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 book first shows how resistance to and non-use of a technology can be a crucial factor in the eventual modification and improvement of that technology, then looks at advocacy groups and the many kinds of users they represent, particularly in the context of health care and clinical testing. Finally, it examines 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #501441 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
"This is an important book... I want my technology-centred colleagues to read it, because it has the power to change their thinking." - Ben Shneiderman, American Scientist"

About the Author
Nelly Oudshoorn is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Trevor Pinch is Professor of Science and Technology Studies and Professor of Sociology at Cornell University.

Customer Reviews

Current and Challenging
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.