How Users Matter

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.