). This, however, is a misconception. While they

can (and do) seriously constrain the range of action for

certain actors, they always need actors. Any given actor

might be replaceable, but only by another actor. There

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is, therefore, no gap between the individual and the

structure made up of individuals, which are made up of

structure, which is made up of individuals, and so on,

endlessly. For Bruno Latour (1993; p.122); " . . . the

two extremes, local and global, are much less interesting

than the intermediary arrangements that we are calling

networks."

The construction of a common sense of purpose, utility,

and benefit of a system or artefact is one aspect of the

sociotechnical negotiation. Pinch and Bijker (1989: p.28;

and Orlikowski, 1992: p.403), discuss the interpretive

flexibility of artefacts. All artefacts are open to various

readings over their development. Social groups with

various interests and resources attach meanings to

artefacts. These groups shape and reshape artefacts

through the construction of problems posed and solutions

offered by those artefacts. Eventually both artefact and

meaning are stabilised through social negotiation. Once

developed, technological systems and artefacts become

reified and institutionalised, and lose the connections

with human agents that gave them meaning and sense

(Orlikowski, 1992: p. 404). The notion of interpretative

flexibility brings social constructivist views of

technology closer to media, cultural and consumer

studies. At this time were also coming to studying less

what media 'does to people' but more how consumers/people

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actively appropriate, and thereby change, products and

services through their kinds of integration in daily life

and routines (Silverstone and Hirsch, 1992, Morley, 1992,

MacKay and Gillespie, 1992).

But one of the failings of ANT, and other constructivist

approaches, perhaps lies with the fact that its openness

as a system of analysis suggests no real way of mapping

or showing the weight of nodes within the network – i.e.

those actors or actants which have more prevalence or

political power at any given time. What one is left with

is rather a 'fog' of images and perceptions regarding a

technology, because what is meaning from an analysis

founded on semiotics is that motivations and other

inertias to technology development are relegated in

favour of outcomes or effects.

"Actor network theory is a ruthless application ofsemiotics. It tells that entities take their formand acquire their attributes as a result of theirrelations with other entities. In this scheme ofthings entities have no inherent qualities:essentialist divisions are thrown on the bonfire ofthe dualisms. Truth and falsehood. Large and small.Agency and structure. Human and non-human. Beforeand after. Knowledge and power. Context andcontent. Materiality and sociality. Activity andpassivity. In one way or another all of thesedivides have been rubbished . . . it is not, in thissemiotic world-view, that there are no divisions. Itis rather that such divisions or distinctions areunderstood as effects or outcomes. They are not

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given in the order of things." (Law, 1997, emphasisin original)cxii

The problem with such a radically relativist view from

the perspective of practicality in researching networks

is that the notion of defining dualisms from the actors

perspectives places enhanced stress upon accurate

rendering of actors ‘outcomes’. In essence this is what

is emergent, over an above technologies and the

construction of supporting institutions and

organisations. This makes for a problem of

interpretation. This is always problematic, especially if

we follow, Ricoeur, (1971) when he writes that there may

be a;

" . . . specific pluriocity belonging to the meaningof human action . . . human action too, is a limitedfield of possible contradictions . . . It is alwayspossible to argue for or against an interpretation,to confront interpretations, to arbitrate betweenthem and to seek for an agreement, even if thisagreement remains beyond our reach. In the finalanalysis differences in interpretation can only bearbitrated by applying socially accepted modes ofjustification; i.e., what will count as a convincingargument." (p.331)

One of the problems of phenomenological investigation is

the researcher ‘bracketing’ or consciously acknowledging

prejudices and subjective interpretations in the research

process.

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One set of questions that remains vague in ANT is how to

limit the analysis; where does one network end and the

next one begin? The question of boundaries to contextual

studies is cited by Morley (1992: p.187) when he

considers the pragmatic aspect of ethnographic studies of

television viewing contexts: " . . .which elements of the

(potentially infinite) realm of 'context' is going to be

relevant to the particular research at hand." The

opposite is in a sense can also be true for actor-

networks. In effect is the network which comes to be

realised a 'fair' representation? Bijker and Law are not

absolutely convinced; "in effect it (actor-networks)

rests on a bet that for certain purposes some phenomena

are more important than others. It simplifies down to

what it takes to be essential." (1992: p.7)

Chapter 12 - Sociotechnical constituencies

Sociotechnical constituencies (Molina, 1989, 1990, 1993,

1994, 1995), as a theory and framework, shares much with

ANT and the other social constructivist analyses of

social and technical relations. It considers in its

analysis the complex of social and technical elements

constituting a development or project. However, unlike

ANT, it strives to distinguish, delineate and taxonomise

social and technical elements. Molina, following other

critics of actor-network theory (i.e. Clark et al., 1988)

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argue that this methodological stance dissolves the

understanding of technology which most people employ in

assessing its importance on work and organisations. To do

this is to render it nonsensical.

Constituencies take the brave step of structuring and

pre-figuring contexts. It recognises that at a macro

level social institutions may evolve at a slower pace

than technology development - an institution understood

as a persistent structure of human relationships (e.g.,

Powell and DiMaggio 1991), but alliances, partnerships

and deals can be easily broken in a single meeting with

severe consequences to a business. Technologies on the

other hand always exert certain continuities of path-

dependencies. Molina sees the mitigation of distinction

of the technological from social aspects as a hindrance

to advancing social studies of technology towards any aim

of informing strategy and policy decisions.

Molina's (1995: p.23) definition of sociotechnical

constituencies is:

" . . . dynamic ensembles of technical constituents(tools, machines etc.) and social constituents(people and their values, interest groups, etc.)which interact and shape each other in the course ofthe creation, production and diffusion (includingimplementation) of specific technologies."

Constituencies are built by particular social actors –

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constituency builders – champions who manifest particular

traits and behaviours and who wish to directly exploit

and develop the particular features and unique value

propositions of certain technologies. It can also be

firms and this would include the company outlined in the

case study presented later.

Overall, constituencies provide a comparatively more

systemic approach to understanding how the various

elements comprising the constituency of social and

technical elements can interrelate. The main benefit of

this approach, over actor-networks is that the common

areas of 'constituency' (or network or system) analysis

are denoted and largely pre-figured. This helps target

and focus research activity according to particular

purposes, and most importantly across cases.

The formulation of typologies is a familiar activity in

social science research. A more formal definition is that

a typology partitions events into types that share

specified combinations of factors. (Stinchcombe, 1968:

pp.43-45) The power of typological theories and systems

is that they comprise a number of contingent

generalisations, allowing the researcher to move across

cases with ease and make realistic comparisons.

Classification systems operate very many like typological

theories. Kwasnik (1992) states that:

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"Classifications are really very much like theories.Like theories, classification schemes can provide anexplanatory shell for looking at the world from acontextually determined perspective. Classificationschemes not only reflect knowledge by being based ontheory and displaying it in a useful way...but alsoclassifications in themselves function as theoriesdo and serve a similar role in inquiry." (p. 63)

However, the main shortcoming of this approach is one it

shares with many research approaches and frameworks that

offer prescriptive classification typology systems.

Classifications have structural properties that lend

themselves to representing knowledge in a given format or

pre-ordained way. As such they may act to mitigate

observance or proper identification of anomalies or

phenomena that defy 'pigeon-holing' style of

classification of socially defined forces. Bennet and

George (1997) see that in the early stages of reflection

and research on a complex problem, the investigator will

be reluctant to begin comparative study by attempting to

build a research design and select cases based on a full,

logically complete typology, such as that suggested by

sociotechnical constituencies. The use of case studies

for the development of typological theories, and the use

of these theories in turn to design case study research

and select cases, are iterative processes that involve

both inductive study and deductive theorising.

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An a priori, "logical" approach to a typology of outcomes

of efforts to achieve deterrence is likely to settle for

a simple distinction between 'success' and 'failure'. But

such approaches may nevertheless be important, defining,

unique or even crucial, features of socio-technical

processes. Opposed to actor-networks, which tend to be

internalist approaches to studying socio-technical

phenomena, sociotechnical constituencies is a externalist,

often contextualist framework which is constantly

identifying a particular element of actors place within

an industrial, or even national-level perspective. It can

be handled at the outset of the research in a more open-

ended way, allowing the development of a typology and

associated theory. That is, new cases that are studied

may lead to identification of new types of 'success' or

'failure' viewed from the goals of the various actors

involved (in the Cambridge case mangers, designers and

trialists).

Constituencies theory attempts to express the multitude

of forces which cumulate in the success or failure of a

product vision throughout its production, and to a lesser

extent, its diffusion. It is an attempt to illustrate the

way in which it expresses the dynamic in which both

social and technical constituents combine and mesh to

shape each other in the process of creating, producing,

and diffusing specific products and services.

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Technical constituents of technological systems such as

the Cambridge Interactive Television Trial, rely strongly

on technologies that are themselves the products of other

sociotechnical constituencies. PCs for instance are

ensembles of technologies (microprocessors, motherboard,

RAM, hard drive etc.) often produced by different

manufacturers, which, on being compatible and obeying

standards, work in concert to produce a working machine.

An overview of a generalised constituency is shown below.

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Fig. 2.2 Sociotechnical constituency with technology at the centre

(after Molina, 1989)

The individual components in the above diagram each play

essential roles in defining and shaping a technology ('T'

in the centre). It considers this from its inception

(i.e. arising from wider industrial trends and standards,

market and consumer trends), through its development and

production (drawing more upon more immediate influences –

i.e. the organisation's governance, availability of 'off-

the-shelf' components and so on).

As mentioned earlier technical components are often

developed on an individual basis by multiple producers

which have themselves evolved through the development of

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Interactingtechnologies

Nature of technology & use value

Players’ perceptions and goals

Organisation’s

governance

Industrial Trends & Standards

Organisation and

consumers

Inter-organisational governance

Collaborative/competitive interaction

T

Industrial/market level

Intra-organisational level

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their own constituencies - not least the social

construction of standards which ensure their fit with

other PC components. This suggests the generative aspects

of constituencies, which truly defines them as different

in structure from networks or even systems, which suggest

fixed, identifiable nodes and relations. It recognises

the socio-historical forces shaping technological

development and innovation, and this takes precedence

over issues and identification of instances of

translation. It accepts prima facie the existence and

influence of pre-existing sociotechnical structures in

defining and inspiring the new. It also recognises that

there is a dynamic shifting in the influence of each of

the elements over time, due largely to the waxing and

waning of the various 'sub' constituencies which

contribute to the constituency under analysis (for

instance the constituency of interactive television set

top box technology may be dramatically influenced by a

change in either video card technology, or in regulatory

policy or by a take-over of the company). A useful

analogy may be to compare constituencies to wave theory

as opposed to the more rigid network structures

characteristic of ANT.

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Constituency 1Interactive television STB

Video card development enables and inspires STB constituency

Constituency 3Video Chips Chips develop by new breakthroughs in material science and machining

Constituency 4PC market development and the rise of the Internet and e-commerce

Constituency 5

Development of video standards such as MPEG

Constituency 2Video Cards

Video card development is inspired by new chip developments and by video standards such as mpeg

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Fig 2.3 Meshing of constituencies as they develop, creating'ripples' of cause and effects, inspiration and shaping.

By considering the temporal element in the biography of a

technology's development one can map how particular

elements comprising the constituency waxes and wanes in

influence. Rather than proceeding as if individual

perceptions and actions can be held constant for the

purpose of analysis or that individuals are motivated by

a single goal (e.g., profit maximization), analysis

focuses upon how and why perceptions and action are

continuously changing through time and space.

Molina (1997; p.2) suggests that in ANT, the juncture

where the social encounters the technical; "needs to be

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Constituency 2Video Cards

Video card development is inspired by new chip developments and by video standards such as mpeg

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discovered every time as results of the perceptions and

opinions of other actors." Actor-networks then deny the

possibility of any inputed characteristics being applied

to either social or technical actors or actants – the

non-human elements - for the purposes of analysis.

Indeed, if one considers the claims of chapter one - that

we are not surrounded by an infinite variety of media

technologies, but really a delimited number of variations

which exhibit certain common features and functions – to

start from scratch in investigating their function and

how it comes to be encountered as a phenomena, seems a

very long winded approach to studying technology. Beyond

wide screen, stereo sound, teletext and colour, the

television-as-technology has changed little over the

years in terms of basic function, certainly at least,

from the user perspective.

This is an important aspect in Molina's sociotechnical

model. Technologies, especially complex technologies, do

maintain certain stability, or at least some generic

elements by which they may be differentiated according to

how they may function and perform. This also to a large

extent dictates how they will 'fit' with perceived and

anticipated use. For instance, they must be robust enough

to handle their perceived day-to-day use and usage. A

critical issue with the Om STB and remote control

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technology was that it be robust for the mass market.cxiii

There was also found to be a lack of 'fit' between remote

control functioning and some of the content elements. The

button layout and ergonomics worked fine for VoD use, but

were unwieldy and practically unusable for game use. For

Molina, the observable network, that is, the architecture

of relations at each moment in time, contains an

expectation of its future operation. This is often lost

in ANT style studies, and so there is an argument that

sociotechnical constituencies theory offers an extended

and more systematised account of the way in which actors'

perceptions and visions meld as social and technical

elements combine. ‘

MIT-ESD (ESD Symposium Committee 2002) refers to this

relative character as: ‘the concept is subjective in that

what is a system to one person may not appear to be a

system to another’.cxiv This relative character is related

to the layered character of systems. Different people can

perceive different parts of a system as a system in

itself. According to Wilson (1990) the context of the

system should be given in its definition to provide a

clear description of the system: ‘It (the root definition

of a particular system) incorporates the point of view

that makes the activities and performance of the system

meaningful’.

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There is also criticism of the notion of 'actants' [the

non-human 'actors'] in ANT. Molina sees them as only

realised as the result of the perception and opinions of

other [human] actors, and not truly valid as having some

king of equivocal status to that of sentient human

beings. He also sees this as a reductionism or

marginalisation of the role of the technical in the

network, as it is reduced to the level of a ‘black

box’.cxv This classification does not extend however

beyond networks because;

" . . . people (who constitute networks) aredifferent, then we are constantly back to square onewith every new process of technology developmentconfronting the analyst. In short, a recipe forblindness regarding 'the technical terrain' and forirrelevance regarding this particular dimension oftechnology strategy." (Molina, 1997: p.4)

If one considers Fleck (1988) it becomes clearer exactly

what Molina is suggesting here. Fleck defines four

generic forms that are consistent with different theories

of innovation and technology. These are discrete technologies,

component technologies, generic system technologies, and

configurational technologies. Discrete technologies function as

self-contained packages and require no further

interfacing with other elements to make them functionally

relevant. A mature and simple technology such as a tin

opener performs a straightforward function that needs

little in the way of user-led innovation. Its use can be

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easily pre-figured and anticipated. Component

technologies function as part of a relatively stable

system, and as such, the system characteristics and

requirements guide and help denote aspects and

specifications.

Generic system technologies refer to "complexes of

elements or component technologies which condition or

constrain one another, so that the whole complex works

together." The main difference here is that changes to

specific component parts may lead to requiring change in

the overall system. Moreover, configurational technologies are

more mutable kinds of systems, in an early stage of

evolution, which will be more fully developed and defined

through their situating in intended working environments.

The agency of users can be viewed relative to the

stabilisation and standardisation of the system and its

components (which is largely the position of

sociotechnical constituencies).

In summary, sociotechnical constituencies approach offers

a framework which has as its focus the fact that

technologies come into the picture of development with

legacy. This is in terms of its functional

characteristics, as well as more macro level attributes

such as their adherence to standards etc. Social elements

wishing to converge upon the technologies must do so in

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adherence to these legacy aspects, and so there is a

primacy or biased weighting afforded to technology over,

the other more fluid 'softer' parts of the development

process. This is where it differs from ANT, which prefers

to visit anew the process of development and makes a

conscious effort to not privilege one part of a system

over another. What is emergent maps not only areas of

where dualisms arise in the discourse and action of

network elements, but more pragmatically where

technologies derive their main impetus for being, and how

institutions and organisation succeed or fail to support

this being and continual development.

Chapter 13 - The constituencies of the Cambridge Trial

The case outlined later also goes some way to illustrate

the 'parts off the shelf' nature of the set top box, with

parts and people (expertise) drawn from previous and on-

going projects put together to form a singular new

product. Also, the consortium of companies which came

together to form the technology partners, also suggested

the rationalised interdependence of people and technology

who were invited to take part in the Cambridge Trial. One

of these partners - a cable company – represented not

only a communications infrastructure but also a

significant subscriber base.

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Constituencies do not occur within, or arise form, a

vacuum, nor do they emerge merely the result of industry

trends, but rather largely through the work and agency of

constituency builders. These are institutions or individuals

who draw together the partners and elements necessary for

technical developments. Om was the constituency builder

of the Cambridge Trial. In addition, within the trial

emerged two constituencies. One addressed technology,

whilst another addressed the development of content and

services. There roles were critical in that they

consolidated and negotiated between partners in what was

essentially two concurrent constituencies, each of whom

were often chasing or desiring very different outcomes

and goals.

Constituency builders are similar to the more familiar

roles of product or project champions that appear in the

management literature, except that their main focus tends

to be on the creation and propagation of wider networks

of technical and social elements. In other words, they

generate content and context for social and technical

change. When constituencies confront and combine, the

nodes illustrate spaces of possibility and tension

between the differing constituencies. In the case study

this may be where the original demonstration box (created

within the constituency generated by Om's managing

director Dave Swallow, who may be considered as the

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overall constituency builder for the technology)

influenced and drove the content and services visions of

Marcus Penny (senior manager responsible for content and

services).cxvi However, later technical orientations of

the box towards CD-ROM driven devices and so on, created

a tension between the two constituencies in Om. It was

indicative of the split between economic realties, market

conditions, technological development, and the

innovations of services and content.

Constituencies as complex and dynamic entities emphasise

"interrelation and interaction" between the various

elements motivating and creating the conditions for

technological development. They are constantly evolving

and changing networks of interrelated elements or nodes,

some of which can dominate at times, remain constant, be

sublimated against other elements or indeed drop out

completely. One may consider or stress either the social

or technical contingencies in an analysis of

technological development whilst maintaining the

understanding that it is both, in concert at every given

moment, that provide an index of the growth or decline of

a product and project.

As social and human elements in a constituency are

dynamic and always changing, likewise technical elements

evolve from their inception as discrete developments to

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mature and stabilised products. Nevertheless, today more

so than ever, products and services must constantly be

innovated in order for companies to remain on top within

their market sector.cxvii This dynamism is what guides and

gives the constituency its shape and direction. Similarly

systems, as more 'macro' versions of individual products

go through similar evolutionary phases. They too often

have a chaotic inception (arguments, dis-aligned views

etc.) that eventually converges to stabilise. However,

this stabilisation is a correlate of the alignment and

adherence to standards and co-operation between system

components and the firms that make them. In addition, a

system may be comprised of constituent parts, some of

which may evolve faster than others, leading to a

destabilisation within the constituency. This is where

the ambitions and objectives of the companies making

these parts suggest a shadowing of the advantages of

remaining part of the system sustaining the consortium

and developing their technological contribution. This

underlying principal fuels many of the new media notions

of 'converging alliances'.

Chapter 13 - discussion

Today systems thinking is becoming ever more pervasive

generally in the way in which people design and consider

technologies and services, and other kinds of structural

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processes. Indeed, it is much more pervasive in the way

firms think about doing business (i.e. vertical

integration and offering systems and bundles of product

and service options rather than discrete products). Such

thinking challenges the design of descriptive sequential

models of innovation like for instance the NPD funnel

model of Cooper (1987). This model viewed the innovation

process broken up into parts, phases and activities in a

sequence from idea to launch. The assumption being that

the input sources are either R&D, or customer needs and

preferences. Success parameters are defined in terms of

market share, volume or profit growth in relation to

investments.

Such analysis must not only consider analysis at the

social and technical level, but also indeed include

outcomes or experience, as an integral aspect of development

(in a similar vein to the distributed cognition approach

of Hutchins, 1995). This can include the usability of

services, of fulfilment, the 'ergonomics' of the social

and organisational fulfilment, as well as addressing

functional technical weaknesses (Hughes ‘reverse

salients’).

Computers are no longer developed to act as surrogates

for human tasks. However, at the time of the study it was

only very recently that researchers had come to explore

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the broader range of cultural practices associated with

the design and use of computing in the workplace (i.e.

Star, 1995). When they are used to deliver a service, for

communication, for entertainment the focus shifts to the

notion of quality and utility at the individual and group

level. Quality of service cannot be adequately captured

by evaluation of technical function. It must include a

wide range of social roles and provision – both in front

of the screen, and beyond it through the technical and

social networks of users, service providers, and

suppliers/distributors etc.) (see below).

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Family, friends, work colleagues, etc. – social webs

Manufacturers, merchants, and vendor distribution and value webs

IndividualInteraction of an i-Tv user with product service providers

Products or services relevant for the individual consumers and their networks

How a purchase may impact the wider social networks

More pervasively into the social networks or constituencies of individuals - their 'social life', interests, family and friends

Deeper into supplier constituencies or networks - their

social and technical networks

i-Tv system

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Fig 2.4 How an episode of interaction with the system has 'knock-on'effects in 'front of '(in terms of an individual's social life, aswell as 'behind' (in terms of creating work, changing inventories)the screen

The major difference between researchers trying to

capture a complex system and a child playing a simulation

game such as SimCity, is that the real world offers no

simply definable heuristics or underlying 'rules of

thumb'. The game, like the television programme, is

designed for an audience of users. This means it is

contrived according to a designed set of heuristics.

Activity theory suggests that real world phenomena are

always aimed towards some purpose, goal or function, and

the main task of research for evaluation or for

innovation is exploration of the elements and how they

come to be understood from the perceptions of those

involved.cxviii

Actors, actants, constituencies are dynamic, they can be

contradictory and contrary to predicted behaviours and

are so at different intensities. They will not stop or

slow down for the convenience of analysis. So regarding

the Cambridge Trial, a question arises whether one can

one properly trial or simulate networks or constituencies?

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The simple answer to this question is most likely no. In

many, particularly social senses, they have to be self-

forming, through recursion as much as technically,

through design iteration, and reflexively to changing

business conditions and climates. Technical prototypes

and systems are valuable in that they can focus effort

and highlight weaknesses, but technical and marketing

trials have a strong social focus which is more difficult

to manage properly.

Social systems are not only self-organising systems as

has been stressed for example by Luhmann (1984); they are

also adaptive systems which means that they are able to

change their rules of interaction according to particular

demands of their environment. The term of adaptation is

to be understood in this context rather generally and not

as an antithesis to self-organisation. Each adaptive

system (i.e. each partner in the two consortia) is also

self-organising in the sense that it always operates

according to its own logics (its operational, cultural,

economics and business). Environment can force an

adaptive system to change its rules of interaction yet

the manner of changing is part of the self-organisation of the

system and not a simple reaction to the environment. The

reason is that even with strong governance organisations,

regardless of style, maintain distributed and localised

facets. One fundamental difference between the social and

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the technical lies in the fact that while one can

prototype a technology, and have people provide feedback

on its use and value, one cannot easily prototype a

social group. Critically for Carroll (2000)cxix, however,

“A scenario is a concrete story about use” (p14),

“Scenarios are stories – stories about people and their

activities.” Firms can recruit relevant expertise and

they can recruit a representative sample of ‘users’, but

once appropriated, there is a tendency to maintain them

as independent variables in the ethos and quasi-

experimental conditions of a trial.

Prototypes can be reconfigured, adapted and altered only

in specific ways i.e. changes to components, changes to

interfaces, change in robustness etc. This contrasts with

organisations of social groups that, once formed, are

contingent on a variety of perceptions and needs and so

forth. These are often very complex in nature, contingent

upon diverse motivations and drives, and privy to a wide

range of forces and constraints, for both individual

members, and for the group as a whole. In some cases,

they may represent a community of ‘users’ ranging vastly

in scope and scale. Consider the difference of a highly

defined and specific group such as medical equipment

operators or specialised manufacturing machine operators

through to more heterogeneous populations such as

television viewers.

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Intervention by firms wishing to learn from the users

impacts upon user perceptions as it does for the firm’s

partners. This comes through recruiting and educating the

users in the first instance and later researching aspects

of their use of the system. Each partner in a consortium

may have conflicting interests regarding what they would

like to learn, and this impacts upon the overall

intervention. The chance is that there is no-one

considering overall and general impressions of trialists

to the trial itself as all views are aimed at future (and

more functional and satisfying) systems.

It is perhaps here that the notion of a constituency or

actor-network falls short in providing a proper

prescriptive treatment of dynamic development processes.

Are these frames of analysis able to account for such

adaptation and reflexivity at the individual level? Most

likely not. They share the same limitation as most ‘big

picture’ sociology, in that the analysis falls short on

understanding the underlying reasons for change, or

indeed the relative power of one actor, actant and

constituent over that of another to invoke or engender

change and its dynamic. Over many disciplines. For

example, sociology grew out of philosophy partly in an

attempt to create a ‘science of society’ that could

duplicate the advances being made in physics and biology

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through systematic observation and causal explanation. It

was argued, mainly by Comte, that it was theoretically

possible to discover laws similar to those of physics

which could explain the behaviour of people in societies.

The growth of technology and the dominance of

engineering-based approaches arising from the need for

automation and scalability reinforced the desire for and

the assumption of order. In popular literature, the

belief that all things can be known (in a Newtonian

sense) persisted well into this past century.

Although constituencies do highlight and emphasise the

role of the constituency-builder in alignment processes,

they do not attempt to understand the relative power and

influence in social and technological terms. The also

lack the explanatory power for explaining reflexive

reaction to changes.

It may be better to think in terms of trials as a kind of

biosphere where technologies and social circumstances are

cultivated within a view that must accept the need for

creation of context and the right environment. The

familiar ecosystem concept - which connects a biota with

its physical environment through transformations of

energy, matter, and information - could be used to

integrate humans and technologies with their environment.

Transformation of energy and use of resources in human-

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dominated systems depends on the social features of

humans as well as the physical environment and the other

biotic components of ecosystems (Burch and DeLuca 1984).

But the natural new world analogy falls apart if we think

a little deeper about context and environment. Biospheres

are consciously created to mimic the natural conditions

of growth for a well known plant. In the case of trialing

the innovation of radically new technological idea the

cultivation of use value is much less certain. It is made

easier when firms comprehend a more specific market niche

through which to recruit trialists. Such a niche may be

considered the right ‘soil’ and ‘environmental’

conditions necessary for successful growth. But the

history of innovation is rich with products created for

one niche ending up as a mainstay of another (i.e. the

telephone for business use becoming a social device).

Vast differences lie in the perception of a product

between the various social groups that design, produce

and provide goods and services, and the other 'group'

that comes to use and consume. This can deny any

opportunity for social group self-formation, particularly

in the early stages of a shared exploratory exercise

(such as was the Cambridge Trial). Instead such groups

must be contrived and managed. As Grudin (1986) suggests,

that designers are less able to grasp 'user logic', and

tend to rely on more familiar and immediate ‘logics’ –

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what Araya (1995) terms as "technical thinking" - that

are useful in other problem-solving arenas, such as

software or interface design problems. Certainly,

Sharrock and Anderson, (1994) suggest that even when

there is no direct contact with users, they often remain

as a 'scenic feature' of the design process.cxx

i-Tv is a classic example of a system technology, a whole

configured from a range of discrete technology elements –

authoring technology, switching technology, transmission

technology, set top boxes and other elements. However,

being a media system it must also be able to convey

through its technological aspect, a further 'system' of

content material. This content material as various third

parties often produce individual components of a

technological system, and they must adhere to certain

rules, conventions or genres to be acceptable for

transmission. Only when both the technological and

content systems successfully combine will any

recognisable and useful system be apparent for the wider

constituency of stakeholders such as content producers,

service providers, retailers, advertisers, and of course

consumer-users. It is these stakeholders and others such

as regulators, government, competitors, service

providers, carriers, press and so on – who comprise the

wider social constituency of interactive television

systems.

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But central within these social constituents, it is the

consumer-users, their perception of the combined system

that remains critical in the assessment of the overall

result of the combination of service and technology. From

their view, it must be capable of presenting an

informative, relevant, useful or entertaining array of

content and services. In many respects, it should not be

important for them to worry about matters 'beyond the

screen'.

Since the time of Aristotle, people have believed that

'the soul' or 'the self' could distinguish humans from

non-humans. Lewis Mumford (1964) suggests that the

technological developments in the 20th century

represented an increasing effort to fully incorporate and

assimilate disobedient humans into a system of machines.

Indeed the entire modernist project from the

enlightenment onwards could be slated as a attempt to

objectify the human within machine and bureaucratic

systems and metaphors. Mumford's dystopia was clear: as

technology becomes autonomous, humans become mechanised.

From the industrial age onwards came the tradition of

system design focused upon automation, machines that

would replace human labour, increase reliability, raise

productivity. However, they still required human

operators, and it was here that the embryonic beginnings

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of ergonomics and human factor engineering began. Levers,

dials, buttons – some were fund to be difficult to

operate physically. Later, the perceptual aspects of

operating systems became of note, and later still social

aspects.

But as producers were forced to change focus to domestic

communications and entertainment, new prerogatives was

placed upon computer developers to form partnerships with

members of the creative and communications industries.

Also, designers and producers needed to understand wider

social and individual exigencies of the new genres of

use, and more of the nature of domestic users. Now

individual experiential aspects are important (Pine and

Gilmore, 1999).

Preece (1993) points out that many system designers pay

only scant attention to the 'human element' of human-

machine interaction, with users being regarded as capable

to adapting to the use of a system, 'like a cog in a

machine'. Her suggestion is of a strong determinism on

behalf of designers, where 'users' and 'use' are a kind

of independent variable in a process of optimising

machines for particular tasks. As Margaret Wheatley

(1992) sees it: "We have treated organisations like

machines, . . . We have magnified the tragedy by

treating one another as machines." (p.77)

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Mechanistic views of humans within HCI prompted Bjørn-

Andersen (1988) to directly ask the question; "are human

factors human?" in an attempt to draw attention to the

fact that humanising technology suggests processes that

aim well beyond the simple optimisation of technology.

And the observations of Bannon (1991) brought him to

question the human in 'human factors' research in their

role as an 'independent variable' in a process of

optimising technology. In a seminal paper: From human

factors to human actors, he writes:

"Within the HF (human factors) approach, the humanis often reduced to being another system componentwith certain characteristics, such as limitedattention span, faulty memory, etc., that need to befactored into the design equation for the overallhuman-machine system. This form of piecemealanalysis of the person as a set of components de-emphasizes important issues in work design.Individual motivation, membership in a community ofworkers, and the importance of the setting indetermining human action are just a few of theissues that are neglected. By using the term humanactors emphasis is placed on the person as anautonomous agent that has the capacity to regulateand coordinate his or her behaviour, rather thanbeing a passive element in a human-machine system."(pp.27-29)

Notions of experiential qualities such as 'usability'

'usefulness' and 'use' surely cannot feature when one

fails to differentiate between human and non-human

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elements, as is the position of ANT. Indeed, Callon

(1998) himself puts forward that: "One of the oft-

mentioned shortcomings of ANT is the poorness of the

analysis that it offers in respect of the actor." Indeed,

an approach of treating 'humans as parts of the system' –

as cybernetic users and consumers - is ironically similar

to that of the early HCI studies, or mechanistic

perspectives of the organisation, or purely ergonomic

views of engineering, where the human element is

considered the 'problem'. Actor-networks is not alone in

this style of analysis. Many earlier frameworks such as

suggested by Craven and Wellman in their discussion of

The Networked City (1973) characterised the social network

approach by its analytical emphasis upon:

"The primacy of structures of interpersonallinkages, rather than the classification of socialunits according to their individualcharacteristics . . . [It] gives priority to the wayin which social life is organized, throughempirically observable systems of interaction andreliance, systems of resource allocation, andsystems of integration and co-ordination." (pp.1-2)

Caven and Wellman view that the concept of networks is

scalable on a whole network level to a ‘network of

networks’, that is network groups connected to other

network groups by actors sharing membership in these

groups. This operates in a number of ways. People are

usually members of a number of different social networks,

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each based on different types of relationships and,

perhaps, different communication media. The purely

structural arrangements between people and people via

communications networks may derive value from a purely

structural analysis. However, such analysis can only be

performed upon networks which are fully formed,

sustained, and which have a perceivable structure. The

structures of the social and technical networks on the

Cambridge trial were constantly shifting, as they may do

in many innovative, experimental-type development

situations.

There are parallels here with the statistical treatments

of the individual in audience research (already cited in

the previous chapter) and within economics. Miller (1995)

is one who, from the perspective of recent studies of

consumption, criticises the primacy of economics in its

study of society. He sees that economics is a social

science discipline that "cut itself off from social

studies," and this led to an abstracted view of the

world. (p.12) He sees that political decision-making and

policy relies too much on economics:

". . . the discipline of economics has achievedunprecedented power in the world today in largemeasure precisely because it has justified thecomplete neglect of the topic of consumption."(Miller, ibid.)

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Predominately, his critique hinges upon how economists

create an image of the 'aggregate' consumer.cxxi Actual

consumption behaviour and choices give way to an

implicitly normative behaviour, representative of the

rational decision making and self-interest which drive

persons to consume. ‘Research and development’,

'innovation' and 'markets' are each abstractions, myths,

and can often obfuscate the complexity of real-world

processes and phenomena. As Wartofsky (1979) has it:

"... our own perceptual and cognitive understandingof the world is in large part shaped and changed bythe representational artifacts we ourselves create.We are, in effect, the products of our own activity,in this way; we transform our own perceptual andcognitive modes, our ways of seeing and ofunderstanding, by means of the representations wemake." (pp. xx - xxiii)

This is true, even of those studies that wish to 'open

the black box' of technology, as they often 'close' or

even ignore the 'box' of the individual designer or

consumer-user. For instance Westrum (1991: p.172) as an

example points to the fact that "the evolution and

structure of a technological system are shaped by the

social institution that sponsors it." Yet in the same

volume he draws attention to the potency of user

innovation. Economic determinism parallels technological

forms of determinism in that it closes consideration of

the reality of use with relation to technology.

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While marketing hype attempts to carve out a space for a

new product or system in the mind of the public, actually

getting the technology to work according to original

design, albeit within certain tolerances, the need for

'tweaking', recalculations of budgets, and/or re-

appraisal of orientations and commitments, provides a

necessary stage where it can be tested. There are no

more relevant testers than potential consumer-users.

Testing the technology using surrogate consumers – i.e.

trialists – provides an attempt to realise and benchmark

further problems of deployment, implementation and

delivery of services. They may then wish to shift the

emphasis of the trial towards a marketing phase in order

to gauge an idea of an appropriate charging system and

commercial potential for such services. Throughout these

processes, new partnerships and alliances may form, and

others come to encounter the technology and its

potentials.

If the technology and its potentials meet expectations

then a new successful product is realised. If it does not

then it may be relegated to the domain of expensive

failures. However, aspects or components of the system

may be developed into separate products which could be

successful, or there may even begin further processes of

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innovation and negotiation breeding a new version or

revised version of the original system.

Chapter 14 - Conclusion

Evans et al (1982) suggest three major reason reasons why

poor design occurs (p.4);

Failure to use a set of inappropriate social valuesas the basis for design action.

Lack of understanding of the complexity or scale ofthe problem and its systemic context.

Becoming so used to designing in a particular waythat there is no awareness of alternative and moreappropriate ways of tackling problems.

Technology, in every instance, whether in production,

consumption and use represents interaction of the material

and physical with particular aspects of the social

continuum. Such relations are complex as they straddle

social groups and institutions. Determinist outcomes are

difficult to predict as they are largely emergent. They

are the product of complex relationship dynamics between

social and technical elements, between micro, meso and

macro sociological levels, and reflexively, as the result

of reactions to, and creation of prototypes, competitor

market releases and wider industrial innovation trends.

In sum, the systems approach, and its derivatives,

establishes as an approach to complex systemic phenomena;

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it reflects a search for the interrelatedness of things

in problematic situations. As such it can consider the

‘actors’, ‘networks’ and ‘constituencies’.

The purpose of actor-networks and socio-technical

constituencies is to map relations between elements,

specifically for the purposes of advancing academic

theory and/or policy-making. Opposed to physical tools,

such as machines, and computers, these are cognitive tools

aimed at expanding the horizons of researchers,

designers, producers and managers. They relate "ideas to

ideas, ideas to data, and data to data; they encourage

team members to communicate more effectively with each

other." (Cohen, 1995: p.2) I have considered some of

these in this chapter, most prominently actor-network

theory and sociotechnical constituencies. It is suggested

here that both generally derive from GST and related

fields.

Systems comprise 'hard' and 'soft' elements, social and

technical, actors, actants or constituents, function,

expertise and experience. Some of these fall somewhere in

between the poles of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (included here can

be style, whose creation can employ considerable agency

and resources, as well as impact greatly market

acceptance). It is possible, with some measure of

objectivity to map changes in the technological

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infrastructure of a network, the technical terrain of a given

problem to define and taxonomise elements in terms of

functions, specifications etc. It is also possible to map

changes in organisation and to a lesser extent expertise.

Silverstone (1994: p.85) raises questions regarding the

relevancy of systems and actor-network models. He views

that their preoccupation is too weighted towards

processes of production of technologies (which they most

definitely share with socio-technical constituencies and

many other social constructivist style studies i.e. Pinch

and Bijker). Both actor-networks and constituencies

sublimate or 'black-box' the consumption and use process

and any other form of experiential aspects of the

product. They intentionally do so to focus analysis upon

the relation of parts within the system, actors, actants

or constituents that they come to identify. Both

frameworks are rich in concepts, and both have developed

a specialised vocabulary.

Most perhaps most importantly both are emerging and

themselves under continually development, and lack any

real set of heuristics on 'how to do' or 'how to be

applied'.

The leaning in this book is towards constituencies but it

would be erroneous to ignore some of the useful aspects

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of actor-networks missing in constituencies. Most

prevalent here is the semiotic aspects which drive and

motivate technical projects, while there is emphasis upon

the strength of these aspects in actor-networks,

constituencies tend to incorporate symbolic attributes

under the heading of 'perceptions' or 'perception

building'.

However, one of the major criticisms of actor-network

theorists is that they make very few references to

sources outside the fields of sociology, and history of

science and technology. But the same can also be said of

Molina's sociotechnical constituencies. Both carry the

tradition of general systems theory in that they wish to

offer an overarching explanation for processes that are

indeed extremely complex and dynamic in nature, and

difficult to explore in detail as well as depth. But like

their industry counterparts, they do provide insights

which help to develop an impression of the 'big picture',

which in turn can stimulate the creative mind of the

reader.

Cicourel (1964) suggests the need for the researcher to

have worked out his or her theoretical approach prior to

entering the field. However, going in with strong

hypothesis or a classification system will obviously pre-

figure what one is likely to encounter. This is strong in

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Molina's socio-technical constituencies approach, which

attempts to comprehensively map and pigeon hole most

potential organisational outcomes or aspects that one may

encounter in a research project. Alternative approaches

such as actor-network theory tends to be more sympathetic

to individual cases and projects. The first may lead to

self-fulfilling prophecies such as looking and finding

that governance was weak compared to technical expertise.

Actor-network theorists have reservations about the

nature and influence of pre-existing, large scale social

structures such as class and markets, and moreover any

prior attribution and classification of social interests

(Callon and Law, 1982; Latour, 1988). The result is an

emphasis on empiricism and upon description. There is

also too much focus upon essential actors with respect to

power and autonomy opposed to the situating within wider

structures of power and politics (Williams and Edge,

1996). Conversely, going in without some clear idea on

the form and type of concepts that one is looking for (as

in actor-networks which purports to be entirely

interpretivist in its approach) may lead to paralysis

when it comes to carrying out meaningful observation and

integrating findings. In the first instance one is

focused and limited, structured, in the second one

contends with complexity and potentially chaos head-on

and is entirely at the mercy of what one ‘sees’ or can

access.

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Complexity is not only a new way of thinking about

management, but also about innovation. Innovation can be

considered as a complex process for several reasons:-

Innovation consists of a group of people, i.e. agents, that

interact with each other and in so doing share ideas,

create new knowledge, and re-create both knowledge and

the context of that knowledge. - Interaction is a process

of learning and developing new knowledge. This process is

not linear but subject to non-linear dynamics. Knowledge

exchange is subject to continuous feedback loops between

agents and between agents and the external world. These

feedback loops are represented by customer knowledge

influencing the process, or other internal knowledge

sources, which can either be knowledge from a colleague,

but also from other stakeholders within the organisation.

- In the process of interaction between people and

between the internal organisation and the external world,

alternatives are sought out, and either selected or

discarded to the extent that there is “fitness” between

the individual mental model and the new piece of

knowledge. Knowledge exchange can thus be viewed as a

process of strategy selection and choice based on

adaptation.

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Technological change or innovation today often occurs as

projects, such as the Cambridge Trial - events happening

within the other flows of normal business that companies

conduct. As such they do represent a bounded series of

events and groups of participants. The boundaries are

economic, technical and social including availability of

expertise. Many of these projects are complex in

organisational character involving various actors from

many different organisations. Some projects 'spin-out'

becoming separate firms or as operating divisions. For

instance, ATML spun out of Acorn, as did ARM Ltd. Om

became an operating division with their own HQ based in

Cambridge Technopark. Projects are often also very

complex with respect to the technology involved.

Many components comprise the whole technical system or

network. We must recognise that some components may have

distinct legacy in what came before, that systems,

perceptions even possibilities are in fact

configurations. Actor-network types of analysis

implicitly stress their uniqueness as projects, however

sociotechnical constituencies stress explicitly their

generative function. The methods and availability or access

to data, and the relative impact of intervention always

limit analysis. Also of note is that the researcher

cannot be in all places at once.

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This was certainly the case in the Cambridge Trial where

the Om STB was comprised largely of 'off the shelf'

parts. The communications infrastructure was already in

place and operating as a successful business, and much of

the basic content material was in an already produced

state. Other components needed adaptation and development

to respond to some, yet, unforeseen need of the system to

effectively perform its operation and function.

Within the Cambridge Trial this was creating the 'mortar'

which would join the components together and get them

working as an effective whole. For instance the content,

comprising largely of the games and educational

software), and the video footage were drawn from Acorn's

education division and Anglia Television respectively.

Development work was needed on both of these elements

such as 'porting' the software to the system – making it

work on the new platform and with the remote control

rather than a PC keyboard. The video footage also

required editing and digitalisation. The largest piece of

'mortar' work was the interface development.

The interface has a dual-faced Janus-like quality. As

proposed earlier this the site where not only do all the

functional aspects of the system's purpose converge in

relevant, purposeful and useful ways. It is also the

place where functions represent symbolically in a

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meaningful way to prospective user, and where they can

manipulate functional characteristics. To create this is

a not only a task not only of engineering but also of

aesthetic ingenuity, employing considerable symbolic and

semiotic invention, social and cognitive sensitivity and

understanding, and a feel for relation. In addition to the

interface, there were further content elements to be

developed as further partners joined the content and

services group – the principal services providers or PSPs. These

included catalogue-style screens depicting goods,

interactive advertisements and the online surveys and

questionnaires.

While technology and organisation may be mapped, to map

the complex of perceptions and influences that shapes a

constituency or network is a more difficult task. These

lie very much in the 'soft' end of the spectrum of

systemic elements. This is the challenge of the

contextual usability approach detailed later, which

presents a hermeneutic model of mapping perceptions of a

product's characteristics, attributes, feature and

functions. ANT as a practice is inductive. It often

involves prolonged and gradual acquisition of knowledge,

through induction, data slowly evolves into concepts and

specific research propositions through the investigators

own increasing skill and understanding. This

characterises it from sociotechnical constituencies,

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which carries the implication that all conceivable

interactions are already partitioned and classified, and

it is simply a matter of 'filling in the spaces' so to

speak. It is comparatively deductive. But this is not

unlike many approaches favoured by industry. Quality

tools such as QFD, and even usability engineering

approaches, offer prescriptions for industry

practitioners who have not the time nor resources to

engage in a protracted research project. Here lies the

difference between research for academic ends and for

achieving practical results.

Chapter 13 – case study

The much heralded 'age of network computing' raises someinteresting issues for the Cambridge iTV Trial. As access toand use of the Internet becomes much more widespread than everbefore, so the demand for bigger, better, brighter, faster andmore dynamic services will grow. Content and service providerswill want to respond to this demand by enhancing theirservices which are currently constrained to what the Internetcan deliver.

This consumer and service provider 'pull' will really make thenetwork operators have to take the subject of additionalbandwidth provision very seriously indeed, particularly whencoupled with demand for yet another potentially very bandwidthhungry interactive multimedia application - advertising. Thisis a big money business and some of the leading players areready to commit to investing significantly in development.

These arguments are not difficult to justify; they arepredicated on the simple fact that human nature dictates thatno matter who we are or what business we work in, we alwayswant better and more.

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Where does this lead us? To fully interactive multimedia -including interactive TV. Full motion video, audio and complexgraphics are all highly desirable elements of a trulyinteractive system. But why have such services not seen widercommercial deployment? You guessed it. The bandwidth costargument. The stimulation of the demand for bandwidth on avariety of fronts will give the network operators a much moresolid - and much needed - business case on which to base theirnetwork infrastructure upgrade strategy.

So what next for Acorn Online Media and its partners on theCambridge interactive TV Trial? Keep an eye on developments.It's going to be exciting.

Phase Three of the Cambridge iTV Trial: The NetworkComputercxxii

In Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing (Denning and

Metcalfe, 1997) are articles that focus upon technology,

communication infrastructure, business and human-computer

interfaces. What is remarkable within this volume is the

reticence exhibited by authors to cast future scenarios.

Rather the tendency is to speak on current or near future

developments, or very tightly referring to 'sure bet'

technological advances with reasonably clear 'path-

dependencies'. Other chapters are revisionist, preferring

to comment on the radical nature of developments in the

previous 50 years.

The quote that opens this chapter was taken from the

Acorn Online Media web page at the time when the

Cambridge Interactive Television Trial was drawing to its

end (October 1996). As such, it heralds the end of a

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particular period in the development of broadband

interactive television in the UK, and indeed the world.

At this time focus was shifting generally from broadband

solutions to the Internet as a more immediate provider of

digital services to the home. But this trajectory was not

certain. It also hints at a dignified compromise in

respect to an overly ambitious technological project. The

Cambridge system began with a large-scale vision that

comprised of distinctive technological, institutional and

social elements.

This was a vision of radical change, impacting not only

the way in which television content could be

reconceptualised in terms of its format and delivery, but

also regarding how people would access and use media and

new kinds of online services within their everyday

domestic routine. Principally, it would harness the new

creative potentials of digital technology and networks to

create an 'on-demand broadband network'. The technical

potentials of this, with their 'inherent' commercial

potentials, were perceived as both self-evident and far-

reaching. The trial and its partners would spearhead the

spawning of new content and services, they could

rightfully lay claim to the idea that they were at the

'cutting edge'. The trial was originally envisaged as a

series of three phases or steps towards a new kind of

interactive mass market. This is a technology era where

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'learning by doing' was considered a prerequisite. The

radically innovative nature of this project negated

notion of ‘best practice’ or ‘best way to deploy’.

However, the digital era of business was volatile and

dynamism was radical. Changes in the landscape of

regulation, standards and competition create exigencies

that demand immediate appraisal, or change in strategy.

This confounded any ‘rightful’ path in which to advance.

How to respond to and prioritise change in complex webs

of partner, client, and market demands, threatened plans,

and forced new directions. This was certainly true in the

case of the Cambridge Trial in its unfolding.

Over the duration of the trial, technical and strategic

directions shifted to accommodate more immediate business

prospects to provide, from the system perspective,

‘lower-tech' solutions. These would nevertheless utilise

their STB technology and would let them meet their

business plan projections for that year. At this same

time they were faced with an overwhelming succession of

costly technical problems to maintain and address the

needs of the 'higher-tech' Cambridge system. Exasperating

these problems were significant difficulties in

recruiting trialists – those who were to act as surrogate

users and consumers on the system.

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There then came the promise of a very significant

prospect of working with US giant Oracle to produce the

reference designs for the much promoted 'thin client' or

'network computer'. The potentials involved in this offer

had the effect of transforming the Cambridge Trial

entirely from its original functional aims and

objectives. Originally, these were not to include access

to the Internet as a sub-function of the system. The

system that emerged at the end of the trial was one whose

only function was TV-enabled Internet access.

In some sense the technological ambitions of the original

vision had regressed towards a much more manageable and

prospectively more consumer-desirable and consumer-

possible solution. The main reason for this is cited as

cost. In reality, it involved a much richer complex of

factors which I have discussed at length in earlier

chapters.

It can hardly be stressed enough that this book

represents the product of unique window of opportunity.

An academic researcher gaining access to the rich and

pressurised contexts and processes of a commercially

sensitive industrial event. The Cambridge Interactive

Television Trial has come to be widely recognised as a

prototypical example of the meshing of vision with the

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business, technical, human and social contingencies of

the new media 'age'.

This was a project in which an entire technological

system was developed and implemented for the purposes of

learning and commercial interest. A trial is unique in

that it is intended to directly interface technological

development with semi-naturalistic, real world contexts -

people, homes, streets, and towns. The system and its

characteristics, features and functionalities were

appraised in terms of its operation, usefulness and

usability (and other use dimensions) by those who

designed and produced the technology, content,

interfaces, and communications infrastructure, and

eventually, those who were held as models of consumer-

users - the trial participants. The success of this

experiment remains open to interpretation.cxxiii

In this chapter, I wish to recapitulate points from the

various chapters, drawing them together to provide

explanation of where I view that contexts of use make a

pertinent contribution to theories of technical

innovation and innovation of use. I wish also to make

suggestions regarding the pragmatic potential of this in

linking understanding of the use process relative to

issues facing firms involved with technical innovation,

in particular, networked digital communication

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technologies and content, although it could cover a more

wider range of products and services.

Here I place CU in relation to sociotechnical

constituencies. The blending of the two perspectives I

believe offers a way to bridge the gap between 'cultures

of production' and 'cultures of use'. This is aimed at

contributing both to innovation theory, and to laying the

grounds for developing a useful industrial framework

through which managers can map the contexts and

environments of use to wider macro-level constraints,

opportunities and influences.

Recontextualising

In all cases there exists practices which permit

managers, designers and marketers to augment (and

authenticate) their reflexive notions of what is

happening outwith the world of the workplace. A central

view of the book is that usability, as a research project

conducted by firms, should be recontextualised into design-

producer's worldviews as a naturalised part of the overall

use process.

This would shift its emphasis from being an index of how

assessable and usable a technology is with respect to the

intentionality of the designer or producer, to the

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experiential qualities of use from the consumer-user's

perspective. This entails a process of understanding the

designer-producers intentionality, as much as

understanding the user consumer's interpretation of the

product, and therefore of that intentionality. Design and

use is a dialogic process, as is production and

consumption. Under this rubric of 'naturalised' I wish to

include the fact that the product of such studies - the

knowledge produced by the research - must locate within

the company at its most useful points, with those who may

best use it to inform strategy and influence design and

marketing. Further it must communicate ecologically the

data which are relevant in order to be effective in the

implementation of design features, functionality and

attributes.

However, what often stands in the way of this, and what

was clearly evident in the case presented in the book, is

that the methods of understanding use and users

constitute an identifiable and bounded system of social

interaction between the firms involved (as well as their

partners in alliances) and its consumer-users (or

trialists). Arguably this is intermediated by other

‘cultures’, such as those comprising du Gay's et al's

'cultural circuit', but also within 'sub-cultures' at the

intra-firm level, say, between departments and functions.

In the case of this study, the PSPs featured strongly as

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Marketing

Design


one of these 'cultures'. The company itself effectively

forms a social sub-culture within the wider context of

the parent culture of the society within which the

company operates. They, and their products, also form

spheres of negotiation between various individuals and

company cultures, a process which can lead to contested,

negotiated, ineffective, and erroneous reifications of

use and the user.

This process leads inevitably to the creation of

‘cultural distance' between the users of a system, and

those who would analyse or design it. It is this notion

of a cultural 'distance' which provides the motivation

for employment of techniques and ideas from outside

disciplines, those particularly concerned with

appreciating and understanding the variations in meaning

and concepts between different cultures - interpretative

approaches ethnography, naturalistic inquiry or

hermeneutics for example. The product of consumer-user

research has often been validated only by the criterion

that it is implemented - and therefore considered to be

ultimately interpretable - by managers (as Holbrook, 1995

puts it 'managerially relevant'), and useful to the

processes of invoking strategies and policy, making

decisions and reducing risk. Nevertheless, there is a

place to inform designers and marketers directly, to

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Marketing

Design


engage them to understand tacit elements of use and

usage.

Beginning with the actual consumer-user and their complex

of behaviours, attitudes etc., and the first stage of

reification is appropriating or conducting research. The

process of selecting research reports, commissioning a

study, or setting one up is based on elements such as a

client's or manager's brief, reflexive considerations of

the problem, training and knowledge of the field (which

includes knowledge of methodology, tools, previous

research and so on). There then follows further stages of

reification, through processes of presentation,

distribution, negotiation and re-interpretation before

knowledge of the user and use is embodied in the product

manifesting as particular characteristics, features and

functionalities (see below).

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Marketing

Design


Fig 8.1 Research and its interpretation as provider and filter ofknowledge of the user-consumer

Chapter 13 - Impact of discourse on technologydevelopment and perceptions

Throughout this book I have suggested that anticipation

of technologies, and their potentials extend further than

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Research

Individual and negotiated interpretations of presented knowledge across company

Marketing

Design


The

Finalembodiment ofuser image

manifested in

situated and actualised circumstances of use. The

discourse that accompanies technologies can influence

perceptions at every stage of development and diffusion.

It can denote whether they are a 'good' or a 'bad' thing

for society, a ‘useful’ thing to purchase, or if they are

‘difficult’ to use. It can even dictate whether it is

‘worth’ participating in a trial.cxxiv

For instance, the moral panic that suggests that through

using computer-based technologies to communicate we

mitigate our need to have person-to-person interactions,

can carry weight in the shaping of markets.cxxv For

instance the view of TV-centric technologies function

permitting on-line shopping and ordering of goods, was

correlated with behavioural and attitudinal change – i.e.

less incentive there is to go to the shops or to the

video store to rent videos. Similar views purport that

television-using time displaces with ‘games console

playing time’, or ‘Internet browsing’. The amount of

people that it is possible to 'meet' online rises, while

critics venture that the quality of the interactions are

often diminished or taken out of their human context. But

common sense dictates a shifting of interest in

technology and media forms as people mature and as new

successful technologies diffuse and incorporate into

daily ritual.

364

Sobchack (1996) interestingly extends this idea, say of

internet access usurping television viewing as daily

domestic leisure practice. He suggests an intertextuality of

expectations between domestic technologies. In a world

socialised into timeshifting and speed of process, our

expectations rise with respect to performance,

transferring such expectations onto other technologies -

she offers an example of the child who suggests that her

mother 'fast-forwards' the 'slow' microwave. This

suggests that our exposure to the wider technological

constituency shapes our perceptions.

In my own pilot study there seemed to be consensus in the

more 'middle-class' households regarding that 'use' of

printed material provided a superior, more 'reputable'

source of entertainment and information over the use of

television. This was echoed in one of the case studies

(case study 5) where the parents had strict household

codes with respect to television use. How much is such an

attitude influenced by the recurrent theme of 'video

violence' which appears regularly in the headlines of

newspapers? How much are they reinforced by the

formidable support from research that claims that the

viewing of violent material propagates violent feelings

and behaviour in individuals? How does such discourse and

attitudes affect diffusion? In which way do they, and in

which way can they, restrict and otherwise shape

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consumption and use? These questions, while outside the

scope of the present study, remain of interest to the

notion of how discourse shapes perception of television

and its programming.

In the first two chapters, I made the suggestion that

many of the new and emerging digital technologies, such

as those whose primary feature is making television

interactive, suffer from a kind of 'interpretative

flexibility' or 'descriptive confusion'.cxxvi Coming under

the auspices of interactive television, enhanced

television, augmented television and various other

rubrics, digital technologies intended to bring online

interactive services to the home have different meanings

to different people - they are polysemic - their

interpretation depends on the interests, intentions, and

knowledge of their user-consumer-audiences.

Interactions while capable of being decomposed and

described in both technical and in media content terms,

do not necessarily relate to the user experience. It is

as polysemic (perhaps to an even more pronounced degree)

than content material taken as an individual component of

an overall experience of use. Interaction, with

'interactive' media, like social 'interaction', is for

the large part tacit compared to the experience or

outcome of searching for, finding and viewing content. It

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is rather like the 'journey' to some 'destination'.

Someone may ask you how your trip was, but it is unlikely

that they will ask how the steering on the car handled,

unless they had some vested interest - such as the car

being their own. But this is the case in design

evaluation where one seeks out what may appear sometimes

very subtle details regarding the use and user

experience. Attempts are made to unpack what is, in

effect a 'whole' experience which may include

characteristics of the interface, the content

information, graphical design, ease of use, the brand

associations with advertised goods, delivery and

fulfilment, and cost. All combine to deliver value or

usefulness.

User innovation

This public domain comprises of not only those who will

consume and use technology but also those who will

innovate upon them and innovate upon their use. Coming

from the social constructivist perspective on technology

development, Westrum (1991: p.238) suggests that: "A

device may appear to be something different to different

groups interested in exploiting it . . . it may evolve in

quite different directions." Further, as understood by

the cultural circuit, actor-networks and sociotechnical constituencies,

the 'public domain' also includes those who will regulate

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technologies as well as create legislation regarding

their production and use.

To capture how users and others may reinterpret use and

meaning in technologies can have significant implications

for designers and producers (Von Hippel, 1990, 1996;

Fleck, 1994). In addition, most importantly, the public

includes creators and producers of other, often related

technologies which create the conditions and environments

(such as competition, cheaper network access, and so on)

whereby the new technologies flourish. All come to

experience the product, interact with it, in different

ways within different frames of reference.

As much as usability exists only as a single element

within the human comprehension and experience of

technology (along with situational circumstances of use,

the development of usage patterns, and development of

value and usefulness), its importance and meaning to the

firm only finds place or makes sense within broader

business, social, institutional, ideological and cultural

frameworks. Making it easier for someone to use a system

does not make it a better system.

It is reasonably safe to say that the rise in the

awareness of usability and user-centred design as a

contributing factor in the success of products and

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services, parallels the movements in management practice

towards more customer-orientated approaches (Wiklund, 1994).

Under such management climates, any tool or set of

techniques that promise greater customer satisfaction may

be incorporated into product/service development

processes (for instance, Walsh et al. 1997).

However, this intersubjective creation of the consumer-

user by a firm and its partners, distilled through

research and presentation processes, is only an element

that informs design and marketing of a product as only

part of complex. Design is never free as it is always

constrained by influences beyond the tools, knowledge and

thinking that enables it. It must always conform and

meet, but must also extend. It is a fundamental and

constant human activity, entailing far more than has been

suggested by limited definitions of design as the optimal

use of available resources or as some sort of index of

aesthetic merit. Cooper and Press (1995) suggest that the

contemporary nature of design as a process and practice

is indeed ambiguous:

"Design can be conceived from being an individualactivity such as designing a chair, through to acorporate planning process that regulates innovationto meet market demands." (p.42)

So one may design technologies, one may design an

organisational structure, services, research, an

369

interface, or even design for experience.cxxvii Each of these

design facets and challenges are to be identified within

the Cambridge Trial. It has to be finally combined with

other influences into the design process (such as costs,

recognition of standards and so on). I shall return to

this aspect in greater detail later where I suggest the

relation of CU to wider constituencies of social and

technical influences. Here I wish to suggest that it is

the mode and inquiry and the mode of explanation of the

basic research which defines and colours an initial

'virtualisation' of the consumer-user in the process

(above and beyond the initial reflexive notions held by

the product instigators).

Traditionally, as in large-scale market surveys this

takes the form of aggregation statistics of some sort,

providing some insight into 'generic' consumer-user

preferences. This data may be combined with

psychographics or other complementary studies which lead

to some notion of a 'preferred reading' of the consumer-

user favourable or perhaps dismissive of some suggested

strategic move regarding new product development (see

below).

Table 8.1 Data, information and knowledge regarding the

use process

use usability usage usefulness

370

Subjective/objective

Can be fairlyobjective

Objective Objective/subjective

Subjective

Subjective Motivation orattraction touse,circumstancesand location ofuse, service/schosen

Experienceof use

Time tocompletetask, satisfycuriosity, orachieveentertainmentsatisfaction

Value outsideof immediateuse,gratification,

Objective Who, where,what, and why

How easy touse/understand

What, when,and how much

What, howmuch, and howlong

Researchmethods

System trackingparticipantobservation, self-reportthrough quest.survey,interview,diary methods,etc.

Usabilityinspectionmethods,usabilitytesting,etc., betatesting

Systemtracking,participantobservation,self-reportthroughquestionnaires/interviews

Self-report,possiblytriangulatedwith use andusage data

Spatio/temporal

In shop, inhome, at work,in school

Immediatetermshort termlong term

Patterns ofusetime spent ontasks/programme

Period ofvalued use;immediatetermshort termlong term

Relation toextra-useactivities

371

Attribute,Phenomenaor task

Demo-psychographics ofuser,individualdifferences ofuser, genre ofservice, styleofpresentation,awareness ofproduct and itstechnologicalcontexts,knowledge ofpoint of sale/

Demonstrationlocation

Ease ofnavigation,short cuts,ergonomicsof physicalinterface,screen andmenu layout

Which servicewatched, forhow long,level ofinteraction,'zapping'betweenservices,which timeswatched,regularity ofprogramme/service use

Value ofservices toindividual,thesustenance ofvalue,perceivedfrom actualvalue, symbolicvalue.

Characteristics

Individualcharacteristics, Technologyitself(interface,deliveryplatform,system)placeand context ofuse

Design andcharacteristics of thehardwareandsoftwareinterface,experientialcharacteristics of thesystem

Individualsposition inthe household

How itcompares withperceivedoptions

Domain Psycho-sociological,psycho-economical,geographical,psychological

Techno-psychological

Psycho-sociological

Cultural,psycho-economical

As suggested from the introduction of this book onwards,

the incorporation of interpretative paradigm research,

coupled to enhanced means by which to extract behavioural

data from consumer transactions with systems, alter the

previous horizons through which designers, marketers and

372

mangers may authenticate their perceptions of their

product, its use and its consumer-users. It opens

previously constrained spaces of use knowledge (i.e.

domestic activities).

The product and marketing reaches into the public domain

in general and specific ways, dependent on distribution

and advertising, press reports and so on. Diffusion of

the product into people's lives, and subsequent research

begins the process again for the innovation of other

products (fig 2 below).

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Actual user consumer

Research of user consumer

Analysis of dataProduction, presentation or distribution of report

Negotiations of implicit image of user-consumer in report withprojections and intuitions of designer, manager, partners, etc.

Integration and implementation of user information in conjunction with other constraints and influences on design and marketing

Distribution mechanisms for product, advertising and other forms of public knowledge of product

Appropriation, consumption and use

Fig. 8.2 A circular model of user knowledge propagation,

communication and implementation

The procedure of the above model has been broached by a

number of industrial changes, most notably the

incorporation of user-consumer-product 'tools' methods or

techniques, developed in answer to the call for

concurrent modes of manufacturing, higher degrees of

agility and faster times to market for products,

advertising as point of sale in digital interfaces, and

one-to-one manufacturing or mass customisation.cxxviii

Within this book one of the main points which I have

drawn attention to is that the above circular model is

threatened by a number of changes. These include:

Changes in the ontology of audiences, users and

consumers (atomisation of markets, ‘one-to-one’

marketing).

Changes in consumer tastes and rational regarding

goods and services (customisation,

personalisation, individualism).

Changes in the transactional technologies linking

providers of goods, media content and services to

users-consumers (e-, t- and m- commerce,

experiential marketing).

Wider changes to the business environment

resulting from the direct or indirect

374

digitisation of business and economics

(outsourcing, globalisation, mergers and

acquisitions).

As a tools and frameworks of analysis, sociotechnical

constituencies and actor-network theory attempt to

protray why a technology 'is as it is' at a certain

period within its development cycle, how it reached this

stage, and how it relies on some understanding of where

its origins lie, from both its technological and social

contexts and origins. But they too speak in metaphors, as

do those who speak of the acceptance and domestication of

products.

Mechanistic models of cognition and behaviours of people

Mechanistic models of people - as individuals or groups -

arose with the enlightenment and the development of neo-

positivist ways of conceiving of the human and the

social. It culminated in the rise of mass systems of

media, and production fuelled notions of 'the' subject,

'the' user, 'the' consumer, and 'the' audience. There are

dubious epistemological assumptions implicit in these

maxims - there is a lot more to the story than 'coming to

know X', where X is a generalised, stereotyped user,

consumer or member of the audience. They are often taken

to be 'cybernetic' beings where particular inputs will

produce certain outcomes. Such images of the user or

375

customer base have long been popular in HCI, usability,

television ratings, and the selling and buying of goods

and services. Generally assumed is that knowing the

user, audience or consumer comes through developing

familiarity with the prospective consumer-user's task

domain. This is achieved through observing and modelling

it in some way, providing the designer, programme

scheduler and marketer with a handy (usually quantitative

or measured) characterisation from which requirements can

be derived and needs identified.

As far as techniques in HCI have been concerned, this is

far from the end of the story. New schools of practice

and thought are adding new dimensions to this idea: one

of these is participatory design - otherwise known as the

'Scandinavian Approach'. Although this method is

considered to have drawbacks resulting from the

introduction of users into the design process - the added

complication of extra human relations to manage, possibly

taxing the social skills of the design team; the risk of

'group-think', and so forth - the benefits which can

accrue as a result of more closely integrating the users

and their knowledge of their environment are such that

the approach has increasing legislative force supporting

its use.

376

'Creating the user' considers very strongly how the role

of 'user', 'consumer', viewer, subscriber, subject,

customer collapses in the light of new media

development.cxxix The user, within the course of initial

product development has been for the large part little

more than an 'unknown other', someone who will take into

their lives and home a technology which they will find

benefit and value in using. Market success used to be the

main illustration of demand for certain product classes.

However, in the more post-modern marketplace much more

radical innovations have perplexed quality processes such

as quality function deployment (QFD) in their efforts to

align the 'voice of the customer' with the 'ear of the

engineer'.

Quite clearly, images of the 'research subject', the

'user' and their use process, and the 'consumer' may be

constructed through the projections of researchers,

designers and managers, where they attribute behaviours

and attitudes onto their users based on their own

lifeworld experiences.

They may also be based on more formalised renditions of

how people are based on scientific, marketing, usability

and consumer research. With respect to research Poole and

McPhee (1985) see that;

377

" . . . it is easy for researchers to impose theirown constructs and models on subjects, substitutingobservers' insights for actors' processes andunderstandings. The substitution often occursunaware, because researchers take social scientificconstructs for granted and do not consider that theyonly reflect professional discourse and not thereality of subjects . . . for example is the way weconceptualise relational control consistent with howsubjects see control issues? Are the statements wecall dominant actually seen as such by subjects? Aresubjects even concerned with control in day-to-dayinteraction?" (p.130)

This draws attention to another point of focus regarding

the circular model of user-knowledge-implementation

referred to earlier. The intersubjective creation of the

consumer-user by a firm and its partners, distilled

through research and presentation processes, is only a

single element informing design and marketing of a

product. It has to be finally combined with other

influences into the design process (such as costs,

recognition of standards and so on). I shall return to

this aspect in greater detail later. Here I wish to

suggest that it is the mode and inquiry and the mode of

explanation of the basic research which defines and

colours the initial 'virtualisation' of the consumer-

user.

People's lives, lifestyles, language and system-logging

378

Language lies at the very heart of interpretivism -

interpretation is a quintessentially linguistic

phenomenon. Interpretivism, as contrasted with

rationalism, may be characterised by an awareness that

nothing comes to us an as absolute 'given'.cxxx

Understanding and awareness occur against a much wider

background. Such processes invariably comprise of a gamut

of communication techniques and styles and symbolic

manipulation. The casual chats, the more targeted and

practised sales pitch, the various marketing and consumer

research practices each are acts of communication which

develop learning and knowledge. Rogers (1983) identified

diffusion through the process by which: " . . . an

innovation is communicated through certain channels over

time among the members of a social system." (p. 5) John

Law, Michele Callon (i.e. Callon, 1980, 1986; Bijker and

Law, 1992; Latour, 1987), and others such as Doheny-

Farina (1992) have also drawn distinct attention to the

way in which rhetoric plays an integral part in

technology development. There is a particular power in

this proposition when one considers the instance of

'high-tech' products such as consumer electronics. Here,

there is often heavy reliance upon pronounced claims of

improved or superior technical performance and/or

specifications.cxxxi The high-tech digital age builds upon

a manifest desire on behalf of both industry and

consumers for things to be made smaller, more powerful,

379

faster, louder etc., and for these specifications and

features to be made to be public knowledge (i.e.

publicising specifications for the purposes of attracting

buyers, or conspicuous exposure of high-tech

possessions).cxxxii

For the large part, drawing upon thinking derived from

social studies of technology I propose 'interaction' to

be a point of convergence where different sets of

exigencies converge and exchange. Between various social

groups, between the needs, requirements and goals of

individuals, and the characteristics, attributes,

features, and functionalities of products.cxxxiii For

instance, how close is the fit between something that is

created to be useful but also for profit? What is the

difference in the industry of design and the industry of

use? Something that is found to be useful but also

valued?

Some social perspectives take the position that

technologies in general are "neutral", which means

basically that they are seen as "value content free"

(Feenberg, 1991: p.6) neither good or bad in themselves

but which may be used well or badly depending upon who

controls them. Thus, according to Arnold Pacey, who

supports this idea, when technology fails or when it has

negative consequences, the cause is not the technology

380

but the improper use of it by: "politicians, the

military, big business, and others." (Pacey, 1992: p.2)

The relevance of such positions may have validity upon

policy-making levels, but they tend to act towards a

neglect of technological impacts, and more importantly

the co-shaping that constitutes successful diffusion –

something which is not institutional, but ultimately

individual (Miller, 1995).

For instance, there are no 'general-purpose' tools.

Technologies have specific features which do not pre-

ordain, but certainly predicate, certain uses.

Technologies are intrinsically biased towards

characteristics, features, and functions. Technology

interacts with other factors (for instance economics,

political views, etc.) in a system, shaping attributes

and being shaped by them. Technologies may have

influences on us at macro-, meso- and microsocial

levels.

This feature of interpretivism may well account for the

popularity of continental existential philosophy in

Information Systems literature and research, in

particular that of Martin Heidegger (who in turn, tutored

Hans-Georg Gadamer, often considered the father of modern

Hermeneutics). Wittgenstein in turn could perhaps be

characterised as interested in the nature of that

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background; the nature of the rules and conventions which

allow us to interact with one another, and the world

about us.

Commentators on science method such as Polanyi (1958)

argued that there is an inescapable and essential

personal element that is a structural component of all

knowledge whether the case is physics, biology, medicine,

painting, or poetry. This is the essence of

phenomenological method where the emphasis is upon

understanding the 'building blocks' by which the

individual constructs meaning. The social dimension of

knowing is retained in our references to the "scientific

community" or "academic community." Essentially,

knowledge is thus not private but social. Socially

conveyed knowledge blends with the experience of reality

of the individual. This is an important issue regarding

the development of use skills by individuals, as well as

how technologies integrate into everyday life

(domestication).

However, interpretative research is not an answer in

itself to understanding the nature and behaviours of the

interactive user-consumer. Polanyi (1966) demonstrated we

can know more than we can say. This is a problem for

those whose research approaches rely on eliciting

responses form people regarding tacit behaviours and

382

routines. For instance, Ehn (1988); Bullen and Bennett,

(1990); and more recently Grudin, (1994) with respect to

CSCW systems, show that tacit knowledge continues to play

a disturbingly large role in many of the problems

designers struggle with. In my own user research I noted

that some people are more able to articulate their

activities than others, or are perhaps more vocal and

opinionated regarding what media, and in particular, what

television means to them. Some people seem naturally more

introspective and/or articulate regarding their thoughts,

beliefs and opinions on things. This too can shape and

direct responses.

This places an emphasis on awareness, tools, methods and

procedures which can balance feedback from all types of

individuals, so as not to predicate the design and

advertising of systems towards those more vocal, or able

to articulate and express their beliefs and experiences.

In the case studies of trial participants, one household

(appendix 1: Case Study 2) could be tagged with being

non-articulate regarding their impressions and thoughts

of the i-Tv system. However, on closer analysis of pre-

existing use and usage of media technologies (such as

timeshifting using the VCR) they were most definitely

among the more sophisticated users. This may be compared

with another household (appendix 1: Case study 5) which

383

could be labelled more articulate and expressive, whilst

remaining among those households who exercised strict

rules and regulations regarding media use and consumption

(i.e. electronic media was rated as inferior to printed

media, and the childrens' viewing was precisely monitored

and restricted).

This relationship between interpretivist practices,

language, and more contemporary phenomenology is also

worthy of note. Phenomenology is, ostensibly at least,

concerned with the experiences which individuals have of

the world about them, and language has found an

increasingly important role in understanding the

connections between the embodied individual, social

interaction, and the wider experiential world.cxxxiv

Tacit behaviours are of relevance and of interest to

marketers and I have drawn attention to the potentials

that interactive media have in tracking user-consumer's

actual (as opposed to realised and perceived) usage

patterns. While the quantitative analysis of audience

viewing patterns (the 'ratings') - based on projections

of aggregated audience viewing behaviours - have long

reigned as the essential tools of broadcast companies,

media buyers and advertisers in their courting of

clients, they have been criticised for presenting poor

representations of 'true' audience activities (i.e. Ang,

384

1991). In my own user research it was clear that people

were using the television for different purposes

including baby sitting, recording programmes for viewing

later, or for playing video games. However, digital

systems have an inherent by-product of their functioning

in that they can register every control signal produced

in their use. Such system-logging (sys-log) data can be

associated with a particular machine (STB or computer),

or with the provision of an access code a particular

individual.

However, as the case study of the Cambridge Trial

indicated, the preference for technical and numerate

means of understanding use and user, led to a plethora of

problems, social, organisational and technical in nature

regarding the production of appropriate and usable

knowledge. On a more general level, the essential

problems facing those interested in trawling the large

volumes of data produced by electronic use logging data

is precisely that which challenged the veracity of the

television audience ratings (Ang, 1990).

What can truly be inferred by number crunching and

aggregation statistics alone, when acts of consumption

and participation in entertainment activities are

quintessentially meaning-making and highly qualitatively

based experiences? These are experiences often

385

participated in for intrinsic motivation rather than for

rationally economic outcomes.

In between, the 'hard' neo-positivist research approach

of lab based usability testing, and the 'soft'

qualitative research of concept testing lies trials.

Here trial participants - acting as surrogate consumer-

users - develop anticipations and visions of the product

based on the concrete features and functionalities of

actual systems. Combinations of research approaches, such

as was attempted by the user/marketing research group of

the service nursery can produce valuable insights which

can fuel technology and service design and production, as

well as inform the best ways in which these technologies

and services can be marketed and packaged. A number of

marketing innovations including the distribution of demos

(such as the success of shareware versions of games like

Doom in selling the full versions) and beta testing,

illustrate the interest of firms in the naturalised

siting and testing of their products. Experience of, and

living with, a product is essential to either seeding

markets for improved expanded versions, or other

associated spin-off.

This is in keeping with a number of movements now being

understood and adopted by the large corporations with

respect to a more holistic view of how people are with

386

technologies they already have integrated into their

every lives, and how they come to confront and cope with

new ones.

In engineering there has been the attempt to bring to

focus some of the more ephemeral, less tangible qualities

of a product such as discerning the 'voice of the

consumer' in QFD. Here, quite diffuse, subjective and

qualitative aspects of a given product are supposedly

infused into the design and manufacturing process through

a ranking system. This converts them into quantitative

measures suitable for choosing materials, setting machine

parameters and so forth. However, even here one can see

that the qualitative voice of the consumer-user only

functions as an initial and relatively minor influence

within the processes of conversion. Emphasis of the

deployment concentrates on the conversion of design

parameters to engineering parameters, and then

subsequently to manufacturing and production parameters.

Also, the capture of the subjective data may be flawed:

"[QFD] . . . has to be used in a careful andmethodical way. You cannot just let the customer saythe window handle in a car should be easy to wind.You have to find out just what that means, in thenumber of turns, the stiffness of the handle, thereach. You construct carefully a matrix of thecharacteristics of a product and mesh that with aanalysis of the customers needs and keep turning thedata, like a prism, seeking new flashes of insightin to what the customer wants." (Main, 1994: p.96)

387

This is an important point that suggests the well-cited

software industry adage – GIGO – garbage in- garbage out.

If one begins a deployment with badly articulated or

sampled user needs and requirements then it will lead to

a poor product. An obvious instance where this may be

caused by the product, rather than the research method,

is in the case of new types of product (like i-Tv). The

lack of being able to reference new kinds of

characteristics, attributes, features and functionalists

to existing products may provide useless data. Main

(1994) points out that QFD can contribute to incremental

improvements in products, but it has not been linked to

breakthroughs in new products.

Summary

Much of the recent work in consumer research, studies of

the audience, or in contextual HCI work complements and

fills a gap when considered aside the emerging

capabilities of digital networks and technologies to

provide complete registration of their use. But it is

important to consider two main interconnected points

relevant to an overall – or whole - picture consumer-user

research:

1. The sphere of research methods is constantlyevolving.

388

2. As a pretext and also as a result of 1., thescope, depth and sphere of imaging uses, consumersand users are also changing.

Academics and others concerned with methodology have

drawn awareness to the fact that the process and

procedures of research, can and do omit aspects of use

and consumption integral to the 'actual' or 'real'

experiences of people. Sys-log in some respects develops

from previous quantitative – and to an extent mechanistic

- approaches in human research such as questionnaires,

surveys, and participant observation.cxxxv The ethnographic

and interpretist style studies deny mechanistic positions

even in their approach to 'subjects'. Rather then viewing

them as 'knowledge or information providers' they are

viewed as 'co-researchers' in the design, research and

development process.

'Virtual' renditions of use and consumption activity

always impact upon marketing and design activities. They

have also - perhaps more insidiously - influenced policy

decisions shaping the overall culture and modes of

governance of a country or state (such is the basic case

of Miller, 1995 when he critiques the privileged position

of economics in influencing government policies).

Virtual renditions of use and consumption created by

model making - in the case of economics the 'rational

decision making activity of the consumer - could be said

389

to be evolving a different model which takes into account

the sense-making activity of individuals towards goods

and services. The emphasis here is on the developing

awareness of the experiential aspects of the product. The

Japanese preference for experiential approaches to market

testing, for instance, has often been cited as a cultural

disdain for market research. Experiential approaches to

understanding the consumer and the use process also

features as the underlying epistemology of beta testing

software and technology and marketing trials.cxxxvi

It is widely accepted that the creation of working images

of use and the user, have played an important role in

product development, whether as products of formal or

semi-formal research projects, or as reifications of

reflexive projections on behalf or mangers, designers and

marketers. These working images of use and users are

imbue, inscribe or otherwise shape the product in concert

with a complex of other influences - purely technical

potentials and constraints; standardisation and

regulatory issues; and further manifestations of the

firm's desire to promote its identity and public image

(such as design specifications supporting branding and

the look and feel of the product etc., see below).

390

Reflexive images of useand user negotiated and

shaped by availableresearch knowledgeCharacteristics

, features and functionalitiesof product(including costs)

Industrial Trends and state of development ofcomponent technologies

Brand image,current

trends inaesthetic

productdesign

Look and feelof

competitors‘Standards and relations regarding product

category

User-consumer research methods

T

Industrial/market level

Intra-organisational

Fig. 8.3 Summary of influences on product design and development("T" represents a central focus upon technology) (After Molina,1987)

Technical standards represent codified knowledge that may

easily be applied to product technical and functional

specifications. They also can provide 'hard' evidence of

impacts to the firm in terms of complexity and costs.

However, the impact of user knowledge and the disparity

of use and user images in the processes of feature and

functionality design represent much less tangible

elements. However, a price has been calculated regarding

bad usability (Nielsen, 1993). And added to this are the

potentials for total failure of the product in the market

place, hold ups in the product development process, and

outstanding costs incurred through help desk inquiries

and product replacements.

391

Integration ofbrand identity

into product

Product’s adherenceto standards and

regulations

The ingredients included in the circular model of user

knowledge propagation, communication and implementation,

and the model presented above provide a static picture to

what is essentially a temporally dynamic process socially

and over the process of product development. This

suggests the natural polarisation existing between the

maturity of a product or system, and the need for user

input to the design. Also, the state of development of a

new product or system can serve as an index to relative

knowledge integration. In a review of the product

development literature, de Bont (1992) differentiates

five consecutive phases in product development process:

strategic, idea generation, idea/concept formalisation,

product development and market introduction. In each

phase, specific consumer information can be used to

optimise the process and reduce the risk of wrong

decision. A radical innovation may, depending on the

nature of the technology or service, require more or less

consumer-user involvement in any co-design process to

guide development or provide a sense of security

regarding market potentials (see table 8.2 below). This

may have been, but was in fact not, implemented on the

Cambridge Trial.

Table 8.2 Consumer information useful across thedifferent phases of the product development process, andthe research methods that may help to acquire it.

392

Phases intheproductdevelopment process

Consumerinformationrequired

Consumerresearchmethods

Information andknowledge to bedeveloped

StrategicPhase

Market descriptionin terms ofperceivedcompetitiveproducts and theirconsumerevaluation

Gap-analysis Awareness of marketopportunity –information such assize, level ofcompetition, profitsand market-company fit(Urban et al., 1987)

Unfulfilled consumer-user 'needs'

Ideageneration

Ideas that combinewith internalstrengths of thecompany withmarketopportunities

Consumer-basedIdeagenerationNeedassessment

'listening to thevoice' of the consumer-userbrainstorming incompanyassessing the intensityof needs

Idea,conceptScreen andevaluation

Acceptance ofideas or concepts(functions)'evaluations ofseveralcombinations ofattributes

Concepttesting

Information which linksthe new product ideawith internal strengthof the firm with amarket opportunity

Concept testing withconsumers

Productdevelopment/productevaluation

Acceptance ofproduct

Producttesting

Development of aprototype, evaluationtests with consumers

Marketintroduction

Market-entrystrategy

Markettesting

Marketing tests priorto introduction

Assessing the newproduct in real-lifemarket environments

The state of development of a product can also provide

some metric of what knowledge is required by whom (in the

393

organisation) at various periods across the development

process. The concurrent developments of product design,

production and manufacture, with marketing can cut time

to market, and fulfil the desire for agile approaches so

favoured in post-Fordist manufacturing. It is clear that

a process which integrates all aspects of design,

production and marketing and which integrates the user in

all aspects of this activity will produce products which

minimise risks regarding place and profile within the

market.

This draws to attention the wider contexts of the dynamic

forces of social and cultural change, design, innovation

and evolution of business practice.

The nature of business is changing.

The nature of consumption and accessing goods andservices are changing.

Standards are created and evolve, sometimes

independent of market diffusion.

Technologies and their complementarities evolvewithin systems of production and cultures of use.

It is within these various contexts that CU may be

envisaged as making a contribution in an applied sense.

It does so in its view of consumer-user research

benefiting from approaches which promote the

recontextualisation of the use process of the product as

394

a situated act both within the cultures of production and within

cultures of use. It addresses the parsing of the

organisational needs for consumer-user knowledge with the

state of development of the technology, and the evolving

needs and perceptions of the user-consumer. The table

overleaf outlines some of the research questions which

can form a CU study.

395

Table 8.3 showing general research questions arising fromthe interaction of use, usability, usage and usefulness

use usability usage usefulnessuse What is a

users overallimpression ofthetechnology ineachsituation andcircumstanceof use?

Does thetechnologyadapt to caterfor theincreasinglysophisticateduser?

Does theuse of thetechnologymainly fallintofunctional,exploratory, orrecreational usagepatterns?

By whichchannel has theconsumer beeninformed of thetechnology anddrawn to use?

usability

Is the systemeasy toaccess anduse on theinitialattempt?

What areusersoverallimpressionsof theusabilityof thetechnologyinitiallyand overtime astheydevelopfamiliarityorexpertisein using?

How areusagepatternsaffected bytheusabilityof thetechnology?

Are usabilityproblems madetransparent by theperceived andactualisedusefulness and valueof the technology?

usage Which aspectsof thetechnologyare most timespent upon ininitial use?Subsequentuses?

Doesusabilitydeter theformationof usagepatterns?

Can usersinitiallyperceiveperiodicuse of thetechnologyintegratedinto theircurrentactivities?How doesthis varyin reality?

Does usefulnessbecome'transparent'throughcontinued use?

usefulness

Which aspectsserviceappear mostuseful oninitialconfrontationwith thesystem?

Isusefulnessof value ofthetechnologynegated/attenuatedthroughgood/badusability?

How does theformation ofusage patternsrelate to theperceivedusefulness ofthe system?

What are usersoverallimpressions ofthe usefulnessand value ofthe system overtime?

Drawing the salient points together

For the remainder of this chapter, I wish to surmise the

main points as raised within the book. I shall put

forward a tentative model of how studies of the user and

the use process may map with the various components

influencing product development may be integrated which

accounts for a wider scheme of organisational and socio-

cultural influences.

There are two particularly important social factors to be

taken into consideration in the design and use of new

media such as TV-centric networked technologies. First,

as previously explored, the workplace constitutes an

identifiable and bounded system of social interaction,

something that places cultural distance between the users of

a system, and those who would analyse or design it. This

is a gap which interpretivist research methods hope to

promote awareness of, and eventually, perhaps indirectly,

bridge. This suggests the two way research focus demanded

in such a bridging study - one is understanding the

362

nature of the organisation and individuals who comprise

it, and matching this with appropriate levels and types

of knowledge from the site, field and sub-cultures of

use.

To begin to understand how users of a system and the

system itself will interact, one must understand the

social elements within the aforementioned bounded social

system. Such a bounded system existed in the Cambridge

Trial, which included elements which were technical such

as the technology and the content material of the trial,

as well as participant's televisions, hi-fis and so on;

and elements which were human and social in nature - the

company personnel, technology and content partners, the

service nursery and its various sub-groupings, the

participants, their families, friends etc.

The key to such understanding lies in understanding

language, and more specifically, the nature of language

use. It is in language, the primary basis for interaction

between discrete individuals, that cultural and social

patterns are manifest, and upon which they depend.

Language is in turn entirely dependent on social

interaction within the wider setting of the world.

The presence of commonalties in terms of conceptual and

cultural background between users and designers, or at

363

least an awareness thereof, raises the possibility of

design which takes genuine and unbiased account of users'

social context - the particular sub-culture within which

they inhabit. Such a task becomes immediately more

plausible once the notion of interaction between

effectively disparate and incommensurate conceptual

schemes, as tends to be implicit in ethnological

approaches, is tempered by an appreciation of common

ground. With the support of a coherent interpretivist

semantic theory, one can then hope to make explicit the

sort of action one needs to take to achieve such an

unbiased understanding of users, or what it is that one

must know about users - that which is silently embedded

in participatory design, and other 'soft-systems' style

approaches. Any cultural entity is changed when viewed

from a different cultural context.

Cultures of use

The focus of the book has concentrated on media

technologies, which as mediums, maintain particular

features and funcationalities that expand upon, and even

challenge, the notion of use as it is used with respect

to tools and other artefacts. Use is a divided notion

when considering media technologies. It can refer to the

artefact itself - television, hi-fi, telephone and so on

- or it can refer to the sense-making activities involved

with its content consumption, viewing, reading, speaking,

364

listening. Use here refers to the value involved in

transacting with systems, software or other people via -

or mediated - by technology. In many cases electronically

mediated experiences seamlessly incorporate with all

other forms of experience - whether communicative,

informative or relaxing, simulating, enjoyable or even

frightening, disgusting, and/or fun.

The development and subsequent use of a new technology is

quite obviously involves innovating upon both technology

as well as practices. Initially when the technology -

such as an Internet STB - enters the home the first

experience of use can be awkward. However, if the manual

is well written, and or if mode of use is self-

explanatory the experiential aspects of its content

become the object of focus. This stage represents the

initial site where formulations are made regarding

potential usage patterns and registering the usefulness

of the technology and its contents. This may be marked by

the finding and subsequent bookmarking of several

particular web sites of interest, sites which indicate

some form of updating suggesting beneficial accessing on

a regular basis. Usage is also accessing sites on

particular days at particular hours.

The use process as described in this example correlates

strongly with Silverstone's notion of domestication

365

further elaborated upon by commentators on technology

such as Sørensen (1993). Domestication is the process of

sublimation by which artefacts and technologies

incorporate within everyday life, experiences and

activities. I wish to suggest that the anticipation and

actualisation - by consumer-users and designer-producers

- of the use process is the mechanism of domestication.

It is a process that begins with the genesis of the

original design (from a shared universe of

possibilities), through ideation, to actualisation,

iteration, prototyping, testing and diffusion.

New media innovations and their use, enable and displace,

expand and contract, amplify and reduce experience. While

not being produced in a social and technical vacuum (as

they are reliant on various interest groups and other

technologies for their components and their manufacture),

they likewise do not enter a vacuum when they reach the

home. They must accommodate within the existing regimes

of technologies and their functions, social practices and

individual consumer-users perceptions of the world.

Technologically, in the case of television centric

technologies this means most notably the television.

Where this is situated within the household, what the

household constitution is, the various rules of household

governance etc. each play an interactive part in

fashioning attitudes towards the new technology as well

366

as instigating and shaping patterns of use (see fig 8.4

below).

Fig. 8.4 The influences on the domestication process ("H" places thecentral focus on the home, or rather a given individual's perceptionof the home)

Socio-culturalexigencies

Psychologicaldispositions:Attitudes,emotionalresponses,beliefs,

projections, etc.

Everyday activities and

Technologiesalready used

and‘domesticated’

USEFULNESS USAGE

USABILITY

USE

H

Use Process

Individual Situated

367

Technologies that work together represent a particular

product class. PCs must connect to printers, television

sets to hi-fis, and in the 'smart home' the continued

diffusion of 'jelly beans' - the industry definition of

non-computer resident microprocessors - suggests the

range of connected or networked artefacts will rise

exponentially.cxxxvii

l Druker, P. F. (1964) The Future of Industrial Man London: New English Libraryli Vincenti, W. G. (1990). What engineers know and how they know it : analyticalstudies from aeronautical history. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.

lii The rise of behaviourist thinking has been linked socio-culturally to the urbanisation and industrialisation of America. Bakan (1966) sees that these social developments created motivationstowards mastery of the ‘incomprehensible and worrisome strangers allaround us’ - exactly what the scientific claims of behaviourism promised to help us do. Indeed studies and literature promoting ‘newparadigm’ research have often appeared critical and defensive when confronting the ‘conservative’ and ‘domineering’ stance of quantitative ‘hegemony’. Quantitative method is often viewed as the ‘received view’ Collican (1990).liii Popper, Karl R.: Die erkenntnistheoretische Position der Evolutionären Erkenntnistheorie. In: Riedl, R. and Wuketis, F. M. (Eds.): Die Evolutionäre Erkenntnistheorie, Berlin: Parey, 1987.

livJonas, W. (2001) ‘A scenario for design’ Design Issues VOL 1, No.2 Spring p.75 (pp.64-80lv Lie, M. and K. Sorensen (1996) 'Making Technology our Own? DomesticatingTechnology into Everyday Life', In Making Technology our Own?,Oslo:Scandinavian University Press, pp.1-30.Wyatt, S., F. Henwood, N. Miller and P. Senker (eds.) (2000) Technology andIn/equality. Questioning the information society, London: Routledge.Silverstone, R. and L. Haddon (1996) 'Design and the Domestication of Information

368

However, Baudrillard's (1988: p.31) suggestion of the

consumer caught up in "a calculus of objects" in the act

of viewing goods within a shopping mall, the same is true

for the technologies and objects which we live with. Much

has been written regarding the symbolic attributes of

television and other media technologies (for instance,

and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and Everyday Life', InMansell, R. and R. Silverstone (eds.) Communication by Design.The Politics ofInformation and Communication Technologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press,pp.44-74.Loader, B.D (ed.) (1998) Cyberspace Divide. London: Routledge.Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge.Bijker, W. E. and J. Law (eds.) (1992) Shaping Technology / Building Society.Studies in Sociotechnical Change, Cambridge: MIT Press.

lvi Jan L.G. Die z ‘ Designing Technical Systems as Social Systems’ Proceedings of the 8th International Working Conference on the Language-Action Perspective on Communication Modelling (LAP 2003) Tilburg, The Netherlands, July 1-2, 2003(H.Weigand, G. Goldkuhl, A. de Moor, eds.) p194

lvii However the du Gay et al. model is a social and culturally-based perspective of products and their diffusion. It neglects somewhat the concept of individual and pragmatic instances of use. In this formulation use is somehow sublimated into the concept of consumption. Nevertheless, the elements, institutions and forces which comprise the model, each plays a distinctive role in shaping one another and driving what is has been termed as either ‘evolution’ or ‘revolution’ in technology and business practice, andultimately culture and the wider society.lviii Consider the reintroduction of certain ‘classic’ video games such as Pacman or Space Invaders. Originally made for low power 1980s platforms such as the Amiga Commodore they were reported for subsequent more powerful PC platforms. lix Donald Schon in The Reflexive Practitioner: How professionals think in action *new York: Basic Books, (1983) formulates an epistemology of practice based largely on an examination of the way in which practitioners reflect on their .actions during and following

369

Silverstone and Hirsch, 1992; Silverstone, 1994), however

there is little which addresses the way in which existing

technologies, or existing domestic technological

constituencies impact upon adoption (and interpretation)

of the new. This is quite clearly an open area for

investigation, which can be extended to investigation of

how adaptation leading towards new use practice, feedstheir work

lx Koelsch, 1995, The Infomedia Revolution; How it is Changing our World and your Life: Toronto, McGraw-Hill)lxi http://www.ntl.co.uk/interactive-tv/default.asp(27/10/00)

lxii : “On the purely technological level, innovations in their early stages are usually exceedingly ill-adapted to the wide range of morespecialised uses to which they are eventually put.” (Rosenberg, 1983, p.111)4.lxiiiRopoh, G Philosophy of Socio-Technical Systems Philosophy of Technology 4:3 (Spring 1999) pp.59-71

lxiv Pye, D. (1964) The Nxture of Design London: Studio Vistalxv Stewart, J. (1998). Computers in the Community : Domesticatingmultimedia into the city. Edinburgh, Research Centre for SocialSciences, University of Edinburgh.

lxvi The abstracting of craft MIT Press;lxvii Huntington, C and Maidique, M.A (1996) ‘Technology and the Manager’ in Burgelmann et al Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation(2nd Ed) Boston: McGraw Hill pp.12-19lxviii An important point to make here is that a technology’s success is not simply a matter of unit production. A single bespoke technology which services a niche manufacturer can be deemed successful – i.e. it fulfils companies goals and objectives - even if they are its only user. lxix P.24 Margollin, V. and Margolin, S. A “Social Model” of Design:Issues if Practice and Research Design Issues VOl.18, No.4 Auitun 2002

lxx Embodied Interaction: Exploring the Foundations

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back, impacts and otherwise redefines existing practices

and instances of use, usage, and perceptions of

usefulness.

Cultures of production

of a New Approach to HCI Paul Dourish Xerox Palo Alto Research Center “HCI in the New Millennium.”lxxi Howells, J. (1991) ‘A Sociocognitive model of innovation’ Edinburgh PICT Working Paper No. 32 RCSS The University of Edinburghlxxii This does not include the important category of ‘learning by doing’. Brown et al suggest that recent investigation of learning challenge the separation of what is learned from how it is learned and used. Trial and experimentation is a fundamental human trait through which we learn. Skills from such an approach emerge as a product of the search for result. If captured and codified as heuristics then they can be passed on to others, in a similar way that automation rests on the analysis of repetitive human tasks, andtheir translation into machine operations. In this example given here I am addressing the character’s first attempts to provide for themselves and presupposing little or no existing knowledge. lxxiii Consider for instance Iuso (1975) who highlights the inadequacyof product concept testing in predicting market research. Nevertheless a number of studies including the influential SAPHHO (Rothwell et al, 1974) comparison study indicates that firms hold that“user needs” and “customer and market understanding” are of centralimportance in predicting market success or failure of new products. This was supported by a more recent study by Maidique and Zirger (1984).

lxxiv Collingridge, David (1992) The Management of Scale: Big Organizations, BigDecisions, Big Mistakes London/NY: Routledge.Callon, Michel (1993) `Variety and irreversibility in networks oftechnique conception and adoption' Chap. 11, in Foray, D and Freeman,C. (eds.) (1993) pp. 232 - 268.Rosenberg, N. (1994) Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics and History,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.lxxv Picking up from the discussion in the previous chapter, here is an explicit example of the ‘use’ or ‘utility’ of human beings placed

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As in large technological systems (such as suggested in

the analysis of commentators such as Hughes, 1986), the

success of the technology such as Edison's electric mains

relied on sympathetic consideration for the systemic

qualities of each individual component or technology.

Brands are the symbolic correlates of technologies that

against the ‘use’ or ‘utility’ of technology.lxxvi This compared with the use of either humans, or the telegraph. In the first case messengers could only convey verbal or written messages. In the second case the intermediate symbolic technology ofMorse code had to be known to both the receiver and the transmitter in order to convey the message.lxxvii Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesise a large body of research related to human motivation. In an ranked order of priority they included the needs to address: 1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc. 2) Safety/security: out of danger. 3) Belongingess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted. 4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition. 5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore. 6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty. 7) Self-actualisation: to find self-fulfilment and realise one's potential. 8) Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfilment and realise their potential. Patrick Jordan, an advocate of pleasurable design, describes how this progression from functionality to pleasure is similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, wherein people move up the hierarchy as their needs are fulfilled at lower levels. Usability practitioners have tools to understand functionality and usability, but they must now add tools for understanding what products need to move to the highest, or pleasurable, level of the hierarchy. These tools can include Kansei (pleasure) engineering, the Kano method, the repertory grid technique, and laddering.

Jordan, P. W. Designing PleasurableProducts: An Introduction to the New Human Factors. London: Taylor & Francis, 2000.

lxxviii Schneider, V., Charon, J, Miles, I., Thomas, G. and Vedel, T (1991) The dynamics of videotext development in Britain, France and Germany: A cross-national comparison European Journal of Communication 6 pp.187-212lxxix Albert Pacey indicates that the Eskimo use of the snowmobile forhunting contrasted with advertisements depicting its use as a recreational vehicle.

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http://www.zip.com.au/~cee_gee/psych.html

http://www.valdosta.edu/~whuitt/psy702/motivation/motivate.html

indicate to the consumer the potential that technologies

will be compatible in look and functionality. And

standards (in networked multimedia such as DAVIC, and DVB

which attempt to ensure cross compatibility between

platforms, in quality ISO 9000, and in CE marking which

lxxx Williams, R and Edge, D. (1996) ‘The social shaping of technology’ Research Policy Vol. 25, (1996) pp. 856-899lxxxi Perhaps the most prevalent example of this is Charles H.Duell Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899: “Everything thatcan be invented has been invented” Others include “640k [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody” Bill Gates in 1981; and “This “telephone” has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us” Western Union internal memo, 1876; “there is no reason anyone would want a computer in the home” Ken Olson, President, Chairman and founder Digital Equipment Corp. 1977. Source: Innovation Management Network Http://mint.mcmaster.calxxxii Tuomi, I. (2003) ‘Beyond user-centred models of product’ creation COST Action 269 “User Aspects of ICT” The Good, The Bad and the Irrelevant, 3-5 Sept’lxxxiii Burgelmann, R.A., Maidique, M.A., and Wheelwright, S.C. (2001) Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation New York: McGraw Hill Irwinlxxxiv Indeed, upon completing the advanced chipset design at an early stage in the inception of the project, the Chief Scientist at Acorn,turned her attention to designing the layout and characteristics of the Om facility. lxxxv Von Hippel (1990) also points out that some problems are hard toseparate from the context and condition from which they arise, and Fleck, (1994) suggests that if configurational technologies are to be successful they; “demand substantial user input and effort and such inputs can provide the raw material for significant innovation.” (pp.637-638)lxxxvi This is an interesting notion for strategic management of such technologies. Mobile telephony opens the prospect of a user group with only very generalisable characteristics using technology in a multiplicity of situations and locations. lxxxvii Richard Buchanan (2001) Design research and the new learning Design Issues No. Vol.17, No.4 Autumn p.9

lxxxviii Kroes, P. A., M. P. M. Franssen, et al. (2004). Engineering systems as hybrid, sociotechnicalsystems. Engineering Systems Symposium, Cambridge Marriott.

373

indicates that a product complies with harmonised EU

requirements for safety and health).

The use process as described in this example correlates

strongly with Silverstone's notion of domestication

further elaborated by commentators on technology such as

lxxxix Aspects that characterise cybernetic systems are:1. They are very complex, with many interacting components.2. These components interact in such ways that they create

multiple simultaneous interactions among the subsystems.3. The simultaneous interactions lead to subsystems

participating in multiple processes, thus requiring multiple levels of analysis.

4. Cybernetic systems usually grow in an opportunistic manner,instead of being designed in an optimal manner.

5. Cybernetic systems increase in size and complexity, developing new traits while still historically bound to previous states.

6. Positive and negative, internal and external feedback is something that cybernetic systems are rich in. The ultimatecybernetic system is one of self-reference, self-modelling,self-production and self-reproduction.

xc Buchannan, Ibid, p.10xci The notion of a function in the wider sense intended here can partly be analysed in terms of the general notion of social function, though admittedly much conceptual work is to be done here.The notion of a social function has been used to put forward explanations for many social phenomena, as part of a research program called functionalism. Functionalists, such as Malinowski (1944) and Merton (1957), held that at least a large class of socialphenomena can be explained in terms of their beneficial consequencesfor society. Since not all of these consequences are intended, Merton has introduced the central idea of ‘latent function’. While functionalism has been severely criticised (e.g., by Jon Elster (1994), it has recently regained some of its former popularity. Kincaid (1994) defends functionalism against the penetrating criticism levelled at it by Elster.xcii Marina Lao, Unilateral Refusals to Sell or License Intellectual Property and the Antitrust Duty to Deal, 9 CORNELL J.L. & PUB. POL'Y 193, 222 (1999) (describing the conclusions of ANNALEE SAXENIAN, REGIONAL ADVANTAGE: CULTURE AND COMPETITION IN SILICON VALLEY AND ROUTE 128 (1996)).

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Sørensen (1993). Domestication is the process of

sublimation by which artefacts and technologies

incorporate within everyday life, experiences and

activities. I wish to suggest that the anticipation and

actualisation - by consumer-users and designer-producers

- of the use process is the mechanism of domestication.

xciii Such constraints are handled head-on by information theory (Shannon and Weaver, , which speaks of noise compromising the perfect transmission and reception of an information source.xciv Low transmission rates of restricted bandwidth condition what canbe satisfactory downloaded. The internet protocol of mobile phones –WAP – requires specialised low bit rate content which has no graphical content. Conversely, video-on-demand the transmission and reception requires a high bandwidth of at least 10 mbits/sec. xcv Rokeach,M. (1973) The Nature of Human Values New York: FreePressxcvi Simon, H.A. (1986) “Rationality in Psychology and Economics” The Journal of Business (October) pp 209-224xcvii Of course even at the neurological level the notion of ‘passive receptivity’ to things in the world is challenged:

“ . . . the nervous system does not collect information from the environment. It produces a world by specifying what environmental patterns are perturbations, and what change or alterations have caused these perturbations in the organism.” (Matura and Verela, 1987: p167)

xcviii Hayakawa, S.I. (1949) Language in Thought and Action New York: Harcourt Brace Johvanovichxcix A. G. Ganek, and T. A. Corbi, “The Dawning of the AutonomicEra,” IBM Systems Journal 42, No. 1, 5–18 (2003).

c M. Douglas, Purity and Danger, Routledge, London (1966).

ci cii Lederman, L.L. (1984) “Foresight activities in the U.S.A.: Time for a re-assessment?” Long Range Planning (June) p.46.ciii Praxis, a term used by Aristotle, is the art of acting upon the conditions one faces in orderto change them. It deals with the disciplines and activities predominant in the ethical and political lives of people. Aristotle contrasted this with Theoria – those sciences and activities that areconcerned with knowing for its own sake. Both are equally needed. That knowledge is derived from practice, and practice informed by

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It is a process that begins with the genesis of the

original design (from a shared universe of

possibilities), through ideation, to actualisation,

iteration, prototyping, testing and diffusion.

knowledge, in an ongoing process, is a cornerstone of action research.civ Most notably Professors Shigeru Mizuno and Yoji Akao. Their purpose was to develop a quality assurance method that would design customer satisfaction into a product before it was manufactured. Thefirst large scale application was presented by Kiyotaka Oshiumi of Bridgestone Tire, which used a process assurance items fishbone diagram to identify each customer requirement (effect) and to identify the design substitute quality characteristics and process factors (causes) needed to control and measure it. Earlier quality control methods were primarily aimed at fixing a problem during or after manufacturing.cv See “Technological Determinism in American Culture” in Smith, M.R.and L. Marx (1994) Does Technology Drives History?: The Dilemma of TechnologicalDeterminism. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp 2-35 cvi Feenberg, A. (1999) Questioning Technology. New York: Routledge. pp.77-78.cvii Richard Sclove, (1995) Democracy and Technology. New York: Guilford

Press. p. 27cviii For Levi-Strauss, bricoleur takes what is at hand and reassemblewhile engineer works from universal principles. See David Hess(1995) Science and Technology in a Multicultural World. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press. p 39cix Pacey, A. (1999) Meaning in Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press.

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Raising the profile of the individual in sociotechnicalconstituencies

Much of the work on sociotechnical models has tended to

concentrate on analysis and evaluation of large

industrial processes. Molina's sociotechnical

constituencies for instance has been applied to

cx Cited earlier was also Silverstone’s description of the market as a kind of jungle and the processes of domestication as ‘taming’ objectscxi As Norman (1993) says, "Without someone to interpret them, cognitive artifacts have no function. That means that if they are towork properly, they must be designed with consideration of the workings of human cognition." The distributed cognition approach (i.e. Hutchins, 1995) is concerned with a wide spectrum of cognitive phenomena; from analysing the properties of processes of a system ofactors interacting with each other and an array of technological artefacts to perform some activity (e.g. flying a plane) to analysing the properties and processes of a brain activity (e.g. perceiving depth).cxii http://tina.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/stslaw3.html cxiii On one ‘long haul’ trip to New Zealand, Om had to send a technical specialist accompanying the sale staff equipped with a demonstrator prototype STB. This was early in the trial when technical staff were at a premium and largely indispensable. But he was viewed as insurance against any breakdown, and indeed, on arrival there was indeed a serious problem that required the engineer’s expertise to fix before the sales team were able to successfully show the prototype.cxiv ESD Symposium Committee (2002). ESD symposium committee overview:Engineering systems research and practice. ESD Internal Symposium, MIT.

cxv The term ‘black box’ is interesting in the context of this chapter. The term is used in electronics to describe a unit "whose

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http://tina.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/stslaw3.html

transputers and the transputer-based parallel computers

(Molina, 1990); and European IT programmes and

initiatives Molina (1992, 1994). However, in a later

paper (Molina, 1997) learning from the user was

incorporated into the constituency building process of a

circuitry need not be known to understand its function." (source: Collins dictionary). In the computer industry it refers to a device designed by another company for general industry use, for example anaudio card. Metaphorically, it is used for a specific kind of abstraction, where none of the internal workings of something are visible, and that one can only observe output as reaction to some specific input. It also hints that the workings of the box are not of research interest, either being already well understood and proven, or perhaps, not considered at all necessary or of consequence to understand.

cxvi It would be important to stress here that Om, an operating arm ofAcorn Computers, was primarily a technology company. Content and services were viewed as an integral part of the technical proposition of a set top box, and to an extent and inevitable part of the ability to illustrate its value. But Acorn had already seen the value of selling software for its BBC computer, and realised thepotentials which lay in the selling of software. However, as the case illustrates later providing content for interactive television represented its own unique and in the end, insurmountable challenges. cxvii Amongst the reasons for this is what Drucker (1959: p.23) drew attention to almost 40 years ago; “The only protection against the risk of exposure to innovation is to innovate. We can defend ourselves against the constant threat of being overtaken by innovation only by taking the offensive.”cxviii Maxis software produce the Sim series of computer games. A genuine innovation in entertainment, it harnesses the power of computing to generate and run simulations of cities, people, insectsand worlds. The best known of the series is SimCity, where a player experiments with urban development. A housing development placed here, a police station there, a stadium here, an electricity stationthere . . . the aim is creation of a self-sustaining whole, capable of maintaining itself and prospering. Certain implicit rules are built into the game, and it presumes some knowledge of urban

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mobile computing device by applying the contextual

usability framework.

The underlying thinking here is that some commentators

have drawn attention to the fact that many technologies

manifest as configurations of previous artefacts,

development and governance on behalf of the player, who as ‘mayor’ adjusts tax rates for citizens and dictates development policy. Raising taxes too high, not building and distributing enough fire stations, or perhaps neglecting proper sewage or electricity infrastructures will lead to problems. Natural disasters also spontaneously intervene in the development of the city, and one mustcope with them by making proper additional changes. During periods that the ‘mayor’ is absent from his office (i.e. when the computer is switched off and one is not playing the game), events and interactions between events in the game continue to unfold. SimCity acts then as a concurrent reality for the player. There are little options to ‘win’ but through careful consideration of the many different factors and influences, the underlying models and rules ofthe program. By discovering them the player can control whether the city prospers or falls into decay. Millions of adults and children are working out the underlying strength and weaknesses in such models, and via dedicated web sites exchanging tips on how to ‘win’.

Patterns in how people play SimCity offer scholars unprecedented insight into how non-designers conceptualise urban space, if only because for the first time in history, city planning as both a concept and an activity has been made readily accessible to people who probably never had the opportunity to think thought actively about city form at all. For most, the city as a total system was simply beyond their control or outside their intellectual purview.cxix Carroll, J.M. (2000) Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions. MIT Press.

cxx They also suggest that amongst other things ‘users’, there may operate within design processes as ‘rhetorical devices’ – “ . . .being able to couch one’s proposals in terms of user considerations is a powerful way of ensuring their acceptability.” (p.16)cxxi In audience research there is a similar criticism:

“The procedure is one of head counting and the purpose is to artificially convert the many situated instances of consumption - ultimately unknowable in their totality

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developments, knowledge or expertise. Clipson (1995)

views this process indicative of an essentially techno-

centric situation of "technology building on technology,

where progress is not a random affair but a synbook of

what went on before." (p.103) A prime example of such a

technology may be the Om STB - most definitely a

configuration of previous developments, knowledge or

-into manageable, calculable units. As ways of comprehending the lived experience of actual audiences, these methods would be doomed to failure. Within the logic of the ratings discourse, though, an ‘audience commodity’ is created to be traded for financial gain. Its fictionality, does not hinder its economic functionality.” (Moores, 1993: p.3)

cxxii http://www.acorn.co.uk/aom/trial/phase3.html (update as of 28th October, 1996). Unlike the written word, which when published and released to the public domain becomes ‘carved in stone,’ web-based information can be easily changed and updated. Information found at the same web address can change. This is the case here. The ephemeral and intangible nature of web sites and their contents posea problem for studies which intend to include their contents as data. Whereas the so-called company ‘grey’ literature may count as tangible and veritable evidence for claims made by the company at some time, this is a much more difficult task with respect to digital and web-based material. This is not just a problem for academic research as Internet lawyer Anne Branscomb states:

“The ease with which electronic impulses can be manipulated, modified and erased is hostile to a deliberate legal system that arose in an era of tangible things and relies on documentary evidence to validate transaction, incriminate miscreants, and affirm contractual relations” (Branscomb, 1997:p.113)

cxxiii While the intention of the Cambridge i-Tv being mass technology remained unfulfilled, innovation of the Om contribution - the STB - continued. The current generation is STB 4. cxxivPhase two trial participants were to comprise employees of the technology partners. However, the ‘rumour’ that spread regarding thelack of the Cambridge system to deliver useful content, was understood to have played a significant role in the subsequent lack of interest shown by consortium members to participate in the trial.cxxv Indeed I was consulted during a visit to Om regarding the ‘video violence’ debate in its potential spill over to i-Tv.

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expertise, and it these configurations which largely

dictated the immediate strategies for design, and visions

of the potential markets. However if one considers

technologies from their use perspectives, one would be

mistaken to say that the STB was simply a re-invention of

the RISC PC. In a technological sense it was much more

cxxvi ‘Descriptive confusion’ was originally identified as an issue which Bricken (1991: p.4) applied to virtual reality (VR):

“VR is seeking definition, it could be anything from email to a fully surrounding, multi-sensory environment. We are struggling with appropriate comparisons.”

cxxvii More than the obvious design of the physical and graphical interfaces, the architectural layout of the offices, desks and meeting rooms of the new Online Media (Om – the firm whose serves ascentral focus in the case study presented later) HQ was designated by the Acorn Chief Scientist. Between her ‘usual’ work in advanced chip set design for the first and second set top boxes (which pre-empted all other development work), she occupied herself in designing the layout of space and personnel. Om also laid down the organisational design and structure for the entire trial, even though as a consortium activity ‘ownership’ of the trial was often dependent on which partner one asked (for instance Cambridge Cable publicity suggested the trial as their own). Also most noticeable onvisits to the building was the succession of make-shift charts adorning the walls. cxxviii An agile company has been defined by Goldman et al. (1995) as one that is capable of operating profitably in a competitive environmentof continually, and unpredictably, changing customer opportunities.cxxix How indicative is someone’s role to how someone is?cxxx In as much as rationalism is taken to imply the notion of a priori truths. It could be claimed that the obvious "contrast" to such a stance is (by definition) empiricism.cxxxi Consider the placards and stickers upon devices on retail shop shelves. There is often an exhaustive list of features and specifications labelled on a device. A particular example is the configuration of PCs. It is widely held that the ever more impressive graphics features of computer games are largely responsible for driving the development, and a matching consumer need, for the enhanced video features of graphics cards. Adding enhanced components to a system can often highlight a more general core weaknesses in the overall system’s performance. In this example, this can lay the grounds for the need of other enhanced components, or indeed an entirely new machine.

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than the sum of its parts, and its was at this point

where much more social and cultural elements fuelled

visions and business orientations.

The sociotechnical model posited by the Tavistock

Institute has been based on the manufacturing process and

also at the lowest level of organisation (Heller, 1989).

Even tools such as QFD can be criticised as offering only

cxxxii However this is also a time when products are arriving in the high street unfinished. Whereas it has become common practise to realise beta versions of software commercially, using consumers to indicate via help-desks flaws in the software version – hardware devices are now appearing for sale which show functional discrepancies with the claims made in the sales literature. cxxxiii I take for the large part the problem proposed by Marzini (1990: p.70); and quoted in Cava and Svanfeldt, 1992: p.308) when hespeaks of the problem of existing market research to identify issuesof new products:

“A market study . . . can only photograph reality, bringing forward what is, in a way, already obvious. It cannot show the detail, the meeting point between what the general public might want (but has yet to find a wayof expressing it) and what the producers might offer (but have not yet found an expressional support for) andwhat constitutes the idea of new product.”

cxxxiv Particularly in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It would alsobe interesting to explore the connections between his rejection of the idea of the pure / private consciousness (Blackburn) and view ofthe role of society and language, Wittgenstein's anti-private language argument etc., Maturana's biological explanation of linguistic phenomena, and the recurring notion in Information Systems work (see Winograd and Flores, 1987). cxxxv It should be mentioned that these techniques also have their online correlates, and can provide powerful means by which user feedback can be automatically processed by the system to provide analysis and graphical or numerical renderings of data.cxxxvi It should be mentioned that, as in the case of the Cambridge Trial, trialing systems promote opportunities much wider than only the provision of semi-naturalistic environments for discovering participant perceptions. They offer the opportunity to test out how the technical and social components ‘fit’, and draw attention to problems of organisation, technology, and implementation.

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a token involvement of consumer-users at the very

earliest stage of development, most of the process is

based on translation of design, production and

manufacturing measures. On the basis of this such models

may come under the criticism that they are inherently

technologically orientated, or techno-centric.

Molina has explicitly privileged technology in the

constituencies model by often placing it as the central

focus of the constituency. While his critical analysis of

systems theory captured in constituencies substitutes

responsive networks for traditional hierarchies, his

theory of governance remains locked in top-down

paternalism. Technology, while not being determinist to

social impacts, maintains a primacy around which all

activity, human or non-human pinions. Such a position has

an interpretation that it itself has created and

manifested all the conditions which surround it, that it

is the 'navel' of all the other elements. This contrasts

with other models in studies of technology such as actor-

network theory (for instance Callon, et al., 1986; Law,

1992) where the emphasis is to balance consideration of

social relations of individual human actors with non-

human, non-individual entities – a more distributed view

with multiple foci of analysis and importance in a study.

383

While this can contribute to a consideration of a

development process considered as a whole system, it puts

pressure on the researcher or analyst using this method

to attach proper weightings to the component elements

(cognitive, social or technical).

This can be difficult as technologies and technological

development can be very political, even usability can be

political. The travel agent battling with an online

booking system. The pensioner struggling to use an ATM.

The telephone caller lost in the voice-prompt-maze of a

computerised answering system. These people exemplify a

distinctive underclass of end-users forced to interact

with technology during their working and private lives.

What hope would customers have of pushing through

improvements in ATM user interface design? Even the

notion ‘user’ is political. The prevailing view is: Would

they even know what to ask for? End-users have little

power to influence the technology imposed on them by the

technocrats. Often managers brief engineers on what users

need. The danger is the IT skills shortage. Now, more

than ever, employers are looking to maximize the

productivity they obtain from "overpaid" IT staff.

Politically, this productivity is measured by the speed

at which new systems can be released. Anything that

threatens "productivity," such as usage-centered design,

usability testing, or system documentation, is quickly

384

cast aside. Sadly, the end-users have usually

subconsciously accepted this doctrine and often blame

themselves for difficulties with awkward user interfaces.

In this context they are often reluctant to report their

problems, particularly after a few belittling encounters

with impatient "help" desk staff.

In general, people have no choice over the technology

they use. This is decided by the ruling class, which

comprises software and hardware manufacturers,

corporations, and government agencies. Even where one

would think there might be some choice, as in the case of

a person buying software for their home computer, the

market is so strongly dominated by a handful of players

that no real choice exists. Factors such as the software

being used at work and the software previously used are

likely to supplant usability issues in the purchasing

decision.

In sociotechnical constituencies the dynamism of the

social relations is anchored very strongly to the state

of development in the technology, as if this development

was all that motivated and created inertias. He sees

that technologies are indeed social creations but argues

that "many of these social creations evolve

385

characteristics which tend to remain stable for long

periods of time" (Molina, 1997). He sees that these

stabilised characteristics have "critical implications

for specific strategies of innovation and development of

technological capabilities." (p.1) This denies instances

of the dynamic relations between people and technology,

where the technology may remain stabilised in

characteristic, feature and functions, but where it is

attributed with a varying cultural importance which can

impact usage and usefulness.

While it is true that technologies do appear to maintain

certain characteristics for some time - such as in the

case of the television, where basic functionality and

make up has remained relatively stable since the

development and wide diffusion of the EMI system - it is

also interesting to note that human and cultural

conceptions of the television have gone through

considerable change and evolution. Also, the content and

technological means to production has radically changed,

as has the cultural and social perspectives that inform

programme-making and presentation.

One of the artefacts of this co-evolution or mutual-

shaping process is the notion of domestication, the way

in which artefacts integrate within the practices and

everyday life of consumer-users. This process has also

386

been suggested as a kind of 'co-consumption' -

technologies are consumed by users, and users are

consumed by technologies - in so far as technologies "get

our attention, have us react to them and to become

occupied by their abilities, functions and forms."

(Sørensen, 1993: p.157)

Fig. 8.5 The sociotechnical constituency of domesticating technology

Within this process certain uses emerge for these

technologies, certain features and functionalities are of

use. Conversely, certain uses are not available,

convenient, permitted, easily accomplished, or

affordable, and it is these instances which characterise

and accent resistance towards domestication, the

The look, feel and operation of the existing technologies inthe household

Public image of thenew technology and its function propagated through rhetoric

Individualperceptionsof the new

technology andits use

Use benefits ofthe new

technology

Wider concerns regarding technology

Science fiction etc.

Household orsocial group

collectiveperceptions

of thetechnology

Use benefits of existing technologies

The look, feel and operation of the new technology

T

Larger sociotechnical environment

New technology and

387

patterning of use (usage). These draw awareness to the

technology's capabilities and limitations. Providing the

technology's designers and producers can capture and

realise these situated and actualised instances of use

they can develop iterations on the design which may be

able to open areas of the technologies potential which

may otherwise lay dormant or a mystery to the users.

As I have endeavoured to detail in the preceding

chapters, there has been a very significant development

in the way in which the act of using television has

evolved. By placing the human being - the user, consumer,

reader, viewer, audience member, research subject etc. -

at the centre of a constituency, we can relocate research

perspectives or technical, economic, institutional and

legislative changes relative to the individual or

individual group of consumer-users.

Ways of findings out(research methods,

approaches and theory)

Who wants to know?

Why they want to know?

Stimulus (technology

and/or content)

Company,Organisation,Institution,Designer,Marketer,Advertiser,and so on . . .

Policy,Strategy,

Design Iteration,

Product Development,

Market Development,and so on . .

.

Set top box, progam/mes, remote control, user interface and so on . . .

Interview, sys-log, questionnaire, focus-groups and so on . . .

I

388

Fig. 8.6 A human centred sociotechnical constituency ("I" is for theindividual, their perceptions, apprehensions etc.)

As in sociotechnical constituencies which place

technology at the centre of the constituency, the above

model places the individual human being at the centre of

the constituency - be they user, consumer, viewer,

reader, research subject - known, constructed or

identified by any other title, category or label. This

draws attention to the way in which their image, virtual

self or 'alter existence' is socially and semiotically

constructed by different companies, organisation and

institutions or by certain individuals. Further, it is a

route by which the way in which such 'institutionalised

images' may constrict, impact and otherwise affect

research processes, and indeed policy and strategy

regarding product development and design. Such as was the

case in the Cambridge Trial.

389

The 'individual' and the notion of 'society' are

constructs which have formed the substance of study by

social science. Various schools of thought have

implicitly or explicitly advocated different

epistemological and ontological positions which have

characterised and polarised the notions of the social and

individual over the last 100 or so years. These positions

have also been reflected within disciplines manifesting

as rifts between the uses of certain methods over others.

These rifts have obfuscated the value of social science

method when applied to 'real world' commercial situations

of evaluation, where matters of 'correct' methods and

their implementation are relegated under pressures for

'easy fixes', rapid development cycles and/or 'lust of

result'.

390

The reasons why organisations wish to develop knowledge

of people are multifarious depended on their business and

development strategies. What they can learn is dependent

on the state of the stimulus - technology or content -

presented to them in the form of prototype or mock-up.

Prototyping has many similarities except the prototype

system is built and evaluated in order to construct a

detailed specification for the full system. It is further

dependent on the method, approach and theories involved

in the research process - themselves contingent on time,

resources and access.

Instances here include the perennial debate between

purist psychological perspective of the world, compared

with purist sociological viewpoints, and the difference

between quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

Heller sees that they were aware of the bias that may

appear in its development of the Tavistock sociotechnical

model:

"Although the [sociotechnical] model was developedby social scientists, it does not attempt topreference the social component. Human requirementscannot be maximised without damaging the potentialtechnological contribution in most cases. Usually,both have to be suboptimised in various degrees,depending on the contingencies of the situation, inorder to achieve an overall optimum." (ibid)

391

Westrum (1991: p.13) provides several alternatives

through which technologies and societies may parse;

" . . . a thing must fit its purpose . . . We canchange the society to make it more adequate to copewith the technology; we can refuse to deploytechnologies which our current social institutionscan't handle; we can try to develop newsociotechnical systems that jointly optimise technology andthe human factor; or we can simply let the system go onas it is now and suffer at some future time theconsequences of a serious mismatch between complextechnologies and the adequacy of our socialinstitutions to handle them." (ibid.; p.13)

Such a focus is at the centre of the recent

interpretative approaches to researching audiences as

well as the impact of media messages. Such approaches

have been profitably employed in usability studies of

computers and consumer durables, where the sociological

contexts of use are increasingly understood to be as

determinate to framing the use process as making product

easy to use.

" . . . just as it is important that technologiesare designed for their users, it is just asimportant to realize that users may have verydifferent reactions to them . . . Linking the skillof the user to the technology is the task of socialinstitutions." (ibid.; p.231)

More recent work at Edinburgh (Project Newspad) has

witnessed a preliminary attempt to locate CU within the

frame of the sociotechnical (Nicoll, 1995; Molina and

Nicoll, 1996; Molina, 1999). The practical benefits of

392

such a fusion opens the potential of linking appreciation

of consumer-user perceptions of a technology as a

distinct element placed against other influences to the

design process. As products become more 'smart', as

customised manufacturing approaches develop, or 'on-

demand' entertainment, information and delivery services

become the norm in the home-based consumption, consumer-

user intelligence, user-producer co-design and

organisational development must become integral if not

absolutely imperative. Araya (1995: p.237) suggests that:

"in the name of "enhancing the world" the proposals for

Ubiquitous Computing constitute an attempt at a violent

technological penetration of the everyday life." (Author's italics)

This must include facilitating, understanding and

evaluating the whole range of emerging interactive

relationships that are enabled and constrained by new forms

of feedback via technological systems. This is in stark

contrast to previous design, manufacturing and marketing

research practices, as it includes the interactive

relations not only between people and goods, people and

organisations, but people and the systems itself, and the

emerging technological and organisational environment.

For instance, selectivity and choice on behalf of the

user further shape the technological environment:

" . . . when someone buys an already built house,its design reflects the actions of the builder and

393

the house's previous owners. The longer a person hasthe house, the more its contours, colors,furnishings, and general physical condition reflectthe owners characteristics. And then there is thebasic fact that the owner chose the house in thefirst place. We could go a step further bysuggesting that the nature of the eventual home nowshaped the technology in the first place; putanother way, the technology was designed for itsintended users." (Westrum, 1991: pp.172-173)

The ultimate goal of such a project balances the natural

leanings of technology companies towards a techno-centric

view of use, usability and usefulness, with one that is

focused on the situations of consumption and use of their

products. Conversely, it creates possibilities of

indexing ecological approaches to developing consumer-

user intelligence indexed to the stages of product

development.

Such an approach keeps in mind the notion of the

sociotechnical as posited by the Tavistock Institute. It

represents a means of analysis of both the particular

socio-technical contingencies of use within the wider

universe of discrete and obvious influences arising from

the constituency in which a technology is created and

developed.

Heller argued that in order to effectively balance both

the social and technical elements of constituency in

order to produce appropriate recommendations, policy or

394

advice there had to be some elements of research: "In

nearly all cases of some complexity, it needs research to

discover the appropriate contribution of the two

components." (p.24) The suggestion for a pragmatic

application of CU and sociotechnical constituencies

suggests, like in evaluation studies, a two-way reflexive

research approach where a firm, its organisation,

practices, inertia and background are taken into account

before embarking on a process of consumer-user research.

This would give a clearer perspective on which

information, would be most beneficial, for whom and why.

It would appear then that CU as an applied consumer-userresearch approach, would benefit from being placedagainst the wider constituency of what motivates, shapesand otherwise influences product development and design.Essentially, this translates as a mapping of userresearch as a singular element into the constitution ofthe features and functionalities of a product. Looked atas a symmetrical relation we can consider the producer-consumer, designer-user, product-lifestyle relationshipthus;

Table 8.4 The elements linking production, design, andproduct with consumers, users, and their lifestyles

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PRODUCERbranding, advertising;other products inproduct rangesimilar and relatedproducts in marketplace

well known,reputability, symbolismwhere, when, whattype and quality

CONSUMER

DESIGNERproduct features andcharacteristicsfunctionalityproduct aesthetics

usefulness to currentactivities,potential novel usenichesusability, desirability

USER

PRODUCT

functional relation topre-existinguse of similarproducts; cost relationship toconsumption of similarproducts;Symbolic attribution ofpossessing product.

how easy to access newsbetween platforms; price of news betweensay internet services,and watching TV;status through having,or being able to use,being able to show etc.

USER-LIFESTYLE

The tensions inherent in the above pivot around thecreation (or 'encoding' to use Hall's model) ofcharacteristic feature and functionalities, and theirinterpretation (or decoding) by the user-consumer. Themanifestation of this interpretative or decoding processis the use process, which I will suggest is a centralmechanism to Silverstone's notion of the domestication oftechnologies.

I would further suggest that the use process lies betweenthe two distinct constituencies of the contingencies ofdesign and production (as well as distribution) and thecontingencies of use- the technology-centred constituencyand the human centred constituency. Consumer-userresearch as traditionally practised falls between theseconstituencies and is intended to provide the company andits personnel with useful perspectives of the user-consumer. User-consumers on the other hand exist in a

396

world which consists of many activities, pursuits, andinterests outside of use and consumption of particulartechnologies. Worlds which comprise also of many othertechnologies, which may be competing for attention, andwhich have elicited their own impact on the use processof any other technologies entering into the arena oflifestyle and the living space (see overleaf).

Between these two constituencies, which are constantlyevolving (although quite clearly with different dynamics)there exists a tension best envisaged by the needs andrequirements (or the capacity for needs and requirements)for improved features and functionalities upon what theyalready have, do, want and use. While some of these needsand requirements may be tangible (i.e. faster, smaller,more power etc.) some may be difficult to identifylacking a common currency in description (such as peoplesinterest in ever increasingly more convincing cinematicspecial effects). The dynamic qualities of the modeldictate that no phenomena or product is totally'discontinuous' or 'radical' - it possesses some analogueif not in mode of production, at least in mode of use,which dictates it continuation from already existingartefacts, objects or services. The importance of themodel lies in its recontextualisation of the product,(its development and subsequent abilities to be

397

reconfigured, customised and adapted) with the useprocess of consumer-users.

398

Visions fortechnology

Projections ofmarket/use/users/

consumers

Expertise developed through adapting STB and experiences using it

Socio-culturalexigencies and motivations

to develop product

T

Designer/Producer/Socio-cultural

exigencies and motivationsto consume and use product

Individualdispositions:Attitudes,emotional

Everyday activities,practices and lifestyles

Technologiesalready used

and‘domesticated’

H

Individual Situated Use

TraditionalRealm

of designer-userresearch (i.e.usability),and producer-

consumer

Usage

Usefulness Usability

Use

U

Use process as an act ofinterpreting technology

Design iteration,Projection for functional developmentProjection for marketing development

Meaning -makingof technologyvia advertising

Meaning-makingof technology

via useMeaning-makingof technology

Fig 8.8 The use process as arbitrator of communication between designer and user,producer and consumer, product and lifestyle. Usability recontextualised as a

naturalised part of the use process, rather than as an index of how assessable and

399

When a radical idea (compared with existing practice or

modes of use) for a new media technology emerges at the

concept level, it is open to misinterpretation or

misrepresentation as it flows through the conduit of PR,

journalistic reporting and word of mouth. As suggested

earlier, it maintains its 'interpretative flexibility' both

as a technology and a technological potential. It is on this

level that certain views can be developed, views which skew

opinion one way or another, towards utopian or dystopian

perspectives or the innovation, predictions of determinism

and voluntarism regarding its use and impact, its benefits

and its social effects. These, without doubt shape peoples'

attributions of a technology, product or service.

Product concept testing has a poor record in predicting

eventual market successes. Perhaps this is simply because

that it is on the conceptual level - most privy to

interpretative flexibility - that it is most easy to promote

a scenario which visualises the accommodation of a product

into everyday life. 'Doing so' would appear considerably

harder to enact, or even it were to be contrived – as it was

in the Cambridge Trial – it would negate the kinds of

pressures and anomalies that plague or advance the

domestication of 'successful' products. Alternatively, it

could be the poor representation of the contrived

400

relationships, as well as alien environment, between market

researchers, the product and the 'representative' sample of

anticipated consumer-users.

A trial such as the Cambridge Trial, offers more than simply

a unsupported concept. It offers a concrete range of

phenomenon - technological hardware (STB and remote

control), a range of content and service options, and

accompanying discourse including recruitment paraphernalia,

questionnaires, invitations to Om's headquarters for 'user

evenings' and so forth. All these phenomenon, as well as the

fact people were actually living with the technology

provides a real opportunity to track how they make sense of

the technology, as well as how they relate it their

lifestyles, and the other technologies they use day-to-day.

It is also an opportunity to explore how the technology

prompts them to consider its actual performance and use, and

what it could be through additions or alterations to its

current state of development.

The trialists

The user research was conducted in collaboration with

participants on the Cambridge Trial. As was indicated in the

previous chapter a series of interviews were conducted on

user-participants on the CT between the 23rd and 24th of July

401

1996. The 11 (of an intended sample of 12) households were

selected from the 66 participants in the trial.

Marcus Penny – the content and services manager - viewed

that within the relations of user to marketer there lay an

issue - that of bringing the user's interests into this in

an appropriate way. In particular the issue that Penny faced

was financing some consideration of the user's interests at

all. Everything that he did had to financed and justified in

some way. At that moment he was financing and justifying it

on the basis of service providers and Om, learning from the

process of the trial and the lessons that this taught in

terms of how to build businesses in the future. What value

was there to service providers in consumer's interests? Who

were the institution or firm who would pay for this?

One could imagine that a public sector institution such as

the ICT or some of the consumer watchdogs could become

interested. On the other hand perhaps a professional

organisation would be better placed to conduct independent

research. Penny felt that this is a generic problem with all

products and all services in that the users in the end don't

finance it, hence at the creation stage you've got to deal

with the people who are financing it who are the ones who

are actually interested and engaged in it at this point.

There the people putting their time and effort and

402

investment in on the basis that they produce services to

users. Out of that there is a motivation for them to get a

real understanding of what the users actually want. Penny

thought this is something that you could sell to them if

they understood what users really want they will do better

in the provision of services.

This seems to be one shortcoming of group decision making

processes that is classic - some processes apparently give

rise to spontaneously good products as was the case of the

original demo STB. A worst case scenario is also possible

however where you have got a bad product which fails to

satisfy both the collective needs and individual needs of

the group. This may be true, as in the user/marketing

working group case where the product is a research approach,

the difference is this product is knowledge and not a purely

technical system which either works or not.

The notion of 'users' and 'consumers' were an inextricable

part of the transactions that took place between the

original project team and senior managers and funders. The

former being convinced that there were indeed latent mass

demands for interactive services, while the latter felt that

only a trial could illustrate fully the technical potentials

and credibility of the technology and concepts. Users

featured strongly again when they became collateral in the

403

transactions which took place between Om (and those

responsible within Om for the trial) and potential PSPs.

Bounded with the notion of developing and learning core

competencies needed for providing interactive content and

services, PSPs invested in order to learn of the

organisational problems involved with trials and also to

learn of what 'average' consumers would make of the system:

"The presence of NOP (National Opinion Polls) on theTrial has facilitated the gathering of detailed userfeedback. The initial data showing usage of services byTrial participants, along with their reactions to theirexperiences constitutes a goldmine of information forother companies wishing either to participate in otheri-Tv Trials or to provide content or services . . .Indeed as such it allows the consortium to evaluate therevenue potential of such services for roll out in awider context and even for eventual commercialdeployment on a regional or national level."

Om promotional literature

Identified as a crucial part of the learning process of the

trial, was for firms to understand and gauge the impact of

their individual presence on the system. As such the

'public' stage users (as opposed to the designer-users) were

to a degree 'commodified', as user access and research was

added as part of the value enticing companies to join the

service nursery in the first place. Access to such

information was unfortunately mediated by a dysfunctional

group which was perhaps indicative of some of the deeper

problems of information flows, management and governance

404

involved with the trial as a whole. Clearly, there was not

enough effort (or probably resources) in building the

sociotechnical constituency of the trial.

On the subject of user research, and in particular, the

issue of on-line questionnaires etc. Om's Marcus Penny was

adamant that there was a tension between explicit and covert

ways of realising what people are doing. His preference was

for inference from what they do, or actually use, rather

than asking them questions directly. He was of the opinion

that it is more liable to lead to real answers and its

something which we can do for the first time due to the

nature of the system. The sys-log data produced by the

system would reap data which would show when the STB was

activated by which household, which service/programme was

watched, and what the interaction style was. The detailed

data of how they do respond to choices presented on the

screen. This was an integral part of how Om elicited NOP's

interest in the system.

Penny claimed that Om will be working with them to make the

correct inferences from the sys-log data and then

increasingly to tune the choices that they would present,

working in an iterative fashion till the right inference is

made. Om would also provide questionnaires on screen for

people to do, but Penny felt that there is stages beyond

405

that which they wanted to get to. This stage is

characterised by not providing questions, but rather

providing experiences or experiential choices - vignettes -

and then monitoring there reactions. He viewed that there

was a 'whole new approach', an entire new way of market

research, which surpasses problems of interpretation

inherent with questionnaire use.

However, it is clear, as illustrated by trial participant's

experiences of living with the system, that user-centred

research/design, and particularly 'inferring' from sys-log,

is made more problematic when you do not have a fully

operating system with all its branches and avenues open.

User's functional and exploratory aspirations are confined,

and can only reap understanding of how they coped (or did

not cope) with this confinement. However, even with the

limitation of the system Penny viewed as an opportunity to

get users involved with the design of content and services

at an early opportunity.

Approach to users

The objective of the qualitative user research was to

understand the trial participant's understanding of the

technology. To begin with, this to uncover something of the

way in which participants came to learn of the trial and the

406

technology. This can affect 'first impressions' of the

technology, in terms of its usefulness and motivations to

use, as well as their individual approaches to solving

usability problems. It is not difficult to imagine a

scenario where a highly enthusiastic installation engineer

may help to carry impressions of the system as a panacea to

a number of common complaints concerning the existing

broadcast media.

Likewise, an engineer may be evasive in answering specific

questions regarding issues such as when content material

will change, when certain services will become available and

so on. Any communication between the companies involved with

the trial and the user-consumers will influence perceptions,

beyond that of people interacting with the technology,

content and services directly. Penny remained 'very aware'

of this issue: 'you can't do objective research because

every contact which you have with the users has an effect on

them'. However, in the spirit of evaluation research, the

main issue that could be drawn from a useful research

project would be to 'make some assessment of what direction

and what magnitude that effect is likely to be'.

Penny felt that 'certainly NOP should be aware of these

sorts of issues'. It was considered that they were there to

'hold the ring and mediate all these sort of questions from

407

the individual organisations and as far as the individual

organisations are concerned in their motivations the users

are just a means to an end to answer their questions. Above

and beyond NOP's involvement of managing and mediating the

orientation of the user research, they were involved in the

CT to learn about the new possibilities existing for market

research using i-Tv.

Simon (1969/1996) draws attention to the question of how a

simulation can generate regarding new knowledge. Simulation

is used to achieving and predicting the behaviour of

systems. To a large extent, and as was suggested in the

previous chapters which have dealt more with the social

process which led to the construction of the user research,

the users were viewed almost as intelligent parts of the

system. They were viewed as data generators, from which

inferences were to be made regarding tweaking the system,

its look, its offerings, its functionality and so on. The

trial content was only ever a demonstration. It had many

promised features which never materialised and this was the

single most represented piece of feedback consistent across

all interviewees. Simon relates two assertions about

computers and simulation:

1. A simulation is no better than the assertions

built into it.

408

2. 2. A computer can do only what it is programmed to

do.

Applied to the Cambridge trail this may be taken to infer

that the point of view of Om, and even the companies

involved in the trial, viewed that since the trial was only

a simulation - a demo - that no useful information could be

drawn from research. The user research has offered a glimpse

into the non-rational, very individualistic lifestyles which

are recognised within consumer research, and only now being

recognised by those who have for some time developed

technology which is to be situated within domestic locations

and real lifestyles.

Marcus Penny viewed that i-Tv opened the potential for

instant feedback from users. They would provide a marketing

or product/service development department with the

opportunity to test ideas out on user-consumers, and the

feedback would dictate the adoption of the new product,

service or process:

". . . most businesses are producer businessessomebody sits there in a room cerebrating creatingsomething and there is a very, very long chain down topushing it out, and the feedback back from users backto here is very, very imperfect . . . an individualprogramme producer can create something test it out andget some instant feedback . . . what will that do forthe nature of television?"

409

In a system which is highly dynamic, constantly reactive,

and ever changing it could be said that there would be

little opportunity for things to remain stable enough to

make inferences or formulate and ask relevant questions.

Penny viewed that this was symptomatic on much wider

cultural change - "we're coming to be in a reflexive

world . . . what happens is that you run the reflexivity and

I think it gets to the point of stability emerges its a

question of managing through to that."

A picture emerges of the innovation of i-Tv not being driven

by simply engineering vision alone. Penny stresses the

definite need for feedback, a symbiosis of developing

services and content with inputs derived from the user-

consumer's tastes, interaction styles and choices. He viewed

that one of most important elements of reorientation to this

new way of doing business and producing media is that you

will simply not survive unless you take intimate account of

the feedback and you run your business ultimately on the

basis of interaction and feedback.

Such a view bears relation with social shaping theories of

innovation, opposed to simplistic models of linear

innovation, but rather recognising and bringing to the fore

feedback loops happening at all stages of the innovation-

diffusion continuum. Returning to the theme of order rising

410

from chaos, he viewed that standards formation arises from

such crises, 'if you believe in the approach natural

standards emerge out of a dynamic process and are stable

because the system keeps them in place'. He sees that

crucial to the role of the 'new manger' (one which is in

keeping with the new style of organisation) will manage

processes of crises and chaos:

"its something which you cannot plan and direct in theway that your used to it in a mechanical view of theworld nevertheless there are structures and if youunderstand the behaviour particularly in the movingfrom stability to another . . . you can encourage thatprocess . . . if you understand what lies behind thatstability you can encourage or interact with it . . .but you've actually got to observe quite closely what'shappening."

However, much like the vision for the self-governing service

nursery, it seems that this view remained somewhat utopian

in its faith in the system as it stood, and in the users to

act as 'intelligent' parts of functions of the system. It is

clear that from the above sample of users that there was

plenitude in terms of people's reactions and attitudes

towards the system. Many of these would stand to confound

observations and subsequent inferences. This must also n

considered against the fact of minimal use of the system.

There were several themes recurrent throughout the case

studies. Broadly these can be broken down thus:

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Lack of content drove inactivity with the system

Regardless of problems with content most people stillsaw value in such a service providing there wereprogrammes which would appeal

Most people saw advertising as inevitable, howeverinteractive advertisements were difficult for them tograsp or imagine. As a concepts they seemed to appeal,providing they did not interfere with the programme.

i-Tv would not impact on what they viewed, rather itwould enable them more flexibility in their lifestyle

It was quite obvious the family homes different fromeach other in terms of uses for television, and thatthese homes differed from their extra-televisionactivities, in ways which would be relevant for theconsumption and use of particular services (i.e. someservices simply did not 'exist' for certainhouseholds).

It was quite clear that interactive radio was of littleinterest to interviewees.

Erlandson et al (1993) point out that in naturalistic research

analysis is continuous, that the "analysis of data interacts

with the collection of data" (p.130). This suggests the

flexibility inherent in this approach. Subsequent interviews

are shaped by what has been learned from previous

encounters; interviews in process may change with respect to

what is being offered by the co-researcher. New

opportunities for data collection are sized upon as they

occur and are considered relevant. Such an organic approach

412

maximises the research process within real world and often

chaotic circumstances. Research and analysis are never fully

complete, there is always something, some angle that was not

fully exploited or explored. This was the case in the user

research of the Cambridge Trial. The research process was in

the end compromised from its full potential. The reasons for

this compromise maybe summarised thus:

1. The employment of a semi-structured interview schedule.While this permitted some degree of standardisation ofthe results, it also challenged the notion of naturaltrajectories within the interview process. As such theywere guided to irrelevant questions (such as asking aboutthere impressions of advertisements which were not on thesystem), and generally swept along with the pace of thequestions as laid down by the schedule. There was someevidence of answers being 'invented' or 'forced' forquestions.

2. There was a definite lack of consistency between theinterview styles of interviewers. This resulted in someinterviewee answers being closed down on points theyperhaps wished to emphasise, possibly due to theinterviewer's notion of what was relevant or non-relevantto the discussion. Different interviewers have differentways in which they communicate with people in intimateplaces such as their homes. It is quite easy to imaginethat some researchers have particular talents for makinginterviews feel relaxed and open, free to present their'genuine' impressions on phenomena, whereas others mayunconscious act to inhibit the free flow of thoughts andfeelings regarding subjects. This is a difficult problemwhich must impact to a greater or lesser extent much ofhuman subject research, and is itself an artefact ofinsurmountable individual differences and experience.

413

3. Logistical difficulties plagued this project due to theinclusion of a third-party firm for arranging interviews.As noted I experienced difficulties (fatal in oneinstance) with my interviews, and it was only down toluck and the flexibility of myself and the intervieweesto reschedule and fit in the interviews on spec. It isnot unreasonable to imagine myself flying down toCambridge on that day, only to return with no interviewswhatsoever. The use of such interviewee recruitmentagencies seemed common practice to NOP, who obviously usethis company on a regular basis.

4. Semi-structure interviews presume something of thecommunicative abilities of the interviewees. Those whoare more 'vocal' and can articulate in a much more richerway than others may tend to dominate at the level ofanalysis, particularly when this is done at the casuallevel. What was indicated from NOP was that theinterviews would not be subjected to transcript, and thatfor their purposes it was only necessary to lift outsentences taken from listening to the recordings. Such amethod may leave itself open to reporting on the feedbackfrom certain interviewees over the subtler, butnevertheless relative, feedback of less articulate oroutspoken interviewees. Such a problem is of courseframed within the larger, more pervasive difficulties ofthe interview process as a social science researchimplement, but attention to questions of intervieweearticulation should perhaps be made to frame each of theinterviewees' responses. This could be derived fromrealising the benefits of a more discourse rather thansimply content orientation at the analysis stage.

Chapter discussion

Yin (1989: p.23) suggests that case study research is an

empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary

414

phenomenon within its real-life context; when boundaries

between phenomenon and context are not clearly defined; and

in which multiple sources of evidence are used. " . . . .

case studies are the preferred strategies when 'how' or

'why' questions are being posed, when the investigator has

little control over events, . . ." There is little in the

literature which addresses conducting research within

contemporary consortium environments. While, as an

organisational structure, they are hailed as an example of

how the 'new economy' is effecting business, they offer a

particularly rich example of how organisational and

political manoeuvring can frustrate particular objectives,

in the case outlined in this study, this was the design and

implementation of consumer-user research.cxxxviii The case also

showed how a group consisting of large companies from quite

different industry sectors, encountered and attempted to

cope with a radically new area of operations- the

production, distribution and understanding of digital networks

as an alternative channel for their products and services.

There is also an impoverished literature to date which is

directly devoted to understanding the potentials of digital

networks in domestic locations, compared to the vast

literature on computing and communication in the workplace.

cxxxviii This was the explicit aim of the PSPs, who after were solely interested in the business potential of the systems.

415

The Cambridge trial and its technology most definitely

represented a vanguard opportunity to come to grips with the

kinds of questions that the new era in domestic media could

suggest. This brought to bear an interest in the contexts of

interaction, the main distinguishing functional component of

interactive over existing forms of television. And in

particular the production and design of interactivity, its

facilitation and its reception.

In a purely technical sense, there was little difference

between Acorn's STB technology and their network computer

(NC), produced under the tutelage of Oracle Corporation's

CEO Larry Elison.cxxxix In fact in many respects there is

little essential difference between either of these products

and their immediate antecedent - the Acorn RISC PC.

Essentially what distinguishes the RISC PC from the STB and

NC, was similar to that which distinguishes a games

enthusiasts PC and a standard office PC - sound cards,

graphics cards, RAM etc. Also, the shape, the design and the

colour of the box was different. These were each simply

different boxes containing different configurations of Acorn

hardware, ARM chips and input/output (I/O) cards. The

question arises – were Om selling 'interactive television'

or were they selling ARM chips? The case has suggested that

it was in fact both, but with an emphasis upon the latter.

For the large part notions of 'user-research',

416

'interactivity' even 'interactive television' and 'lifestyle

technology' mattered little to them. These concepts were

merely the means to an end of developing and selling chips

(and related technology of sister companies such as ATML and

SJ Research).

However, there were major differences between each of these

boxes in the minds of those who were most intimately

familiar with the technology, and were required to

characterise it and get it working. The designers and

developers had a job which was to create a vehicle which

would match particular visions of the interactive user and

audience. Each 'box' - PC, STB or NC - represented a

different system concept of delivering on-line information

to the home. Perhaps at the opposite end each box were very

different in marketing terms, as each system represented a

new promise of the elusive advanced media mass market, the

perceived market in which the firm imagined people desiring,

acquiring and using their product.

Technological change or innovation today often occurs as

projects such as the Cambridge Trial - events happening

within the other flows of normal business that companies

conduct. Many of these projects are complex in

organisational character involving various actors from many

different organisations. Some projects may 'spin-out'

417

becoming separate firms or as operating divisions. Some, as

was the case here, derived from opportunity. But even so,

there are still observable trends in the general market, as

well as indications of the state-of-the-art of what

technologies and services can presently offer. The wiser

firms keep abreast of these, and link properly the chances

to parse evolving consumer needs with emerging technological

potentials in ever-reflexive loops of innovation activity:

"The different technological trajectories and theirtechnological opportunities do not coexist unrelatedly,but are connected by several influences, devices andfeedbacks. Therefore, a single technology cannot beexplained in isolation but should be understood in abroader framework. Improvement in one technology cancreate totally different applications in othertechnologies or even new technological opportunities.Accordingly, nearly exhausted trajectories can beinfluenced by other innovations and technology fieldswhich open up new opportunities." (Pyka, 1997: p.208)

Perhaps it is here that the symmetry between 'cultures of

use' and 'cultures of production' are lost or confused. What

appears in the marketplace to create the gestalt of

available products is hardly an infinite range. Even where

there is express demand for functionality, as there was on

the Cambridge Trial, forces that lie completely on the

supply side of the equation hindered these customers not

only what they anticipated, but indeed what they were

promised.

418

Within the Cambridge Trial creating the 'mortar' which would

join the components together and get them working as an

effective whole, was only one part of a more complex whole

of learning, developing and understanding. For instance much

of the content (comprising largely of the games and

educational software), and the video footage were drawn from

Acorn's education division and Anglia Television

respectively. Development work was needed on both of these

elements such as 'porting' the software to the system –

making it work on the new platform and with the remote

control rather than a PC keyboard. The video footage also

required editing and digitalisation. The largest piece of

'mortar' work was the interface development.

The interface is the site where not only do all the

functional aspects of the system's purpose must converge in

relevant, purposeful and useful ways, but must also

interface with the user in a representational and meaningful

way. It can be compared with the learning of a new language

- such as interpreting Morse code on the telegraph - the

operation and use of the telephone was comparatively easy.

It presented an ease of use and quality of communication in

such an acceptable ratio that it became of utility -'useful'

- and, as a result, acquired habits, situations and

conditions of use developed through its integration into the

everyday life and affairs of people (de Sola Pool, 1977).

419

But this is often a task of not only engineering but also of

aesthetics, and of social learning and cognitive sensitivity

and understanding. In addition to the interface, there were

further content elements which had to be developed as

further partners joined the content and services group – the

principal services providers PSPs. These included catalogue-

style screens depicting goods, interactive advertisements

and the online surveys and questionnaires.

This was an arena that presented real challenge to academic

research. Most predominately in terms of attaining access

and trust. Companies, like individuals, are not pleased to

open their souls at a time when they feel threatened or not

entirely in control. From my own perspective the most

difficult obstacle was the constantly shifting 'first point

of contact'. Was this with Om, the trial staff or the

working group on user-research? This led to a kind of

'navigation' within the social structure of the trial, as it

unfolded as a social process. Not only that the trial also

unfolded as a technical process, the system, interfaces and

technology changed over time. It did not remain constant.

This was a complex sociotechnical phenomenon, with multiple

constituencies that waxed and waned over the course of the

project. On a personal level, there were times when I was

empowered and other times when I was powerless to influence

my involvement in the trial.

420

On many occasions, I found myself having to reiterate my

purpose and relationship to new members of the service

nursery (often by proposal, or extended introduction). Each

time this was interpreted differently, depending upon the

new member's commercial orientation with respect to their

core business, or their interest in the trial. During this

time I was returning to Edinburgh, where I was developing

the theoretical aspects of the work. This was subject to

constant revision, responding to issues of a social or

technical nature as they arose. For instance, the Acorn

consultants desire to implement QFD, or the shift in the

user-research group's interest towards interpretation of

their content material. This drove me to explore the

considerable literature that addresses these areas, and

shaped the evolving ideas of CU (and particularly the

promise of user-research in constituency-building).

Beyond the visits to Om documented earlier, I engaged

frequently in casual conversations with those working on

different aspects of the project which also directed me

towards specific areas of study. For instance, a member of

the Om marketing team was interested in how the 'video

violence' debate influenced perceptions of i-Tv.

421

The members of the working group often had multiple roles,

tasks and projects they were working on within their firms.

They came to the group not only with general directives

agreed upon with their respective firms and upline managers,

but indeed individual perceptions of the technology and the

trial based upon their own existing knowledge, expertise and

viewpoints. They also brought to the meetings something of

their company culture, and again, their own individual

interpretation of it. This shaped impressions of what was,

and was not, valuable in the user-research project. It also

dictated what could be expected from the trialists. For

instance, the BBC came from a culture where their public was

termed viewers. Nat West and Tesco on the other hand had

customers, NOP had subjects and samples, Om had users - each

viewed members of the 'public' often in quite different

ways. This manifested in different values and feelings in

how to approach and deal with trialists.

This knowledge also had to fit in with other preoccupations

which members had at the time. Unlike Om and myself, they

were not dedicated to a full time focus on the trial. This

impacted levels of commitment and motivation, which varied

within the group. This also influenced its functioning. What

was taken from the meetings fed back into quite different

company structures, and so most likely came to 'mean' quite

different things with respect to developing perspectives of

422

the trial in general, or how to iterate and innovate their

particular service offering. Proposals I made, often

manifested later, sometimes 're-engineered' by others (such

as the NOP background questionnaire being close to my own

'media and leisure activities questionnaire' and BMP's

qualitative 'check list' being similar to my earlier

proposals I had passed to them).

There were clearly issues regarding research methodology

that were raised during the various dialogues regarding

implementation. NOP qualitative were quite keen to tape

interviews, but not transcript them. They favoured 'lifting'

out comments that seemed to reflect the aims of the project.

Whereas in academia there may be some pre-occupation with

method and rigour, as research is often tested on its

methods as much as its results, this may be swayed in

private sector social research for the purposes of result

and affect. An academic researcher proposing exacting

methods can appear in such dynamic innovation environments

as too slow, pedantic, resource and time consuming. In

industrial settings lust of result demands quick fixes often

at the expense of rigour.

Also, there was a privileging of quantitative over

qualitative information. I discussed this bias with respect

to scientific investigation. The reasons for why

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quantitative investigation was favoured here include the

research routines of NOP, and the seduction of automatic

production of use data by system-logging. The promise of

'automatic' understanding of use and usage is extremely

attractive.cxl Marcus Penny viewed that i-Tv opened the

potential for instant feedback from users. They would

provide a marketing or product/service development

department with the opportunity to test ideas out on user-

consumers, and the feedback would dictate the adoption of

the new product, service or process:

". . . most businesses are producer businessessomebody sits there in a room celebrating creatingsomething and there is a very, very long chain down topushing it out, and the feedback back from users backto here is very, very imperfect . . . an individualprogramme producer can create something test it out andget some instant feedback . . . what will that do forthe nature of television?"

But in a system, constituency, or network which is highly

dynamic, constantly reactive, and ever changing I contend

that there would be little opportunity for things to remain

stable enough to make proper inferences or have the time and

space to formulate and ask relevant questions. But the

services manager viewed that this was symptomatic on much

cxl A primary business rationale behind the QUBE trial was to use interactive cable for audience research. It allowed cable operators to monitor what channel people were watching at the time. (Davidge, 1987) Such ‘automatic’ registering of behaviours lie at the core of ‘post-fordist’ methods of understanding consumer behaviour.

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wider cultural change - "we're coming to be in a reflexive

world . . . what happens is that you run the reflexivity and

I think it gets to the point of stability emerges its a

question of managing through to that."

Marcus Penny stressed the definite need for feedback, a

symbiosis of developing services and content with inputs

derived from the user-consumer's tastes, interaction styles

and choices. He considered one of most important elements of

reorientation to this new way of doing business and

producing media is that you will simply not survive unless

you take intimate account of the feedback. Business must

ultimately run on the basis of interaction and feedback.

However, Penny saw the notion of interaction and feedback in

much more global terms with respect to the Cambridge Trial

and i-Tv. He viewed such an approach as developing an entire

generation beyond this. Digital media permits entire

business processes to become interactive – manufacturing to

retailing and customer-care; "given that the whole process

is interactive . . . we're actually building in

quality . . . its an inherent process . . . and you don't

need to bring it in from outside as a separate process." It

is the application of re-engineering to a system that is

inherently un-reengineerable. It is inherently non-linear.

Such a view bears relation with the non-linear theories of

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innovation, and R&D (such as when Fleck, 1988; speaks of

innofusion – innovation through diffusion).

Opposed to simplistic models of linear innovation, this non-

linear views recognises and draw attentions to the way in

which feedback loops can occur at all stages of the

innovation-diffusion continuum. Returning to the theme of

order rising from chaos, The Services Manager viewed that

standards formation arises from such crises, 'if you believe

in the approach natural standards emerge out of a dynamic

process and are stable because the system keeps them in

place'. He sees that crucial to the role of the 'new

manager' (one which is in keeping with the new style of

organisation) will manage processes of crises and chaos:

" . . . its something which you cannot plan and directin the way that your used to it in a mechanical view ofthe world nevertheless there are structures and if youunderstand the behaviour particularly in the movingfrom stability to another . . . you can encourage thatprocess . . . if you understand what lies behind thatstability you can encourage or interact with it . . .but you've actually got to observe quite closely what'shappening."

However, much like the vision for the self-governing service

nursery, it seems that this view remained somewhat utopian

in its faith in the system as it stood, and in the users to

act as 'intelligent' parts of functions of the system. It is

clear that from the above sample of users that there was

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considerable variation in trialist's reactions and attitudes

towards the system. Many of these would stand to confound

inferences beyond the fact that there was little use of the

system due to lack of content.

Such research should also be contingent on identifying

exactly what the knowledge objectives of each company are,

rather than trying to muddle through with a jointly arrived

at compromise which suits neither the collective nor

individual interests and needs of the group. This appeared

the case here. Whether this was down to purely poor

management and co-ordination, or lack of communication flow,

or simply due to some companies not having an exact idea of

what they wished to derive from the research. I would argue

that it was also due to the social aspects of the trial

being much less tangible as a discursive practice than

discussion of technology. A working technical system did

exist in the Cambridge Trial, however there was no real

product emerging from the user research, and little product

emerging in terms of satisfactory content.

It is obvious that there was some conflict between myself

and the self-appointed chairman and co-ordinator of the

group - Seth Paladopicous. This may have stemmed from an

over ambitious initial presentation at a time when the group

was only finding their feet within this new venture. It may

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also have stemmed from NOP's obvious wish to be considered

'the' experts in social and market research whilst perhaps

realising their own lack of expertise in coping with the

particular characteristics of interactive media. Their

expertise was in mass media (and most significantly large-

scale political polling). In addition, Paladopicous had

explicitly raised the point that I was a 'freeloader' in

that I did not represent an organisation which had

contributed some £50,000 pounds in order to 'learn' from the

trial. I was merely offering my services free of charge, and

was interested and willing to invest my time and the

resources of the ESRC (in funding my travel and

accommodation while doing field research) in order to

interview trial participants for my own, and the group's

benefit. This certainly compromised my position. In the end,

however, all data - qualitative and quantitative were

offered to me for analysis, regardless of my exclusion from

the group.

The Om case outlined in the previous two chapters

illustrates something of the dilemma which is encountered

when trying to elucidate whether an innovation is

technology-push or market-pull. While few commentators would

argue that they exist in a pure form, the Om case suggests

the realties of innovation - that serendipity, chance and

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opportunity plays a large part in such processes. Who the

end-consumer-users are remains non-distinct.

"The market demand may come from private firms, fromgovernment, or from domestic consumers, but in itsabsence, however good the flow of inventions, theycannot be converted into innovations . . . Somescientists have stressed very strongly the element oforiginal research and invention and have tended toneglect or belittle the market" (Freeman, 1982: p.109)

Returning to Woolgar's (1991) 'technology as text' book,

this concept applies equally to those who become involved

with the processes of design and production, as much as

those who finally use and consume such products in domestic

spaces. It is comprised of all those who are involved in its

propagation, production, and use. Arguably, however, the

working group on user research seemed very distant within

from the practice of technology development.

Predominant in the Cambridge Trial were the technology

partners and the PSPs. They were users of the system, and

they applied their own particular interpretation of what it

would and could do for their businesses. Which as already

maintained entailed different levels of motivation and

commitment to make it work. This is perhaps where Marcus

Penny's "common interest that it [the service nursery]

should exist" indicates a certain presumption in that

everyone would magically bond through shared visions of the

system and service future. However, one aspect of the trial

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which was shared mutually was an interest in how the public,

the ultimate target market for the product, would react. The

PSPs for instance had no real interest in the technology,

they wished to evaluate the content and service potentials

of the system.

The purposes of these trials have included technology

testing, market positioning and application and content

development. However, it is also worth mentioning that

trials have been more often announced than run, and more

often run than rigorously evaluated. No trials have been run

to perfect consumer-user analysis. Nor have they been run to

develop research approaches towards interactive media. They

have been run to test new business potentials. However, the

promise of user feedback is crucial in the negotiations

enrolling support both within the firm and from potential

partners (Nicoll, 1999). A working 'image' of the

technology, and of the users is the rhetorical tools that

guide development. Both were 'texts' and purely elements

within the discourse of these meetings.

Lessons for firms

Several key points may be summarised from this study:

Trials have distinctive social and technical elements.And these are distinctive within their own categories –i.e. use of one technology may vary from that of anotherin subtle and obvious ways. There is a real danger in

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melding human and non-human actors in analysis. It blurstheir unique properties, which may be useful for academicanalysis, but may compound an already endemic industryview which has it that users are already only anintelligent part of the technical system. This is whetherthey are planned, anticipated, scenic, or actual andreal. They are basically viewed as elements whichrespond, or will respond, and that provide, or willprovide data useful to consolidate business plans andgoals.

Retrospection, while an essential starting point, shouldinclude a direct appraisal of the usefulness of thetechnology. If designers' can use the technology andservices with their families and friends, withoutresponding emotionally to any criticism they may level,then they are half-way to creating a good product.Warning signs are when staff do not want to live withtheir own product.

Informal meetings with users, consumers and trialists canprovide valuable data, as can more formal or technicalmeans of research, such as usability, onlinequestionnaires etc.

Working with consumer-users or trialists, as well aspartners in product and service development can operateto everyone's benefit. Getting people involved, even ifone has to play the 'education card' – i.e. wiring up thelocal schools the favourite strategy of computer firms -can breed new uses.

Appoint a member of staff to articulate and co-ordinateknowledge flows, both internally, externally withpartners and with consumer-users and trialists. Beecological with communication, reduce noise, and makesure that the right people get the right information.Such a person should act as an exchange of knowledge and

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work towards developing the kind of trust that isintegral to such a role.

Understand and consolidate organisational structures (andknowledge flows) through feeding back structures to thoseinvolved, and eliciting them to comment (again ecologicalcommunication rules should apply). There should be activeeffort to minimise presumption but to accent, creativityand different views.

Staff, and partners are valuable assets but so areconsumer-users and trialists. It is not bad to considerblurring the distinction between social actors, and tobring 'common sense' to heed in highly innovativeprojects. Everyone in such a network or constituency canhelp ground ideas into worthwhile, useful services, whichprovide good experiences in use, and encourage frequentand long lasting usage.

According to this study the most important conclusions thatcan be drawn in relation to organisational innovation are:

1) To view innovation in a broad perspective as aprocess of structural and mental “knowledge flows”: atthe structural level it refers to information flows,procedures and decision making; at the cognitive levelit refers to what people think, perceive, feel, andsense.2) To create a culture of openness and establish aclimate wherein dialogue is stimulated, and thus theability to transcend the gap between structure andcognition.3) To accept chaos as a transition phase important forcreativity and collaboration.4) To allow for diversity and variety, since theyfoster creativity and form the breeding ground forpeople to open up and share their ideas.

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Further work, issues, and ideas

Hunt (1994) argued that although we know a lot about how

companies compete in the market place we know little about

how they collaborate. In this study I have only scratched

only the surface of what is perceived to be an area of

outstanding importance for the further development of new

media organisation in the future. The Cambridge Trial, its

managers, designers and participants offered a rich

environment for exploring the multiple dimensions and

reality building in the process of design and management of

a new media system. Further, it provided an opportunity to

consider experiential approaches in the technological and

marketing evaluation of what may be considered a radical or

discontinuous innovation - from an organisational

perspective as well as the perspective of use. The full

nature of the domestication process with respect to the case

of the trial nevertheless remained elusive. Any 'symmetrical

model' of design/use, producer/consumer was in effect

unrealised in this case. Certainly, there were most

definitely concepts of domestication anticipated in the

design of the system. However, there was little to evidence

Silverstone and Haddon's (1996: p.46) notion of "design

completed in domestication." This can only happen when

technologies are successful, when they fulfil designer-

producer and consumer-user expectations. The system, and in

particular the content aspects of the system, never matured

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or was never developed to the extent necessary to constitute

the naturalised use process of domestication. Instead, it

remained an artefact, an anomaly within the house,

transparent not in use, but though lack of use, usage and

usefulness. Lack of content options led to lack of

participation, and therefore the technology can be

considered only evocatively - capable of providing a base by

which trial participants were able to comment and project

upon 'if it did work' or did fulfil all it was built up to

provide.

CU as an applied research approach may benefit by serving as

an index of what can be ecologically studied at various

stages of technological development. The scope and scale of

consumer-user involvement in the technological and marketing

development of programmes may be viewed as a co-evolutionary

and co-developmental process. The cultural distance of

designers-producers to consumer-users may be reduced leading

towards the grail of ever-more useful and usable products.

What will be interesting will investigations into other,

different product groups and categories - perhaps where

context plays a larger place to the use process and the

domestication of products.cxli

This brings to bear a number of issues regarding people's

ability to anticipate and imagine functionalities and modes

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and conditions of use. Will such projections suffer from the

experienced by marketers in the application of 'soft'

research approaches such as product concept testing? What is

also clear from the empirical work in the organisation of

the trial is that it is important to form a more explicit

understanding of what partner organisations require from

consumer-user research. This suggests that the individual

way the consumer-user is expressed within their

institutional perspective should be accounted for, as should

their motivations for eliciting consumer-user information

and how it will be applied or inform strategies.

There seems to be an implicit and perhaps somewhat

restrictive boundary in place between the current design,

consumption and media literature. Most articles within the

design literature which look at interpretivist methods tend

to focus very much on the application of such ideas to the

design process itself - contextual inquiry is an example of

this. On the other hand, when understanding users is the

focus of interpretivist interests, HCI tends to be the forum

for discussion, but a forum which seems to have a less

sophisticated understanding of interpretivist approaches,

perhaps as a result of a more highly focused area of

interest (c.f. discussion of the implicitly extreme stance

of ethnographic approaches, above). Suchman's (1995) article

is very much concerned with modelling users' activities.

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The essence of this book has placed a strong emphasis on co-

evolving systems of design, producing, meaning making, myth-

making and use. It has stressed the importance of dynamic

conceptions of context upon a reality that pivots around the

process of use, what further can be expected from a semantic

model of design, consumption, use and domestication? Further

work will consider how this may be mapped in such a way as

to constitute guidelines of 'best practice' for designers

and those who are stakeholders in the design and

implementations of technology and marketing trials.

cxxxvii There is estimated that there is something in the region of 6 billion chips existing in various artefacts and technologies. The suggestion is that we are moving from ‘crunching’ to ‘connecting’ Kelly (1997).cxxxix Ellison had visited Om and laid out plans for them to do the reference design for the NC.cxli Such an opportunity currently exists at the time of writing with theauthor’s involvement with a Design Council project: Information-intensive products. This is concerned with the application of CU as a framework investigating a range of so-called ‘smart products’ - including that range of products which contain chips supposed to raise the ‘intelligence’ of everyday products and objects.

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I caught a glimpse book

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