The result has been an explosion in
theories and methods in areas such
as HCI and systems development:
ethnomethodology, ethnography,
contextual inquiry, feminist
interviews, design fictions, and
somaesthetics.
The introduction of these methods
has often taken place so swiftly that
careful, systematic reflection on
how they might relate to each other
falls to the wayside. Their differing
epistemologies, underlying values, and
concrete applications bring a richness,
but overlaps, gaps, and discrepancies
are as yet not well understood. To be
clear: This is not a problem that needs
solving. It is not our position that HCI
should stop, work it all out, and only
then get back to business. Rather,
this opens up research opportunities
to explore and clarify synergies and
productive tensions.
There is, for example, an exciting
strand of interaction design research
in which design methods are used as
research methods. That is, instead
of using design methods to create
a functional, commercial product,
researchers instead use design
methods for other purposes, such
as to develop responses to research
hypotheses and questions, to explore
alternatives, and to reconfigure
assemblies. What is the nature of
virtual possessions? How might
we envision the concept of slow
computing? How can interaction
designers create products intended
to be redesigned through use? How
might interaction design contribute
to new relations between ourselves
and our bodies? The practice
has many variations: research
through design, constructive design,
speculative design.
Yet we note that many of the
published papers that use such
methods are designer-driven, feature
minimal meaningful participation, and
in many cases deemphasize political
conflict (though there are exceptions).
Again, we do not suggest that this is a
problem crying out for a solution. But
we do see opportunities for researchers
and designers to ask difficult questions
and attempt to work out what the
answers might be. Is it possible, for
example, to integrate critical design
with participatory design, when the
former seems elitist and targeted at
high-brow design aficionados, while
the latter is more democratic in both its
design processes and sense-making?
At a more granular level, we have
seen an extension of the toolset
available to designers, in terms of the
methods used to stimulate various
aspects of the design process and
enhance design practices: Design card
decks, toolkits, probes, role-playing
exercises, games, mood boards, and
other inventive methods have all
been extended and explored in novel
terrains. Their potential applications
in participatory processes are
straightfor ward: Most can be easily
deployed in participatory design
workshops, for example. But these
methods should also be changed by
their use in PD: Design researchers can
work out, for example, what it might
mean to democratize mood boards
or to meaningfully represent social
conflicts in probes.
Another opportunity is for
PD to engage the more overtly
political approaches to design that
have emerged in HCI in recent
years: Feminist HCI, postcolonial
computing, and participatory action
research all come to mind. Each of
these foregrounds social conflict as
a condition of computing, and each
features sophisticated theories
of power, participation, and
intervention. Yet none of them have
as yet been developed specifically as
design methodologies.
In the special issue, Shaowen
Bardzell [ 9] proposes that political
approaches to HCI and PD can
support each other: Political theory
can strengthen PD’s commitments
to engaging social conflict, while
PD offers mature design methods,
often lacking in feminist and
postcolonial theory. In this way,
political approaches to systems
development would gain tactics of
intervention that are both accepted
in industry and also well suited to
sociotechnical infrastructures and
processes of development, while
PD would be enriched by new
developments in critical and
political theory, helping it adapt to
new situations.
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