I recently had the chance to make my way through the book Information Ecologies: Using Technology With Heart written by Bonnie Nardi and Vicky O’Day, both of whom are researchers interested in technology and people. I had seen the book referenced before, but never had the chance to sift through it. Looking back, it would have been a good resource for my thesis paper. This post is mainly a summary of the text, and in the next I’ll post my thoughts on its significance.

Theme
Information Ecologies is about changing people’s perspectives on technology. In particular, the concern relates to how technology is used in a local setting and how it impacts the ways in which we live, die, work, and play. Their goal is to create a balanced discussion about technology that allows people to be informed and actively engaged in settings that include technology.

Problem
The authors’ reason for writing this book is that current discussions regarding technology lack a balanced perspective, resigning people to a mindset that all that happens is simply inevitable. The consequence of this can be seen in three ways: the rapid pace of technology leads to an inability for humans to keep up, increased automation leads to a loss of human skill and judgment in technology, and mechanical efficiency as benchmarks for performance end up ignoring the richness of a full human being. These are all symptoms of technologies being deployed that lack “human heart.”

The authors attribute this partly to public discourse about technology. They see the language and metaphors used as limited and unbalanced. With this in mind, they look at current metaphors used and their shortcomings:

Technology as a Tool

• Metaphor: Something that fits the human hand and mind of individuals.
• Thinking about technology as a tool is useful when designing for human capabilities and cognitive needs, but it doesn’t take into account the social, organizational, or political setting in which it is used.

Technology as a Text

• Metaphor: A form that holds meaning and communicates something depending on its situation.
• It is useful for discussion about meaning and the roles of designers, implementors, users, etc… But it doesn’t take into account judgment creativity and values when people choose to act.

Technology as a System

• Metaphor: Phenomena of immense scope.
• It is the broadest perspective, but it can be overwhelming and wash out distinctions and details.

Argument
The authors present a fourth metaphor, an ecology, as their core argument:

Technology as an ecology

• Metaphor: A living system that includes complex relationships, diversity, co-evolution, keystone species, and locality.
• Takes into account the broader context but also includes the detailed complexity.

They see the metaphor of a living system as being more useful in discussion people’s relationship to technology–and it makes sense since people themselves are living things. Part of their motivation in using this metaphor is the association with something that is long lasting, changing, and requires the engagement and participation of those affected by it. In essence it says: people and their complexities matter.

Definitions

• Information Ecologies: local habitations in which we can reflect on appropriate uses of technology in light of our local practices, goals, and values. It is a complex system of part and relationships. It exhibits diversity and experiences continual evolution. Different parts of an ecology coevolve, changing together according to the relationships in the system. Several keystone species necessary to the survival of the ecology are present. Information ecologies have a sense of locality.
• Local habitations: Settings in which we as individuals have an active role, a unique and valualbe local perspective, and a say in what happens. Ex. Workplaces, houses, libraries, hospitals, community centers, churches, clubs, and civic organizations.

Take-away
Sometimes it was difficult to figure out who this book would be useful for beyond researchers looking for alternative frameworks regarding technology, but they give three main pieces advice for those looking to “evolve information technology.”

• Work from core values: understand what people care about and the emotions of people using technology.
• Pay Attention: Stay curious, wonder about things, and engage people in discussion.
• Ask Strategic questions: ask a full-range of open-ended “why” questions that relate to the particularities of a local setting.

I’ll close with a quote from the book that I found particularly interesting regarding the value of real examples in anthropological research and discussion:

Real examples show diversity and interconnections that summaries often conceal. When people give general accounts of how things work to outsiders, they usually leave out what is locally unimportant or little valued. But sometimes these hidden details, seen from different perspectives, emerge as crucial to the workings of an ecology (85)

Being three weeks into school, things are a little hectic, but I ended up choosing the two classes I wanted to stick with for the semester:

Making Furniture Interactive
Although it wasn’t a class I even knew about until classes started, this class is essentially about physical computing and embedding electronics into physical objects. This is pretty closely related to things I’m interested in, with regards to the boundaries of physical and digital contexts. It’s nice to actually work on making something that has multiple facets of production (physical, electronic, and computational), but that also makes it difficult. Most of the time success means getting something simply to function rather than making something meaningful. We have been posting the work we do on this blog.

Graduate Typography
After getting a bunch of mixed reviews from people who took the class, I figured I should take it anyway since I want to have a good foundation for visually communication ideas. I’m surprised at how useful it has been so far. I’ve always thought of my problem with typography being a matter of choosing the right font, and the approach that Kristen Hughes takes already has helped me in understanding how to start using type. I’m slowly getting used to the subjective aspects and freedom that is created through constraints.

Thesis Project
I’m glad to say that I feel somewhat confident about what I’m doing with the project. I’ve started with a somewhat formed vision of what is important with my topic and why I want to do it. I’m working on Ad-Hoc assistance and how people can share resources between each other, possibly using mobile devices. I’m going to interview people who are involved in volunteer groups to get a sense of their attitudes and thoughts, and also approach the east end food co-op as a user group that collaborates through helping. I’m hoping the research will help in creating a system to make it easy for regular people to participate in everyday assistance. I think it’s great for me because it puts me outside of my comfort zone and is something I don’t know very much about. The only worry is time.

Thesis Paper
This one’s a little tough. Every week I feel like I’m formulating something worthwhile just to be thrown into doubt and anxiety following our thesis meetings. I feel lost a lot of the time and unsure if what I am writing about and why it’s worth my time and energy. Somewhat like our Seminar II papers last year. Right now I’m looking at how people assign meaning to space resulting in places. It all relates to pervasive technology and something about perception and flow. I’m hoping I can clarify this for myself as soon as possible.

If anything, I’m coming across tons of questions that be thesis topics in themselves. Here’s to hoping that things start coming together, and quickly.

With only a couple days left in the middle of this state, I’ve been narrowing some things down and making decisions which will effect me for at least the next year. After actually opening the books that I selected for my thesis paper (and seeing one of them for the first time today) I’m at the same time clearer about my topic and also more confused.

It’s clear to me that I have picked an area that I’m interested in for my paper, ubiquitous technology and how it relates to people somehow. What’s not as clear to me is how I’ll be able to talk about it in a way that makes sense and isn’t just rehashing what is already known. One of the most useful books I’ve looked at is The Craft of Research by Wayne Booth and others. I’ve only had time to skim through some of the sections, it is really well written and has comforting words of wisdom:

“Doing research is not like strolling along a well-marked path to a familiar destination; it’s more like struggling through overgrown woods, searching for something you won’t know until you find it. But no matter how indirect your path, you can feel confident that you are steadily getting closer to an answer if you manage each step of the way to anticipate predictable problems.”

Sometimes it’s nice to be reminded that you don’t always need to have everything figured out…