Well there are many issues of understanding here. Fundamentally, I think we have real issues with the difference between the commercial constructions of subjectivity and the family and community, political constructions of subjectivity. Those constructions are what yield the tensions between the collectivity and individuality and are arguments usually constructed in terms of the relationship between the nature of humanity (homo ludens, homo economicus, homo politicus, etc. etc.) and the culture of humanity (homo ludens, homo economicus, homo politicus, etc. etc.) (heh). There is an ideology of computing and computer interfaces, but I think the conception of instrumentality, that of 'user' is also an issue. On May 7, 2007, at 8:32 AM, Radhika Gajjala wrote:
Perhaps instead of thinking of "user centred" and individual centric - we need to conceptualize a community and context based understanding of "userS"?
r On May 7, 2007, at 7:46 AM, Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:
A short report from usability news about a workshop at chi 2007. http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3882.asp
"A critical observation was that in these settings, the idea of a single user owning and interacting with a single device, around some individually oriented task, is often inappropriate. Instead, systems are more often shared and used by communities, and their objectives are also geared to development and growth of the community."
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Jeremy Hunsinger Information Ethics Fellow, Center for Information Policy Research, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (www.cipr.uwm.edu) Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. --Byron