Björn Fischer (Author)
Britt Östlund (Author)
Peine, Alexander (Author)
In this study, we explore the constitution of user representations of robots in design practice. Using the results of ethnographic research in two robot laboratories, we show how user representations emerge in and are entangled with design activities. Our study speaks to the growing popularity of and investment in robotics, robots and other forms of artificial intelligence. Scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) have shown that it is often difficult for designers and engineers to develop accurate ideas about potential users of such technologies. However, the social context of robots and design settings themselves have received significantly less attention. Based on our laboratory ethnographies, we argue that the practices in which engineers are engaged are important as they can shape the kind of user images designers create. To capture these dynamics, we propose two new concepts: ‘image-evoking activities’ as well as ‘user image landscape’. Our findings provide pertinent input for researchers, designers and policy-makers, as they raise questions with regards to contemporary fears of robots replacing humans, for the effectiveness of user involvement and participatory design, and for user studies in STS. If design activities co-constitute the user images that engineers develop, a greater awareness is needed specifically of the locales in which the design of robots and other types of technologies takes place.
...More
Book
Vertesi, Janet Amelia;
(2015)
Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars
(/isis/citation/CBB001510006/)
Chapter
Lindsay, Cecile;
(1999)
From the basement to the kitchen: constructing the gendered personal computer user
(/isis/citation/CBB512625569/)
Article
Alexander Peine;
Vivette van Cooten;
Louis Neven;
(May 2017)
Rejuvenating Design: Bikes, Batteries, and Older Adopters in the Diffusion of E-bikes
(/isis/citation/CBB869099994/)
Article
Graham Spinardi;
S.J. Cooper-Knock;
David Rush;
(2020)
Proximal design in South African informal settlements: Users as designers and the construction of the built environment and its fire risks
(/isis/citation/CBB954481617/)
Article
Mandy de Wilde;
(November 2021)
“A Heat Pump Needs a Bit of Care”: On Maintainability and Repairing Gender–Technology Relations
(/isis/citation/CBB932272197/)
Article
Giada Danesi;
Mélody Pralong;
Francesco Panese;
Bernard Burnand;
Michèle Grossen;
(April 2020)
Techno-social reconfigurations in diabetes (self-) care
(/isis/citation/CBB978884192/)
Article
Carsten Ochs;
Barbara Büttner;
Jörn Lamla;
(May 2021)
Trading Social Visibility for Economic Amenability: Data-based Value Translation on a “Health and Fitness Platform”
(/isis/citation/CBB474517087/)
Article
Jérôme Denis;
David Pontille;
(May 2015)
Material Ordering and the Care of Things
(/isis/citation/CBB673109086/)
Article
Cornelius Schubert;
Andreas Kolb;
(May 2021)
Designing Technology, Developing Theory: Toward a Symmetrical Approach
(/isis/citation/CBB107590623/)
Article
Christine Perakslis;
(September 2018)
Translational Technologists and Collective Creativity
(/isis/citation/CBB009723798/)
Book
Janet Vertesi;
(2020)
Shaping Science: Organizations, Decisions, and Culture on NASA’s Teams
(/isis/citation/CBB479510656/)
Article
Sławomir Łotysz;
(2018)
Hot Commodity: Designing, Making and Selling Electric Irons in post-war Poland
(/isis/citation/CBB046055033/)
Article
Trust Saidi;
Christopher T. Mutswangwa;
Tania S. Douglas;
(2019)
Design Thinking as a Complement to Human Factors Engineering for Enhancing Medical Device Usability
(/isis/citation/CBB854252908/)
Article
Sverlana Usenyuk;
Sampsa Hyysalo;
Jack Whalen;
(October 2016)
Proximal Design: Users as Designers of Mobility in the Russian North
(/isis/citation/CBB588753486/)
Book
Matt Ratto;
Megan Boler;
(2014)
DIY Citizenship: Critical Making and Social Media
(/isis/citation/CBB984871595/)
Article
Marie Thébaud-Sorger;
(October 2020)
"Changing Scale to Master Nature: Promoting Small-scale Inventions in Eighteenth-century France and Britain". (Original title: "Producers and Consumers Negotiating Scale: Micro-Inventions in Eighteenth-century France and Britain." On-line title changed by author post production.)
(/isis/citation/CBB052963020/)
Book
Michael L. Black;
(2022)
Transparent Designs: Personal Computing and the Politics of User-Friendliness
(/isis/citation/CBB017297145/)
Article
Niels van Dijk;
(2023)
Constitutional Ecology of Practices: Bringing Law, Robots and Epigrams into Latourian Cosmopolitics
(/isis/citation/CBB261429724/)
Article
Blaszczyk;
(2018)
Visibly invisible: color in modern America
(/isis/citation/CBB044510854/)
Essay Review
Evan Barba;
(July 2015)
Review Essay: Three Reasons Why the Future Is in the Making
(/isis/citation/CBB400962991/)
Be the first to comment!