IP 1: User, Uses and Usability
The Concept of Usability
When reflecting on the concept of usability, as described by Issa and Isaiais (2015), I struggled to capture the complexity and connectivity of the key concepts in a short paragraph. Instead, I opted to demonstrate my understanding and vision using the image of an onion with multiple layers.
Alternatively, to Issa and Isaiais’ (2015) Venn diagram, I visualize the concept of usability with the user at the core. Each layer interacts with the layers beyond and beneath and impacts the overall outcome of the user’s experience. Additionally, the user’s experience is influenced by more than their personal attributes. They are impacted by what they are trying to accomplish, the system’s design, and perhaps most importantly, by the external factors that impact their lives.
Educational Perspective
Additional considerations must be addressed when looking at usability from an educational perspective. Bryson et al.’s (2015) description of “low floors,” “high ceilings,” and “wide walls” resonated with me and can be incorporated into the above diagram. In education, the center of the onion described above needs to have flexible and not rigid borders to ensure that all users can fit within it. The layers beyond the core impact each user differently, and the capacity of the user will vary because of that.
Configuring the User
In his 1990 paper, Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials, Woolgar discusses an 18-month ethnographic study he conducted at a successful, medium-sized company that manufactures microcomputers and other products for educational purposes. For this study, Woolgar joined their project management team to launch a new range of microcomputers and followed this project from inception to launch. Throughout this paper, he uses the metaphor of the “machine as text” to describe the configuration of the user and explores how “machines,” or computers, are constructed and used.
Woolgar (1990) describes how the user’s decisions and actions were impacted throughout the machine’s construction with the presence of “objective observers” who would intervene with the user when the subject was thought to be going off track. For example, when user Ruth attempted to connect the printer with an incorrect lead and was unable to do so, she questioned herself, and the observers intervened. It then becomes clear that there was a problem with the lead, shifting the blame from the user to the machine and highlighting the oscillation between these entities. “A whole series of contingencies arose which demanded their frequent intervention,” thus disturbing the user-machine relationship.
The observers also made several assumptions, further disrupting this relationship: “Let’s assume you succeeded there, which I think you did” (Woolgar, 1990, p. 85), “You’d know Windows was on there, yah, I think you would know, wouldn’t you?” (Woolgar, 1990, p.86). These assumptions impacted the user, their relationship with the machine and thus the trial’s outcome.
Compare and Contrast
“…the usability evaluation stage is an effective method by which a software development team can establish the positive and negative aspects of its prototype releases, and make the required changes before the system is delivered to the target users” (Issa & Isaias, 2015, p. 29). “
…the design and production of a new entity…amounts to a process of configuring its user, where ‘configuring’ includes defining the identity of putative users, and setting constraints upon their likely future actions” (Woolgar, 1990).
Woolgar (1990) explains the complexity of entities and the relationships between them. “The machine can only be understood in terms of its relationship with other entities of its phenomenal world” (p.67). When a new entity is introduced, it disrupts and potentially changes the moral order (Woolgar, 1990). He implies that introducing a new interface results in the user’s configuration and that there is a fluid relationship between the two, both influencing one another. Issa and Isaiais (2015) discuss the importance of the evaluation stage in ensuring optimal human-computer interaction. This involves a thoughtful process of design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as an awareness that organizational, social, and psychological factors will influence this.
Although I appreciate how Woolgar’s 1990 ethnographic study on configuring the user forced me to examine the relationship between the machine and the user, how the user was evaluated leaves me with some skepticism. The machine likely influenced the users in Woolgar’s study on some level; however, I suspect the flawed evaluative process and influential observers had a more significant influence. With a background in science and healthcare, I lean more towards Issa and Isaiais’ (2015) emphasis on the evaluative process and believe this can be objective and unbiased if thoughtfully and scientifically implemented. With that said, it is clear to me that the entity of the machine can significantly impact how we view ourselves and how we see and interact with the world around us; thus, it is impossible to deny that the machine and the user do not mutually shape each other on some level.
References
Bryson, M., Bereiter, C., Scardamalia, M., & Joram, E. (1991). Going beyond the problem as given: Problem-solving in expert and novice writers. In R. J. Sternberg & P. A. Frensch (Eds.), Complex problem solving: Principles and mechanisms (pp. 61–84). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2015). Usability and human-computer interaction (HCI). In Sustainable Design (pp. 19-35). Springer.
Woolgar, S. (1990). Configuring the user: The case of usability trials. The Sociological Review, 38(1, Suppl.), S58-S99.