Background
• 3-year research project: Swarms in Urban Villages
• Study how new media can assist social interaction in urban areas
• Phase 1: Pilot study with 15 participants, 19-65, living in inner city
• Phase 2: Urban Personas & Sci Fi Scenarios
• Phase 3: Prototyping an urban screen
~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
“When I paid for this flat, I paid for a level of anonymity. I don’t want my face on a
picture board next to the lift – I’m like Jerry in that Seinfeld episode when he tries to
avoid other people in his building knowing who he is.”
Develop technologies that blend into or even
disappear into everyday surroundings
~ Leroy
“There are some people that want to be involved in things going on in the
community. Or at least want to know about it. I’m not that guy.”
~ Mikey
~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
“It’s bad enough that I have to live with people next to me, above and below me,
without having some sort of digital display in the lobby to remind me. I am repulsed
by that thought.”
Develop interfaces that provide information
in an ambient manner.
~ Leroy
~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
“If it can’t just shut down when I walk past, at least let it show mountains or
something that has nothing to do with the city.”
Develop subtle or escapist displays that
appeal to those who don’t want them and
doesn’t alienate those that do.
~ Leroy
~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
Use and Non-Use in Context
Users Non-Users
Localized, mashed up,
personalized content
Avoid digital reminders that
they’re surrounded by others
Streamlined, relevant to
day-to-day
Blend in and go unnoticed by
people & technology itself
Suburban nostalgia Urban nostalgia
~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
Background
• Company-wide mandate to use CRM
• 3 distributed sales teams
• 3-5 month study period
• Data gathering: observations, interviews, examination of artifacts
~ Cefkin, Thomas & Blomberg
Use and Non-Use in Context
Do-it-Alike (Users) Do-it-as-you-Like (Non-Users)
Information recorded directly into
CRM tool by each team member
Information tracked and recorded
using whatever tools work best
Everyone responsible for
interacting with & populating CRM
Team interact directly with CRM
tool when deemed valuable
Focus of weekly pipeline review:
CRM tool, its use, the information
it contains - emphasis on process
completion
Focus of weekly pipeline review:
current activities, state of active
opportunities, strategic initiatives
~ Cefkin, Thomas & Blomberg
It’s risky to evaluate technology with no solid
understanding of how it’ll be enacted in
practice.
“We found that allowing individual variability in how sales pipeline information was
maintained and reported facilitated information exchange and enhanced
meaningful interactions among team members.”
~ Cefkin, Thomas, Blomberg
Takeaway Ideas for Developing in Context
• Find creative approaches to “take seriously” those cases where
technology and practice aren’t coming together
• Realize non-use is often meaningful and nuanced
• Understand how excessive focus on tool use impacts work
• Develop tools that embrace flexible use and application
• Think of users as ACTIVE - creating the circumstances, contexts,
and consequences for your products.
~ Satchell & Dourish
~ Satchell & Dourish
~ Satchell & Dourish
~ Cefkin, Thomas, & Blomberg
~ Cefkin, Thomas, & Blomberg
Cited Papers
• Beyond the User: Use and Non-Use in HCI – Christine Satchell and Paul Dourish
• Suburban Nostalgia: The Community Building Potential of Urban Screens -
Christine Satchell, Greg Hearn, Marcus Foth, Ronald Schroeter
• The Implications of Enterprise-wide Pipeline Management Tools for
Organizational Relations and Exchanges – Melissa Cefkin, Jakita Thomas,
Jeanette Blomberg
• The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The Gap Between Social Requirements
and Technical Feasibility – Mark Ackerman
Editor's Notes
The sociotechnical gap is, essentially, between our technological “reach” in the design process and the realities of technologies-in-practice ~Satchell & DourishThe gap is where all the interesting stuff happens, a natural consequence of human experience.Human activity is highly nuanced and contextualized ~AckermanPerspectives on the gap:gap is result of ignorance or habit by software designers and researchersgap will be solved shortly by some new technology or software techniquegap is merely a historical circumstance … we will adapt to the gap in some form … our culture will adapt itself to the limitations of the technology, so the technical limitations are not important …if the resources are important enough, we may slowly change social practice to adapt
What other perspective can we take regarding the sociotechnical gap … in particular, when examining non-use?
Popular graph of the technology adoption curve – however, this singularview of non-use only refers to people who do not use technology yet… other forms of non-use are invisible in this view.Historically, HCI’s attention has been on navigating this curve, addressing the question of why a particular technology has not yet moved from the early adopter phaseto the early majority phase and turning non-users into users.~ Satchell & DourishBut lagging adoption is not the only form of non-use to focus on … what can be learned from other forms of non-use?
not simply a failure to adopt – i.e., an absence of action – the die-hards within the laggardsWhat we can learn: Early adopters and active resisters are both responding to and shaping cultural interpretations of technology, although in different ways. Their perspectives each play a role in how technology is proliferated in our culture.“Active resistance, then, is informative.”~ Satchell & Dourish
What we can learn: theanxieties that nostalgia expresses about the here and now are often more telling than any appeal to the historical; it’s been said that nostalgia is often an appeal to “the way we never were.”~ Satchell & Dourish
Physical and cognitive impairments are a big focus in HCI but others to consider are economic, social, infrastructural, geographicalWhat we can learn: Focusing too narrowly on use, particularly with high-end digital systems and services, automatically excludes some significant groups~ Satchell & Dourish
Example: when only one or a few people in a village own a telephone, then the relaying of telephone messages can become a service performed on behalf of othersIs someone not a “user” when they have all the capacities of a device available to them, albeit at second hand? The technology still impacts their lives and their imaginations of themselves and their world, even if they do not press the buttons.What we can learn: “If we are interested in the encounters between people and technology, might these cases of displaced use not also be important?”~ Satchell & Dourish
The major success of the iMac baffledthe tech industry … it signaled a significant shift in the user experience of computers.Interest in the iMaccentered around not how fast the processor was but rather “how closely the computer matched the curtains”.What we can learn: the issues that HCI/UX professionals focus on and find relevant are not necessarily the ones that the targeted audience feels connected to and what the target audience feels connected to may not be interesting to HCI/UX professionals.~ Satchell & Dourish
I chose this case study because the developersdecided to design an urban screenfor non-users.Project Goal: Advance knowledge of how residentsin urban environments can be assisted in their social communication and interaction through the use of new media that bridge the physical and digital city.Phase 1: Gain insights into nuances and complexities of needsPhase 2: Apply insights from study to developing personas that would then inform use casesPhase 3:Exploring the user needs of the participants in the study through the scenariosThey found the perspective of those opposedto urban screens compelling. Therefore, their prototype wasn’t aimed specifically at those willing to embrace the technology. Rather, it was aimed at potential non-users who wanted to avoid digital screens in the first place.~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
Quotes from opponents to project and the takeaway design implication
Quote from opponent to project and the takeaway design implication
Quote from opponent to project and the takeaway design implication
Resulting design: The design prototype features an urban screen that appears to have a primarily aesthetic presence; however, the display is embedded with rich data feedback that has meaning to those who wish to engage with it. The data takes the form of feedback loops that represent the changing state of the local environment. Those interested in the air quality look at the sky. Those interested in temperature look at the sun, those interested in UV levels look at the clouds. Bus times are represented by the bus which advances through the screen. Users can download data from the screen to their mobile phones via Bluetooth. A sense of "being there" in real time is evoked with the night time sky fading to black and lights appearing in the building.~ Satchell, Hearn, et al
I found this use/non-use study on CRMs interesting as I work with CRMs everyday as part of my work in Sales Operations.
In the case of the non-users, relevant information still made it into the CRM but was done by a select few people. What we can learn: Their were advantages and disadvantages to each approach but CRM tool use had interesting implications for information exchange and organizational relations within the teams.~ Cefkin, Thomas & Blomberg
Quote from researchers on the project and one of their takeaway conclusions
“It is practice that gives form and meaning to technology”“If HCI merely contributes “cool toys” to the world, it will have failed in its intellectual mission.”“Need a fundamental understanding of how people really work and live in groups, organizations, communities, and other forms of collective life. Otherwise, we will produce unusable systems, badly mechanizing and distorting collaboration and other social activity.”Take “people’s concerns as primary rather than always attempting to interpret them as providing support for one sort of potential product or another”~ Satchell & Dourish