Design

Users

Johnson proposed three common concepts of users: users-as-practitioners, mere tool-users or so-called “idiots” (although with situational cunning, or metis); users-as-producers of knowledge derived from their experience; and users-as-citizens, “active, responsible members of the technological community” whom designers should ask to participate in technological design (p. 61). Johnson suggested that designers typically think of users primarily in the first role, as tool-users to whom technology must be explained. Instead, Johnson contended, designers should value users by placing them at the center of technological development, incorporating them as full participants in every aspect of the design process: “The rhetorical situation involving users, designers, and artifacts should interact in a negotiated manner so that technological development, dissemination, and use are accomplished through an egalitarian process that has its end in the user” (p. 85). This formulation of user-centered design positively focuses the design process on users, but it also retains a certain separation between users and designers. The designers Johnson (1998) described are typically different people than the users— for the most part the designers represent institutions (such as corporations and governments), and thus need to seek out user participation in design" (Kimball, 2006, p. 70).

Kimball, M. (2006). Cars, Culture, and Tactical Technical Communication. Technical Communication Quarterly, 15(1), 67-86.