How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technologies (Inside Technology)

Users have become an integral part of technology studies. The essays in this volumelook at the creative capacity of users to shape technology in all phases, from design toimplementation. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including a feminist focus on users anduse (in place of the traditional emphasis on men and machines), concepts from semiotics, and thecultural studies view of consumption as a cultural activity, these essays examine what users do withtechnology and, in turn, what technology does to users. The contributors consider how users consume,modify, domesticate, design, reconfigure, and resist technological development--and how users aredefined and transformed by technology.The essays in part I show that resistance to and non-use of atechnology can be a crucial factor in the eventual modification and improvement of that technology;examples considered include the introduction of the telephone into rural America and the influenceof non-users of the Internet. The essays in part II look at advocacy groups and the many kinds ofusers they represent, particularly in the context of health care and clinical testing. The essays inpart III examine the role of users in different phases of the design, testing, and selling oftechnology. Included here is an enlightening account of one company's design process for men's andwomen's shavers, which resulted in a "Ladyshave" for users assumed to be technophobes.Takentogether, the essays in How Users Mattershow that any understanding of users must take intoconsideration the multiplicity of roles they play--and that the conventional distinction betweenusers and producers is largely artificial.

Nelly Oudshoorn is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.