My interest in analyzing the multimedia semiotics of websites and other
digital information media seems naturally to lead to studies of how people
actually do make sense of and with these sources. But, I think that most
such studies simply lead nowhere because they effectively divorce the
context of use from the context of design and production.
What we really need to know is where and how in the design process feedback
information from use in the last cycle would make a difference. We need to
know in what ways the design process is open to the results of 'usability
studies' -- or more generally patterns-of-use studies. My hunch is that the
design process is largely closed, that designers do not WANT the habits of
users to co-determine design, that they think they are under enough
constraints already and that what they really want is freedom (to play --
they are mostly guys aren't they?) and, less consciously, the power to
control both the product and, indirectly the user.
I am basing this on a case I know much better: the design of curricula, the
writing of textbooks, teaching methods, etc. There are tons of research on
the 'usability' of these things, meaning whether users 'learn' from them or
not; but very little until recently on patterns-of-use that consider what
students actually DO with these things (including subvert, appropriate,
resist, creatively re-use, etc.). And really nothing that links the two
together, no studies of the openness of the curriculum design process,
teacher education, textbook writing, etc. Because there isn't any such
openness; each of these activities is largely self-determining and seeks to
become closed and exclude potential inputs. Where there is a
pseudo-feedback it is tightly constrained: the designers also design the
exact form of the feedback information (e.g. the tests). They seek to
control what can be learned that they might have to pay attention to, and
to limit it in such a way that it cannot significantly force them to do
things really differently. Such systems (and not open systems generally) do
follow the Varela-style view of autopoiesis as autonomy from the
environment. These systems are pathological islands of closure in open
ecosocial networks.
Well, maybe that's putting it a bit too strongly. There is always a
tendency to closure and a balancing tendency to openness; closure favors
stability, openness ensures adaptability. But sometimes closure wins, or
comes too close to winning, and then the island becomes steadily less
relevant to the larger system, while it tries, if it can, to colonize some
of the environment and keep it from changing so as to make the island
practices irrelevant, keep the world from passing it by.
There are also interesting questions about design/use linkages that arise
from the different time and network-extension scales involved. But that's
another, difficult topic.
So here's my guess for Cynthia: usability studies will usually be
over-constrained, and people will fear studies that go beyond their
mandated parameters and look at how people really use things, what they
really want, etc. Design teams will be most open to input at very early
stages before there is an initial clearly conceived task or goal, at the
point when they are most at a loss about just what they want to do. Once
they have a definite desire, they will resist interference.
What is activity like when it does not yet have a goal? when it is still
seeking out some goal? -- a new meaning for "goal-seeking," perhaps. And an
interesting challenge for AT ... JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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