Search results for "design-use relation"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Unscrambling the Average User of Habbo Hotel
2007
The “user” is an ambiguous concept in human-computer interaction and information systems. Analyses of users as social actors, participants, or configured users delineate approaches to studying design-use relationships. Here, a developer’s reference to a figure of speech, termed the “average user,” is contrasted with design guidelines. The aim is to create an understanding about categorization practices in design through a case study about the virtual community, Habbo Hotel. A qualitative analysis highlighted not only the meaning of the “average user,” but also the work that both the developer and the category contribute to this meaning. The average user a) represents the unknown, b) influen…
Versions of Care Technology
2007
The importance of users for innovation has been increasingly emphasized in the literatures on design and management of technology. Less attention has been given to how people shape technology-in-use. This paper first provides a review of literature on technology use in the social and cultural studies of technology. It then moves to examine empirically how a novel alarm and monitoring appliance was appropriated in the work of home-care nurses and in the everyday living of elderly people. Analysis shows that even these technically unsavvy users shaped the technology considerably by various, even if mundane, acts of adapting it materially, as well as by attributing different meanings to it. Ho…