Investigators:
Carlos Aguiar (PI)
Art and Design - ID | Information Science - Informatics | University of Illinois Ubana-Champaign

Collaborators:
Trevor Pinch
Science and Technology Studies | Cornell
Keith Green
Human Centered Design | Cornell

Publications:
[1] Carlos Henrique Araujo de Aguiar, Trevor Pinch, and Keith Green. 2022. De-scription at early phases of artifact design. In Proceedings of the 25th International Academic Mindtrek Conference (Academic Mindtrek '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 179–191. https://doi.org/10.1145/3569219.3569380

Artifacts, Designers, and Users

A Study on User-Artifact-Designer Relationships Based on Actor-Network Theory

Keywords: Actor network theory / De-scription / Co-design

Overview

This research project explored the early design phase of a technological artifact called communIT, focusing on the co-design process and the interactions between designers, participants, and the artifact. The study was based on concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and presented a detailed account of the negotiations, adjustments, and push-and-pull dynamics involved in shaping the artifact through four distinct design instances.

Key findings and observations from the study include:

1. Co-designing: The research highlighted the collaborative nature of the co-design process. Both human agents (designers and participants) and nonhuman agents (props and rules) contributed to creating hypotheses about how users and communIT might interact in a given scenario. The roles of the designers were significant, as they indirectly influenced the co-design process by providing props and rules for participants to work with.

2. Interactions: The study emphasized the importance of understanding user-artifact interactions. During the co-design process, participants created hypotheses about how users would interact with communIT and how the artifact should be designed to support these interactions.

3. Antiprogram Effect: The research also revealed that the artifact responded to the participants' attempts to script it, a phenomenon known as the antiprogram effect in ANT. This dynamic process of prescription, scription, reaction, and reinscription continued throughout the design process.

4. Adjustments of Socio-Materiality: The study demonstrated the gradual sharpening of the boundaries between users and the artifact. The co-design process allowed for negotiation and adjustment, highlighting the collaborative shaping of the artifact in the early design phase.

In conclusion, the research provided valuable insights into the early design phase of a technological artifact and the collaborative shaping of the artifact. The study could be beneficial for both STS researchers and design researchers, offering insights into the dynamics that impact the shaping of technological objects and providing information on how to design products that better fit users' needs and desires.

Models

The figure below represent a model of the user-artifact-designer relationship as identified by Akrich, Woolgar, and Latour. This model seems to illustrate the process through which designers observe users, organize knowledge about them, and then create artifacts that align with their perceptions of users' needs. It includes the following steps:

1. Designers "look" at users, symbolized by the red arrow, which means observing their behavior and interactions.

2. The designers then organize knowledge about users, represented by the green arrow, based on their observations and interpretations.

3. Designers project an image of the user, differentiating between the actual user and their perceptions of them.

4. They then imagine and script an artifact that fits the projected user's needs, shown by the blue arrow.

5. Finally, the designers "test the user" by seeing if they can use the newly created artifact, as indicated by the yellow arrow.

This model highlights the iterative process of design that involves observation, interpretation, and creation of artifacts, taking into account the potential disconnect between designers' perceptions of users and users' actual needs.

This study, however, found a new model of the user-artifact-designer relationship as observed in the co-design of communIT. This model demonstrates the collaborative and iterative design process that occurs between human participants (users and designers) and nonhuman entities (props and rules). The steps in this model are as follows:

1. Designers contribute by selecting concepts, such as the Folding Architecture, which directly shape the artifact's aesthetics (depicted by the dashed blue arrow). However, most of their contributions involve defining the props and rules for participants, indirectly influencing the shaping of user-artifact interaction (purple arrow).

2. Participants contribute by imagining users' behaviors and needs, and envisioning physical attributes of the artifact to meet these needs (green and blue arrows). This process creates hypotheses about user-artifact interaction.

3. Co-designers identify these hypotheses, and designers then define new props and rules to further guide participants' design efforts. This iterative process helps refine the boundaries between users and the artifact.

4. Throughout this cycle, participants and designers work to match the behaviors and attributes assigned to both users and the artifact, ensuring they complement each other and contribute to the desired user-artifact interaction.

5. The artifact itself also reacts to the participants' attempts to script it, leading to further adjustments, re-inscriptions, and refinements.

This model also highlights (a) the iterative refining process that defines and sharpens the boundaries of the artifact in relation to users, and (b) the active role of the artifact itself in shaping its own design.