Theoretical Background

User-Centered Design

The social relations model of technology development says that if people want technology to reflect egalitarian values and to be distributed more equitably, then they must actively work towards a society that incorporates those qualities. What the model does not offer are specific tools for reaching those goals or changing the nature of technology development.

A likely place to look for these tools would appear to be the field of user-centered design: a loose collection of disciplines and techniques such as human-computer interaction, user interface design, usability testing, and participatory design. (Sullivan 1989) This field is made up of technical designers who believe that technological discomfort and powerlessness can be eased by bringing potential users of the technology directly into the design process, or by using techniques from less technical disciplines, such as cognitive psychology and anthropology, to more accurately model user behavior.

However, practitioners of user-centered design usually do not fully accept the social relations view of technology. Although the social context in which technologies will be used is considered relevant to the design process, the social context from which technologies arise is not. Issues of political and economic power are not discussed, and technologies are typically considered neutral, with their good and bad effects a result of the technologies' use, not of the designers' values.

As a quick test of this assertion, I evaluated the contents of all of the issues of one of the leading user-centered design journals, interactions, (January 1994 to October 1998) and the papers presented at the last two Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conferences (1997 & 1998). I chose interactions because it claims to be the most forward looking of the technology design journals. Its subtitle is "New Visions of Human-Computer Interaction," and its opening editorial states, "...new generations have taken up the challenge of defining the future by thoughtfully building it....interactions has been conceived as a forum for envisioning the transformation of this new field of practice." (Rheinfrank and Hefley 1994, p. 88) The CHI conference is the largest and most respected user-centered design conference in the US.

I categorized the articles and papers by first looking at their titles and also the section of the magazine or conference they were in. If there was any ambiguity about the content, I read either the abstract or enough of the actual article to determine its subject. I defined the following categories:

• Political — discusses underlying political and economic factors that influence the design of technologies
• Social — discusses social factors that affect the design of technologies
• Design — discusses technical issues about technology design or design methodology
• History — discusses the history of user-centered design

The following table summarizes the results:

	Political	Social	Design	Historical
interactions	2 (1%)	10 (7%)	137 (90%)	3 (2%)
CHI	1 (1%)	0 (0%)	127 (99%)	0 (0%)

This survey suggests some significant patterns. The overwhelming number of articles and papers are concerned with technical and design issues. The few articles that discuss social issues are primarily concerned with thinking about a broader user base, such as disabled users, the elderly, international audiences, and women in computing. None of the social articles touched on topics discussed above regarding the social relations view of technology. Only two articles in interactions acknowledged deeper issues: one commented on how biases are introduced into technologies by the values designers hold, and the other recounted a case study in Australia of a technology project which resulted in increased worker control of the work process.

The one bright spot was the paper presented at the CHI 98 conference entitled Toward an HCI Research and Practice Agenda Based on Human Needs and Social Responsibility. (Muller et al 1997) That paper encouraged user-centered designers to think about issues underlying their work, such as the economics of information access and the extent to which designers consider productivity and efficiency as goals, as opposed to means to other, more socially responsible goals.

There are additional user-centered design journals, books, and conferences, but having read some of the print material, and having attended some of the conferences, I am confident that a fuller analysis of their content would not be significantly different than the one presented above.

The central question of user-centered design can be summarized as: Given a technology, how do we make it work best for those who will use it? This question contains a fundamental assumption that limits the perspective of the field. The methods of user-centered design accept as given that the technology under consideration is necessary. The disciplines agree that user feedback or involvement must be solicited to mold that technology to beneficial ends, but options such as not using the technology under consideration or changing the social or political structure are not considered. Connecting the social relations view of technology development to user-centered methodology can overcome this limitation. By understanding the social context in which a potential technology is situated, additional options become available, such as changing the technology under consideration or looking at non-technical solutions.

Overview | Sociopolitical Technology |
User-Centered Design | Participatory Design | Engaging Community

Contents | Introduction | Background | Methods | Description | Conclusion | References