CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Jenkins, L. R. (1999, May). Design as “designed” by users and designers: Sense-Making the design of information technology. Paper presented at a non-divisional workshop held at the meeting of the International Communication Association, San Francisco.
© Lillie R. Jenkins (1999).

ESSENCE OF PROJECT:
This project is part of a work in progress wherein I want to investigate communicative behaviors that occur between designer-users and user-designers as a consequence of and during the iterative design process. Research efforts focusing on the interactions between these two groups usually begin at the initial point of contact— where designers and users meet to discuss the process of designing an artifact or set of procedures. Findings document a gap between user-designer and designer-user perspectives on the characteristic purposes and uses of the design process as well as the artifacts that are the result of this process. The field of Library and Information Science has documented such design mis-matches. This “gap” or perspectival mis-match between users and designers of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has been put forth as one way to explain the under utilization and even abandonment of information systems (Borgman, 1997). Interest in the improvement of design processes and ICTs is high, given the speed with which this culture is moving further into the information age and computers and information technologies become more ubiquitous. Greater numbers of user-designers open up the potential for there to be a greater number who are dissatisfied with ICTs. By the same token, dissatisfied user-designers feed back into the iterative design cycle as designer-users attempt to re-specify user needs/uses/purposes and translate these into useful and usable products and procedures. Previous research efforts have yielded valuable information concerning the material processes and results of design. There is a step back into the purposes of the design process as interpreted by user and designer during non-design interactions— in real life contexts— that must be considered. Design is not accomplished in a vacuum, and the interpretations that each group brings to the design process regarding the purposes of design practices/processes/outcomes need to be documented as a way to make interactions during the formal design process more meaningful.

I am interested in exploring how Sense-Making theory and method will guide my research into the communication practices of user-designers and designer-users. For the purposes of this research, I begin by noting the following assumptions: 1) there is a gap between user and designer perspectives on the uses/needs/purposes of ICTs; 2) designers and users share, to a certain degree, dual and interchangeable roles during the design process; 3) time and context indicate which role and attendant behaviors have impact on the design process; 4) design features a pre-interaction context as well as an immediate, working context; 5) design processes are simultaneously symbolic and material and involve the negotiation of procedures for action and product ideas; 6) design may be constrained or enabled by organizational structure; 7) various approaches to the study of design provide useful insight into the process and into user- designer interaction. Sense-Making theory and Methodology that will allow me to gather the interpretations of designer-users and user-designers concerning situations in which they have assumed each of the different roles. The Sense-Making analytic permits examination of their reported movement through these times and spaces and their negotiation of purposes/needs/expectations. I will note each respondent’s notion of the characteristic features of the design process, the relationships between practitioners, and the patterns of interaction.

THE REASONS I TOOK THIS ROAD:
In a sense, I have been participant/observer in the world of design and have, myself, assumed both roles. As user-designer, I have successfully used ICTs and fashioned work-arounds when the system/product did not respond to my needs/purposes/expectations. On the other hand, my experience as a practitioner of the iterative design process enables me to have insight into the struggles and constraints inherent to that process, many of which have little to do with the process itself. Unfulfilled user needs, and failed systems do concern designers, as solutions currently under exploration attest (e.g. participatory design, human factors research, ethnographic methods, etc.). If both user-designers and designer-users conceive of and design ICTs for the same purposes and with the goal of successful “use” in mind, why is there evidence in the literature and anecdotally about unused/hidden functionality, user error, and user abandonment of systems? Current design processes have offered insight into many design problems. However, each falls short of allowing participants to “name the world for themselves.” The current project was initiated: 1) to study design as a communicative process— to allow opportunities for speaking about iterative design’s facilitation of conversation. 2) How it enables/constrains negotiation of spaces between and within designers and users. Additionally, this research will bring to bear on the subject of design the multiple perspectives of designers and users. In this scenario, designer-users are not solely responsible for creating/representing expertise.

THE BEST OF WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED:
Research results from the fields of Library and Information Science, Cognitive Engineering, and Communication guide this project in these initial stages. Such findings include the following: 1) User and designer perspectives on the design process differ, and have yielded a mismatch that researchers posit as one of the primary causes of user error, hidden/unused functionality, system misuse/abandonment, and constant re-working of design specifications. 2) Several design methods have arisen as possible remedies to counter or lessen the perspectival mismatch: human factors research, participatory/collaborative design, and ethnographic studies of user behavior are three well-known interventions. 3) Designers and users communicate within the framework of the designers’ world. 4) Sense-Making Methodology offers a compliment to current design methods in which participants focus not only on the design process, proper, but also facilitates an examination of convergence and divergence of participants’ perspectives concerning the design process. Sense-Making theory does this by allowing users and designers to speak about and hear how they think their perspectives are altered, satisfied, ignored, given proper place during the design process.

WHAT HAS BEEN HELPFUL:
Bourdieu’s theory of practice and Dervin’s ontological theory and methodology have informed my thinking to this point.

WHAT I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH:
1). The fact that I am a both user and designer, and the constraints/enablements the roles and the cultures that surround them foster about conceptualizations about each other; 2) Witnessing the organizational edifice in which design is practiced, and wondering how this edifice constrains/enables practical design efforts; 3) My desire to help formulate solutions, but being aware that initiatives of this nature are rarely well-received at the outset; 4) The notion that creating user-friendly technologies is a collaborative effort between designers and users and that organizational culture does not affect outcomes; 5) The reality of a broad literature base; 6) The fact that as researcher I do not have an objective stance in this instance, and that I must reflect on my reasons for approaching this topic.

WHAT WOULD HELP NOW:
1) Discussion regarding the conceptualization of this idea as an area of research; 2) Input/ideas concerning the development of an interview.

PROJECT ABSTRACT:
Users and designers of ICTs rarely speak the same language. The question remains of how these groups differ in their ways of thinking about design, and how these differences are constrained and enabled by organizational culture. Too often research examines the habits of one group without also seeking to understand the rationales of other groups with whom they interact. My contention is that the differences between the two groups’ perceptions can only be fully understood by analyzing both at the same time. When a user thinks about how a system should work, and the purposes for which it was designed, does he/she consider the designers’ intentions, motivations, and organizational milieu? By the same token, when designers construct path models for potential usability, does the life-world of the user (beyond that of someone engaging the product) with its own set of constraints and particulars ever enter into the mind of the designer? Does the user consider herself to be a designer, as well? Does the designer recognize that in certain instances she is also a user of someone’s design? In an attempt to bring to light the communication behaviors and sites within the design/use cycle, even where a designer or user is absent, this project will interview user-designers and designer-users to ascertain their constructions of their dual roles and to determine which has the ascendancy at crucial points along the development/iteration/use/re-design/work-around process. I hope to aid in the movement that current design research is making toward documenting the perspectives “gap” by helping to clarify the mis-match between the perspectives of user-designers and designer-users regarding the purposes/uses/outcomes of the design of ICTs. I propose the use of Sense-Making theory and Methodology as complementary to current methods because the overtly communicative nature of this methodology will provide design researchers with a way to reconcile gaps between current design methodologies. Researchers will thus have at their disposal an additional facet in the multi-faceted iterative design process.

REFERENCES:
(For references to works by Dervin and colleagues, see Dervin’s writings: Chronological listing.)

Agre, P. E. (1995). Conceptions of the user in computer systems design. In P.J. Thomas (Ed.), The social and interactional dimensions of human-computer interfaces (pp. 67-106). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cooper, G. & Bowers, J. (1995). Representing the user: Notes on the disciplinary rhetoric of human computer interaction. In P.J. Thomas (Ed.), The social and interactional dimensions of human-computer interfaces (pp. 50-66). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Norman, D. A. & Draper, S. W. (1986). User centered system design: New perspectives on human-computer interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Schuler, D. & Namioka, A. (1993). Participatory design: Principles and practices. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Silverstone, R. & Haddon, L. (1996). Design and the domestication of information and communication technologies: Technical change and everyday life. In R. Mansell & R. Silverstone (Eds.), Communication by design (pp. 44-74). New York: Oxford University Press.

OTHER MATERIALS BY THIS AUTHOR ON THIS WEB SITE:
See:  http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistjenkins.html