Boxes And Arrows : The Design Behind the Design

I’m not clear on where this differs from standard user research. Theoretically, the different types of user research do leverage “the very people”. Some strategies for prototyping and validation go directly to users at very early stages.

So, it sounds interesting, but can you clarify more about what you’re trying to say? Are you advocating more user involvement early on? Or, are you talking about a twist on current methods that involves users more?

Austin—

Thanks for your questions—I’m glad you called me out on these points.
I am thinking about looking further into issues of power and democracy inherent in the technology interactions. When designing for another cultural value system, I propose adjusting the practice of IA to incorporate a wider social perspective.

Granting ideas like “media imperialism” and “electronic colonialism” more agency than ever, what can we in the IA community do to ensure culturally responsible approaches to our work? In examining the nuances of Western culture and the elements we take for granted (even beyond the tactical Do’s and Don’ts’), how do we empower the user audience? How do we imbue their culture’s values and affordances in the technology being imposed by globalization? I feel it goes beyond methodological diligence. So to answer your questions: yes, perhaps we twist current methods; yes, we definitely involve users more and from square one. The primary consideration is to recognize our own cultural influence on our methods, standards, practices, and expectations—then move past them for a more user-influenced design.

(A quick related example of ideas—here, dealing specifically with race—Peggy McIntosh looks at conditions of skin color in daily life. An interesting list begins about a quarter of the way down the page. How would these types of considerations influence something you might be working on? Asked another way, how would the absence of some of these considerations debase or demoralize a technology user from another culture? see: White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack )

I see it as cyclical. If a community of users steers the development of the technology with which they’ll be interfacing, it will be vetted to a greater degree and they’ll use it more—thus empowering more members of their culture to use the technology, to be involved with its creation, and to continue to influence its evolution within their culture. In light of globalization, even in small ways this increased agency may shift relationships of commerce, natural resources, human capital, etc. Andruid Kerne calls this a “mutually recursive network of processes” that addresses “the function of culture in human-computer interfaces and the function of human-computer interfaces as culture.”

Good response Jamie. I think you might need to focus the story idea to address what you raised in your comment – that is much more applied and targeted than the general idea you initially proposed.