Technology as a Cultural Practice - UX Australia

Rachel Hinman Senior Research Scientist - Nokia Research Center Technology UX Australia 2011 as a Cultural Practice

Title 90 Mobiles in 90 Days

NPR slide

What are we doing wrong today, Don?

NPR slide UX as Problem Solving

Mobile

Rapid Evolution “ The rapid development of cell phones is killing early cell phones much faster than it's killing any of the early, older legacy technologies. I think that is a real principle... something you have to understand if you're going to be in this line of work. It's very romantic. It's very fast moving. You are building dead lumps of plastic. When people come out and they show you an iPhone, or an Android... they are showing you larval versions of something much more sophisticated. The world you are building right now is the ground floor for something much larger -- and the soil beneath that ground floor is violently unstable.” -- Mobile Monday Amsterdam – November 2008

Title 90 Mobiles in 90 Days

What are we missing?

We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. Marshall McLuhan

Hypothesis vs. Agenda NPR slide What are we missing?

What are we missing?

Central Idea: Technology is a cultural practice

Central Idea: The time has come to stop thinking of our work solely as “ problem-solving” and start thinking of it is as a form of cultural expression.

Cultural practice?

Everyday life rituals

Social practices

Medical treatment

Forms of artistic expression

Governance, leadership, and conflict resolution

Power Relationships

Cultural Institutions

Housing

Religion

Cultural Practices:
Everyday life practices
Social practices
Medical treatment practices
Forms of artistic expression
Religious and spiritual practices
Governance and leadership, conflict resolution
Cultural institutions
Power relationships
Housing and construction

What does technology and user experience have to do with cultural practices?

Hypothesis vs. Agenda

Edges worth tracking

Clifton Evans via Boxes & Arrows “In some ways, Interaction Design, the practice is a field that seems obsessed with process over product.”

Jack Shulze of BERG: Some people (they are wrong) say design is about solving problems. Obviously designers do solve problems, but then so do dentists. Design is about cultural invention. There are some people who want to reduce the domain of design to listable, knowable stuff, so it’s easy to talk about. Design is a glamorous, glittering world and this means they can engage without having to actually risk themselves on the outcome of their work. This is damaging. It turns design into something terrified of invention. Design is about risk. We all fear authentic public response to our work, but we have to be brave enough to overcome.

“ What I often see is that people are frightened by fashion, and that because it scares them or makes them feel insecure, they put it down… There is something about fashion that can make people very nervous .”

CHI 2010 - 2011 Themes:
Feminism in HCI
HCI and Politics
Inclusive Design
Design for Emerging Markets
Designing for Social Impact
HCI and the Environment

Signals

Uganda: Mobile Money

“ How does it work?”

1. Create an account with authorized dealer

1. Create an account with authorized dealer 2. Download Mobile Money application to mobile

1. Create an account with authorized dealer 2. Download Mobile Money application to mobile 3. Transfer funds – Passcode, recipient’s phone #

1. Create an account with authorized dealer 2. Download Mobile Money application to mobile 3. Transfer funds – Passcode, recipient’s phone # 4. Recipient retrieves funds from authorized dealer (if they have the cash)

Gestalt: Figure Ground

McLuhan believed that to fully grasp the effect of a new technology, one must examine figure (medium) and ground (context) together, since neither is completely intelligible without the other. McLuhan argued that we must study media in their historical context, particularly in relation to the technologies that preceded them.

India: Mobile Literacy

Hypothesis vs. Agenda 774 Million* *UNESCO Institute for Illiteracy http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?URL_ID=6401&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201

Hypothesis vs. Agenda Literacy

Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society.

Technology delivers media.

Technology delivers media.
Media shapes:
What can be said
How it can be said
Who can say it
Who can receive those messages

Literacy = Price of Entry

Empathy

Hypothesis vs. Agenda Mobile presents an opportunity to invent new ways for users to interact with information and each other. Opinion!

Opinion!

EMPATHY

✔ User Research

Empathy is Difficult

✔ User Research

How can I apply this idea to my daily work?

Hypothesis vs. Agenda Less of this, more of that

Hypothesis vs. Agenda Get out of the UX Echo Chamber

Cultural Relativism

Reaching out and touching and shaping the world… allowing the world to touch and reshape us. Reuben Margolin

Thanks!

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Technology as a Cultural Practice - UX Australia

by Rachel Hinman

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