Complexity-starved

I have criticised common conceptions and industry practices of ‘user-centered’ design on this blog in the past, for example here. However, having now worked alongside designers, project managers, business analysts and executives and having experienced the approaches and processes in the field of UX first hand, I have come to realise that there are things I'm particularly at odds with and I haven't yet been able to put my finger on them. As someone with a background in anthropology and trained in the practice of ethnographic research, I guess working in UX I have become painfully aware of some of the many pitfalls of an industry eager to illuminate and provide bright and clamant insights into the world of 'users'.

The enemy of such work, of course, are the many inconsistencies, contradictions and uncertainties that come with observing and talking to people. Let's take usability testing, for instance. Sitting in a lab next to the participant, the UX researcher is tasked with finding out just how good, or bad, a product performs against the needs and expectations of this user. The person sitting next to the researcher is of course not anyone, he or she has been identified as an ideal participant. Why? Because it's been decided that this person is likely to be using this product in a real life context, whether that is because they can afford it, because they are already users of similar products or simply because the product has been designed with their needs and expectations in mind. In that case, the testing session becomes about validating one's assumptions about who the user might be, to test one's image of the user against the 'real' user. I, for one, must admit that this circular logic has always escaped me. What's more, I've come to think of this practice as missing an incredible opportunity to make designs better.

Often what’s behind the narrow definition of who the participants should be is the urge to control who gets a say in testing. Even if it’s subconsciously, with our decisions on who we should hear and observe we are already limiting our possibilities to learn.

"The testing session becomes about validating one's assumptions about who the user might be, to test one's image of the user against the 'real' user. [...]  I've come to think of this practice as missing an incredible opportunity to make designs better."

I maintain that there's value in finding out just how "wrong" the "wrong" people use a piece of technology. Interacting with many different users in a range of contexts (doing online banking, shopping at a supermarket, buying insurance), I see how people do stuff their way all the time anyway. They hack the technologies they have at hand and in many, messy ways fight with, reject and (re)appropriate them. I have tried to highlight this before, and in a more recent blog post, two user researchers at Mozilla describe how they were tasked with research to improve and optimize users’ browser workflows but found that "participants’ workflows were not as straightforward, deterministic, and reducible as we anticipated", and thus hard to improve at all. Instead of using services that had been designed to help them save articles to read later, they observed that users were simply doing things like keeping tabs in their browsers open. At the end of their article, the two authors argue that their informants had found and designed their own solutions and thus already optimised the processes that the researches came in to improve. For users, they argue, it simply felt effective to use several browser tabs.

While this view mirrors many of my own observations and impressions from engaging with users, I would take a further step to argue that complex, multilayered and seemingly "ineffective" use of technology is not only unproblematic from a user perspective but the actual point. It is through this use that people can grasp, understand and make sense of things.

Dawn Nafus' ethnographic work on the Quantified Self movement (QS) provides an enlightening account of what it means to make sense of things through use. Her informants were using their phones, smartwatches and various other devices to self-track all aspects of their lives, such as the hours of sleep they got in a day. Importantly, for QSers this was not simply about looking at a bunch of abstract figures and assessing (or letting the technology assess) what they meant, nor were they ceding complete authority to the supposed objectivity of the data. Instead, they were using it as a technology of noticing and self-reflection. And in the quest for heightened self-awareness, seemingly effective use of technology, through shortcuts and automation, was not only undesired but often detrimental. As one informant explained: “This glucose monitor will automatically upload my glucose levels, but I had to go back to doing it manually. When it’s all automatic, you aren’t really aware of what it is saying.”

Here, entering the data manually, is an integral part of the process of understanding and making sense of the data. And this is not only the case for members of the Quantified Self movement. Often, people comparing and researching products online make decisions about what to buy by juggling different devices, opening various tabs and making lists on papers. When decision-making is contingent on looking in various places and engaging with many levels of details and devices, a machine spitting out an answer may not be helpful at all.

More than often, we fall back into a reflex of ordering, streamlining and making neat. In the end, what we design for might not align at all with the reality of use. Providing automation and offering shortcuts when it's the journey, not arriving at the destination that counts, is an awkwardly misplaced attempt at adding value. Reducing complexity sometimes means destroying the very value a technology provides.

"When decision-making is contingent on looking in various places and engaging with many levels of details and devices, a machine spitting out an answer may not be helpful at all."

I have always found that the conception of ethnography that most resonated with me is one that sees field sites not as “an object to be explained, but a contingent window into complexity” (Candea 2007). Focusing on moments of controversies, tensions, sticking with uncertainty for a while before trying to resolve and untangle it from the lived realities, makes us engage with and discover the core qualities that make people creative.

When we look behind the flaws of people’s inefficient use we can uncover what is really at stake for people when they engage in meticulous calculations, research and tracking processes. In seeing how people use devices and solutions differently than envisioned, prescribed and intended we can recognise the actual value that these technologies have for people, and design to enhance this value. When we allow for overflow, we admit surprising results to inspire us in creating better design.

Understanding the work of visual representations in circulating information and data: The example of Powerpoint

It is often said that we live in a ‘knowledge economy’ or ‘knowledge society’. While it is commonly understood that making sense and understanding vast quantities of data is essential to the work of such an economy, the role of representations and visualizations is often understated or ignored. The assumption here is, of course, that they simply communicate data in a more or less neutral way. In “Raw Data is an Oxymoron” (Gitelman 2013), an excellent collection of essays on the imaginaries of data as a ‘natural resource’, Gitelman reminds us that data is always ‘cooked’, that is, it is always in some way processed.
In this short exploration, I will argue that the attention to forms and aesthetics of digital representations can help us understand their mediating role and how they shape conceptions of knowledge. By looking at the example of Powerpoint, I want to draw out the formal and aesthetic properties that are specific to it, see what kind of work Powerpoint accomplishes and how it creates knowledge. We will see that Powerpoints are not mere visual aids to oral presentations but powerful artifacts in their own right.

The Powerpoint software, developed by Microsoft, is familiar to virtually anyone who interacts with personal computers on a regular basis or who is familiar with the modern workplace or educational system. Scholars that have studied the use of Powerpoint in scientific and commercial settings (such as advertising agencies, consulting firms and high-tech companies), have not only highlighted the pervasive use of Powerpoint but also observed that there is almost an inherent expectation to present findings or discussions visually through some “slide-based” digital software. PowerPoint, thus, „is a normative and normalising“ part of many corporate workplaces (Wakeford 2006). In most firms Powerpoint presentations are used more generally to enable both internal and external communication. Interestingly, most discussions of Powerpoint that I have looked at mention, at least at some point, a lot of people’s opposition towards the (mis)use of the Powerpoint software. Commenting on this opposition, media scholars Yates and Orlikowski observe in their visits to offices and workplaces that

"In spite of this opposition, however, project managers continued to use PowerPoint extensively. Because they wished to achieve a consistent look-and-feel to both internal and client presentations, they also insisted that everyone in the firm use PowerPoint and its built-in features."

One of the things this makes evident is that the Powerpoint software and the way it is enacted creates a very distinctive and often sought-for form of digital (re)presentation. But what is this form?

Composing a Powerpoint presentation

Powerpoint presentations typically consist of a sequence of ‘slides’. The slides’ design is typically predefined by one of the software’s or a firm’s standard templates. Yates and Orlikowski observe a series of what they call ‘form expectations’. While these expectations arise from previous norms, such as the preference for bullet points over complete sentences, that also exists without Powerpoint (for example in bureaucratic documents) and have existed before it (for example in presentations with transparencies), Powerpoint does reinforce these norms in that it institutionalizes them by making them simple to use and insert. Some recurrent features of Powerpoint presetations are graphs, tables, photographs and agenda and title slides that introduce the subsections of the presentation. An important part of working with Powerpoint, thus, is arranging and composing disparate media forms and data sets in a new medium in order to bind them into a single artifact.

             

The most distinctive part of a Powerpoint presentation is the bullet point. The property of bullet points might be best described by its lack of such. As anthropologist Strathern has pointed out in her analysis of formal documents, since bullet points are self-contained and each one stands for and by itself, a list of bullet points exhibits no internal relation between its discrete points, unlike a sentence or a text it has no “argumentative structure” and can be rearranged in any order. For Strathern it follows that one cannot critique them or in fact do any intellectual operation on them. They are, thus, mere “bits of information” that can be shuffled and compared.

Distributing a Powerpoint presentation

Importantly, in commercial settings the Powerpoint slides (called “decks”) are in itself often the only final output or “deliverable” that concludes a project, replacing what was once the written report. Thus, in certain contexts where this is the case, the central role of the Powerpoint presentations for the work done in these firms should not be underestimated. I have myself worked in consultancies where this is the case. The creation of a Powerpoint is often central to the work of these firms and involves many people simultaneously. This was in no way typical for older forms of presentations, such as the ones done with transparencies. A common practice in these collaborative works, is copying content from previous presentations and rearranging it for new ones. Whether or not one goes so far as to claim that the software “reinforces the interchangeability of content” (as Crang 2003 claims), it does seem that Powepoint allows for the fencing off, dividing up and easy reshuffling of data. With the Powerpoint presentation, knowledge is generated through the mixing of bits and pieces. The resulting Powerpoint file becomes a powerful artifact of knowledge.
At no point is this more evident than in the emailing, sharing and forwarding of Powerpoint files. Especially when the Powerpoint presentation is no longer primarily a visual aid for an actual presentation, but more an end report, the delivery and distribution of a Powerpoint becomes the concluding step of a project and the file the “real object of value”. As such, it can certainly take on a life of its own when it is no longer in the hands of its creators but sent to others who are not familiar with how the Powerpoint came to be. Here, it is also important to remember, that the elevation of the Powerpoint presentation from a visual aid to an “end report” occurs without many further formal or aesthetic changes and adjustments: it is still mostly a sequence of bullet points and data graphs. The formal qualities of a Powerpoint presentation do, then, also facilitate the disintegration and reassembling of its parts. The crucial point though, is that a Powerpoint is assumed to be transferable and, as Wakeford points out, it is “seen as an objects that can be transmitted without being attached to the context of their production“.

Indeed, if we follow the idea of a ‘knowledge society’ or ‘knowledge economy’ and all its implied assumptions, we start seeing that it is precisely this ease of transmission of data, information and knowledge, facilitated by representational tools such as Powerpoint, that is essential to the functioning of a ‘knowledge economy’. Social anthropologists James Leach, who has worked extensively in the field of digital technologies and knowledge production, has succinctly summarized this contemporary trend.

"[…] there is a commonly observable phenomenon across many contexts in which ‘knowledge’ is produced. It is a move that renders multiple values generated by complex social processes into simple and often commodifiable value located in objects, as if those objects retained their value shorn of the social relations in which they have effect. In other words, knowledge becomes a matter of economy."

What Powerpoint and many other visualization tools do, then, is help to advance the logic of a 'knowledge society' by turning data and information into objects that can be easily transferred and exchanged, much like commodities. And that is precisely why,  despite many people's opposition, the business world continues to make such heavy use and depend so fundamentally on it.

Moving Wardrobes Project: Ethnographic Vignette I

    

Gaining access to the field is generally not an easy task, but it seems much harder if one relies on contacting strangers through online discussion boards and when the proposed project implies not answering predefined questionnaires through online surveys but visiting participants in their own homes.
In this initial phase full of disappointing dead-end approaches, it feels nice to at least start somewhere and move in some direction. For this very reason I decided to visit two local flea markets during the weekend and talk to some of the people selling their clothes. Even tough I'm interested specifically in clothes sold online, I thought this would maybe give a good first impression for learning more generally about second-hand clothes. Little did I think about the fact that looking at flea markets and talking to people who did both (selling used clothing on flea markets and online) would point to the ways in which flea markets are radically different to online second-hand marketplaces. Another positive side effect of my trip to these markets is getting to know people and inviting them in person to participate. People seem way less reluctant and quickly find themselves showing and talking about individual items of clothes. I will definitely repeat these visits as they prove to be a good (material) experience and immersion into the world of second-hand clothes. For now, these are my impressions of my first two visits.

Strolling through the flea markets, I approached those stalls which sold predominantly clothes. I did not, however, talk to those who were professional sellers and had permanent stalls at the markets. Professional dealers were easily distinguishable from private sellers, in that their clothes were arranged in a more organized way, both in the way they were presented but also in that they seemed to follow a specific style (such as a 'vintage' style). Also, and this is probably the most important observation, the private sellers' clothes are practically the same sort of mass-produced, 'in-trend' garments that are being sold at high street shops. Consequently, and as emphasized by all the sellers I've talked to, people who were shopping at their stalls were essentially looking for a good bargain since they could not so much hope to find one of a kind or rare pieces.

As I had expected, the sellers were mostly women and stalls were shared with female friends or relatives (some had also brought their husbands or boyfriends and some of their stuff along). I could spot two types of age groups, one was in their 20s, and the other type of sellers were in their 50s or 60s. As the former group is more relevant to my specific interest, online marketplaces, I did mostly talk to them.

What do we really mean when we say 'user-centered' design?

While I was writing an essay on the question "How is the user as a person differently constituted within the fields of HCI and Anthropology" I realized that from an anthropological perspective the industry's view of 'user-centered' design is in many ways a pretty misleading idea. I stumbled upon a few interesting articles, some from STS scholars, but the most interesting ones by anthropologists working in the design industry analyzing their and their colleagues work with a sharp ethnographer's eye.

Typically, within a company setting the groups of actors involved in a design project are well defined and kept (mostly) separate. The work of developing, say, a technical product, then, always becomes one of mediating between technicians, designers, and possibly, ethnographers. In this mediation, the seemingly good- natured idea of ‘user-centered design’ works to conceal significant power relations between so-called ‘users’ and ‘producers’. In one HCI study I looked at, the designers used questionnaires as a way to explore what users wanted. But this alone did not seem to be enough to define system requirements, because later on, it was pedagogic experts who were consulted to speak on behalf of the ‘user’ and to further explore how future use could be envisioned and how the technology should look like. This is very similar to what STS scholars Grint and Woolgar describe in their ethnography of a company dedicated to the manufacturing of micro-computers for educational purposes. They observe ”an effective rationale for not placing too much emphasis on users’ views.”. And they note:

"According to this perspective, configuring the user involves the determination of likely future requirements and actions of users. Since the company tends to have better access to the future than users, it is the company’ s view which defines users’ future requirements." (Grint and Woolgar 1997:78).

The ‘user’ here is an outsider to the company that does not understand the technology. This position is reinforced in the stage of usability trials. Here, users are directly exposed to the project, but only when a prototype is ready for use. This is important to highlight, as usability trials confront the user with an already black-boxed technology, that he or she has to somehow try to relate to. In light of this, in this blog post Seavers goes even so far as to parallel the commercial idea of the ‘user’ to that of the ‘savage’, signaling that both terms designate “a class of people disempowered in relation to technology”. 

An anthropological understanding of the user, then, recognizes that a lot of technologies are “inflected by the sensibilities of technical elites” (Nafus 2014). It could be argued that designers, in their naivety of 'user-centeredness' are complicit in reproducing this power imbalance. As Nafus notes, users “who do not fit the mold must work even harder as they appropriate technologies for their own purposes”. The so-called ‘user-centred’ design process, then, produces ready-made products that set rules to the game and thus constrain users to play by their own rules. But this is no easy work, as users are not simply on the receiving end but actively interact with products and constantly negotiate and modify the rules that are inscribed in the technology and thus the developers’ idea about who they are and what they do. Anthropologically, the ‘user’, then, can be better grasped with the idea of a designer.

Nafus' article “Design for X: Prediction and the Embeddedness (or Not) of Research in Technology Production.” was published in: Subversion, Conversion, Development : Cross-Cultural Knowledge Exchange and the Politics of Design (2014), which I highly recommend.
And this is Grint and Woolgar's ethnography "The Machine at Work : Technology, Work, and Organization" from 1997.

Moving wardrobes – Introducing a new project

 

I'm currently looking for German users of the second-hand online marketplace Kleiderkreisel.de that are interested in participating in my fieldwork on the circulation of second-hand clothes and its implications for questions of sustainability. Here you can read a project description in German.