GOLDSMITHS Research Online Thesis (PhD) Wilkie, Alex User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study You may cite this version as: Wilkie, Alex, 2010. User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London. [Thesis]: Goldsmiths Research Online. Available at: http://eprints.gold.ac.uk/4710/ COPYRIGHT This is a thesis accepted for a Higher Degree of the University of London. It is an unpublished document and the copyright is held by the author. All persons consulting this thesis must read and abide by the Copyright Declaration below. COPYRIGHT DECLARATION I recognise that the copyright and other relevant Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the above- described thesis rests with the author and/or other IPR holders and that no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. ACCESS A non-exclusive, non-transferable licence is hereby granted to those using or reproducing, in whole or in part, the material for valid purposes, providing the copyright owners are acknowledged using the normal conventions. Where specific permission to use material is required, this is identified and such permission must be sought from the copyright holder or agency cited. REPRODUCTION All material supplied via Goldsmiths Library and Goldsmiths Research Online (GRO) is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the Data Collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or for educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. http://eprints-gro.goldsmiths.ac.uk Contact Goldsmiths Research Online at: [email protected] User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study Alex Wilkie Goldsmiths, University of London Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. September 2010 Abstract This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the role of users in user-centered design. It is written from the perspective of science and technology studies, in particular developments in actor-network theory, and draws on the notion of the assemblage from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The data for this thesis derives from a six-month field study of the routine discourse and practices of user-centered designers working for a multinational microprocessor manufacturer. The central argument of this thesis is that users are assembled along with the new technologies whose design they resource, as well as with new configurations of socio- cultural life that they bring into view. Informing this argument are two interrelated insights. First, user-centered and participatory design processes involve interminglings of human and non-human actors. Second, users are occasioned in such processes as sociotechnical assemblages. Accordingly, this thesis: (1) reviews how the user is variously applied as a practico-theoretical concern within human-computer interaction (HCI) and as an object of analysis within the sociology and history of technology; (2) outlines a methodology for studying users variously enacted within design practice; (3) examines how a non-user is constructed and re-constructed during the development of a diabetes related technology; (4) examines how designers accomplish user-involvement by way of a gendered persona; (5) examines how the making of a technology for people suffering from obesity included multiple users that served to format the designers’ immediate practical concerns, as well as the management of future expectations; (6) examines how users serve as a means for conducting ethnography-in-design. The thesis concludes with a theoretically informed reflection on user assemblages as devices that: do representation; resource designers’ socio-material management of futures; perform modalities of scale associated with technological and product development; and mediate different forms of accountability. - 2 - Table of Contents List of Figures ...................................................................................................................6 List of Tables ....................................................................................................................6 List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................7 Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................8 Chapter 1. Regimes of Design, Logics of Users ............................................ 9 Introduction .....................................................................................................................9 Formative Preambles in Design and Sociology..............................................................11 Regimes of Design, Logics of the User...........................................................................13 Rethinking Design with STS................................................................................................ 14 Expectations and Anticipation .............................................................................................. 16 Invention, Innovation and Creativity...................................................................................... 17 Doing Politics by Other Means............................................................................................. 19 Thesis Structure .............................................................................................................20 Chapter 2. Users and the Confluences of HCI & STS: a Literature Review .... 24 Introduction ...................................................................................................................24 Part 1: Users, Involvement and HCI .............................................................................26 The User in HCI and User-Centered Design ......................................................................... 26 CSCW: users as multiple, socially situated and mutually dependent.......................................... 28 Participatory Design and Workplace Reform.......................................................................... 30 Multiple Models of the User ................................................................................................ 34 Part 2: STS and Users....................................................................................................35 Users and the Social Construction of Technology..................................................................... 36 Configuring Users in the Design Process ................................................................................ 41 Actor-Network Theory And Beyond: Scripts and Heterogeneity ................................................. 43 Feminist Perspectives on Users.............................................................................................. 48 Users and the Moral Order of the Home................................................................................ 52 Conclusion: Towards User Assemblages........................................................................55 Chapter 3. Design in Action: A Methodology for Studying Users in Design.... 59 Introduction ...................................................................................................................59 Studying User-Centered Design.....................................................................................59 Design in Action: Ethnography, Design and Users........................................................62 Some Principles for Following Designers and Tracing Users .................................................... 65 Issues, Criticisms and Challenges.......................................................................................... 68 Fieldwork and Methods..................................................................................................72 - 3 - Participant Observation ....................................................................................................... 74 Ethnographic Interviews....................................................................................................... 75 Document analysis .............................................................................................................. 76 Photography ....................................................................................................................... 77 Ethical Considerations......................................................................................................... 78 Conclusion......................................................................................................................79 Chapter 4. Assembling Diabetes, Reassembling a Non-User ........................ 81 Introduction ...................................................................................................................81 From In-Home Interview to Innovation Meeting..........................................................82 The In-Home Interview....................................................................................................... 84