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Material Agency In User-Centred Design Practices

High School Students Improvising (with) Smart Sensor Prototypes
  • Sabrina Sauer
Published/Copyright: October 1, 2015
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Digital Culture & Society
From the journal Digital Culture & Society Volume 1 Issue 1

Abstract

This paper investigates (digital) materiality through an analysis of the “sociomaterial configuration” (Orlikowski 2009) of the participatory design project SensorLab (2010). In SensorLab, users were enrolled as designers: a group of high school students developed and tested smart pollution-sensing prototypes in a public park in Amsterdam. Concepts from science and technology studies, specifically the notion of the “dance of agency” (Pickering 1995), are used to trace how ‘smartness’ materialises in the form of the SensorLab’s prototypes. The exploratory case study draws conclusions about (1) how materiality performs its agency and invites improvisations during prototype design and (2) how the student-designers use their tacit knowledge as situated expertise to improvise with construction materials and technology. The deconstruction of the assemblage of human/material agency suggests that while the student- designers are readily accommodated to develop prototypes, the material agency of the sensor technology resists improvisation as compared with the other available materials. The extent to which the black-boxed sensor technology allows the student-designers to become ‘smart’ is therefore debatable.

Published Online: 2015-10-1
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

© 2015 by transcript Verlag

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Introduction
  3. I. Software/Code Studies And Digital Material
  4. Unearthing Techno-Ecology
  5. Reciprocal Materiality And The Body Of Code
  6. II. The Material Of The Digital And Emerging Practices
  7. Swipe To Unlock
  8. Towards An Integrated Theory Of The Cyber-Urban
  9. III. Methodological And Conceptual Reflections
  10. Technological Materiality And Assumptions About ‘Active’ Human Agency
  11. Interpreting An Improper Materialism
  12. Towards A Relational Materialism
  13. IV. Entering The Field
  14. Signs O’ The Times
  15. From Her (2013) To Viv The Global Brain
  16. Material Agency In User-Centred Design Practices
  17. V. In Conversation With
  18. A Geology Of Media And A New Materialism
  19. Information Politics
  20. Biographical Notes
https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2015-0112

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Introduction
  3. I. Software/Code Studies And Digital Material
  4. Unearthing Techno-Ecology
  5. Reciprocal Materiality And The Body Of Code
  6. II. The Material Of The Digital And Emerging Practices
  7. Swipe To Unlock
  8. Towards An Integrated Theory Of The Cyber-Urban
  9. III. Methodological And Conceptual Reflections
  10. Technological Materiality And Assumptions About ‘Active’ Human Agency
  11. Interpreting An Improper Materialism
  12. Towards A Relational Materialism
  13. IV. Entering The Field
  14. Signs O’ The Times
  15. From Her (2013) To Viv The Global Brain
  16. Material Agency In User-Centred Design Practices
  17. V. In Conversation With
  18. A Geology Of Media And A New Materialism
  19. Information Politics
  20. Biographical Notes
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