Saturday, 9:15am, Grand Salon B
This paper considers the problematic relationship between new media designers and “users” in texts written about user-centered design. Historically, users have been viewed as potential error-makers whose unpredictable behaviors cause problems for systems engineers. However, user-centered design approaches found within the fields of interaction design and information architecture place the user at the center of the technological system. To better understand and solidify the importance of the user within the technological artifact, designers often create what are called “personas” - prototypical users with names, faces, interests, and preferences. Personas serve as boundary objects (Bowker & Star, 1999), used as conceptual stand-ins for users when making design decisions. Drawing on theoretical approaches from science and technology studies (STS) and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), I examined current texts written about user-centered design, information architecture, and interaction design to understand the ways in which users are discursively ”written into” the design process. My analysis suggests that personas serve as a kind of
simulacra (Baudrillard, 1995), and their use is as much motivated by political realities within new media organizations, as it is by the need to incorporate user needs within the design process. In addition, I argue that personas serve to reinscribe the conceptual separation between the user and designer despite technological developments (like Web 2.0) that blur this boundary.
INSTRUCTOR
Adrienne Massanari
Adrienne Massanari is currently an Instructor of New/Digital Media in the School of Communication at Loyola University - Chicago. Her dissertation focused on the discursive construction of the information architecture field, and she is the co-author of Critical Cyberculture Studies (NYU Press). She is also a practicing information architect and usability consultant.