- Hardcover: 360 pages
- Publisher: MIT Press (4 Nov 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0262151073
- ISBN-13: 978-0262151078
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,113,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"The relationships between technologies and their users are intimate and important. This fine collection of essays will engage readers in fields as diverse as sociology of technology, cultural history, and marketing." Donald MacKenzie, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh "...An important book that thoughtfully and rigorously draws attention to user-oriented studies of technology." Ben Schneiderman American Scientist
Product Description
Users have become an integral part of technology studies. The essays in this volume look at the creative capacity of users to shape technology in all phases, from design to implementation. Using a variety of theoretical approaches, including a feminist focus on users and use (in place of the traditional emphasis on men and machines), concepts from semiotics, and the cultural studies view of consumption as a cultural activity, these essays examine what users do with technology 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 are defined and transformed by technology.The essays in part I show that resistance to and non-use of a technology 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 influence of non-users of the Internet. The essays in part II look at advocacy groups and the many kinds of users they represent, particularly in the context of health care and clinical testing. The essays in part III examine the role of users in different phases of the design, testing, and selling of technology. Included here is an enlightening account of one company's design process for men's and women's shavers, which resulted in a "Ladyshave" for users assumed to be technophobes.Taken together, the essays in How Users Mattershow that any understanding of users must take into consideration the multiplicity of roles they play--and that the conventional distinction between users and producers is largely artificial.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
New uses are always being found for familiar technologies. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
New uses are always being found for familiar technologies. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Possibly the best choice for researchers, academics and any reader ingeneral interested in exploring the current debates about the imbricatednature of user and technologies in the XXI century. The book covers themost recent trends in the study of how users and technologies areco-constructed in creative ways placing into question and exploring issuesof technological determinism.
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