Overview
The text analyzes how technical objects are designed with scripts or scenarios that anticipate users’ behaviors and embed certain assumptions, expectations, and social relations within technology.
Technical Objects and Scriptwriting
- Designers embed anticipated user actions, constraints, and relations into technical objects by scripting possible scenarios of use.
- These scripts influence how users interact with technology and how roles are distributed among humans and non-humans.
- The material form of a technical object constrains and enables certain patterns of behavior for users.
Users and Interpretation
- Users may interpret, modify, or resist these scripts, resulting in uses that designers did not foresee.
- The interaction between designer intentions and user actions creates a negotiation over the final meaning and use of a technical object.
Social Implications of Technology
- Technology inscribes social relations and assumptions that reflect the designers' cultural context.
- The process of design involves translating social elements into material artifacts that act back upon society.
Flexibility and Limits of Technical Scripts
- While scripts define preferred behaviors, they can be flexible and subject to reinterpretation or adjustment by users.
- Some scripts are more rigid due to physical or logical constraints built into the object.
Decisions
- Technical scripts are intentionally embedded: Recognized that embedding scenarios within objects is a deliberate part of the design process.
Action Items
- TBD – Readers/Researchers: Analyze a technical object for its scripted assumptions and user relations.