Narratives and design A way of seeing and evaluating the result of a design.

Narratives and design

Narratives and design

A way of seeing and evaluating the result of a design

A way of seeing and evaluating the result of a design

QuickTime™ and aMPEG-4 Video decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Some background

Some background



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Why narratives and design?

✦ For a very long time researchers and developers have missed the importance of the meaning of information in an information system.

✦ The meaning is interpreted by the users in a work context.

✦ Research and development deals to a great extend with the structure and retrieval of information.

✦ Use aspects are concentrated to the interface design and explanation of the consequences of the implementation.



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The user gapSystems design

and engeneering

User interface

Work praxis

Understanding

Prerequisites

Logic, Power MeaningKnowledge, Interpretation

DesignersUsers



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Why narratives and design?

✦ We need to know how the explanation of the consequences are transferred to design prerequisites.

✦ Misunderstandings between designers and users are often seen as one of the biggest problems.

✦ I think understanding of the meaning is the key success factor.

✦ The understanding is best mediated by storytelling.✦ Hence design and storytelling seems

to be a fruitful combination. ✦ Seems....



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The role of the story

✦ One might believe that the story creates a base for a common understanding, but that is probably not the case.

✦ The story becomes a mean, a tool and an actor in the continuos power game between different stake-holders.

✦ Hence Actor Network Theory (ANT) seems to be a fruitful complementary perspective.

✦ ANT and storytelling in form of narratives point to Barbara Czarniawska...



Other background

Other background



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From a system perspective

✦ Information systems contain human persons.✦ Hence they are social systems. ✦ And they are genuinely unpredictable!✦ Information systems contains also computers.✦ The computerised part is genuinely predictable!✦ In the work praxis they melt together and form

the information systems that are to support the work.

✦ One attempt to understand and explain that process is Actor Network Theory (ANT).



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Unpredictable systems✦ The computerised part of the information system

(CBIS) is constructed according to software engineering methods based upon a requirements specification.

✦ The process of formulating the requirements specification is today recognised as a design process.

✦ The CBIS has no material as Stolterman and Löwgren argue.

✦ But what about the unpredictability based upon humans being involved in its use and construction?



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Unpredictable use✦ Every systems developer knows that the users can

do a lot of unintended things with the product.✦ The systems are used for other purposes than

intended. ✦ Often the constructor do not recognise that

(Winograd & Flores)✦ When a new system is taken into use, the users

always complains a lot and it is shown that the system is hard to use and does not fit into the work.

✦ After some years (2-7), however, they have learned how to use it (Keen, Gäre) and it fits into the work.



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Unpredictable development

✦ The specifications are tricky; very often they are misunderstood or things are taken for granted without being it.

✦ Sometimes the developers realise the system will not work, but they are not paid for saying that....

✦ Often the developers are unfamiliar with the Weltanschauung of the users.

✦ This is especially true when it comes to off-the-shelf software.

✦ Thus the software becomes the norm!



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Manifestations

✦ Unpredictability is manifested as:✦ Power-games between stake-holders✦ Different interpretations of the meaning of

the content in the CBIS leading to quarrel between involved parts

✦ No economical follow-up leading to persons being accused for waste of money

✦ A central issue in all this is power✦ That’s also the case for ANT



Macro actors and ANT

Macro actors and ANT



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Saving clause (Brasklapp)

✦ I’m no expert in ANT, I have read very little about it

✦ But I am extremely fascinated!✦ My opinion is here mediated by Czarniawska

and can be changed without further notice!



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Historical roots✦ Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) thought that humans

basically are egoistic; she strives to achieve as much advantages and power as possible.

✦ On the other hand: It’s due to our society we succeed!

✦ Society was shaped by people agreeing upon co-operation and let one of them speak for the rest.

✦ A super-actor, a Leviathan, thus emerges being only an association but speaking and deciding with a very big mouth!

✦ This super-actor is “The system” in our story.



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An “example”

✦ I guess many of you have been in situations where you want to change something, but it tuns out to be impossible.

✦ It is not due to rules or people not seeing the reasonable it is just impossible and nobody can give any reason and are not interested in it either.

✦ This is one example where “the system” takes over, and becomes an actor in its own right.



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Algirdas Greimas

✦ A French semiologist, of Lithuanian origin, which formulated a special version of structuralism.

✦ Narrative program: A change of state produced by any (grammatical) subject affecting any other similar subject.

✦ The subject was named actant and the narrative programs becomes changed to each other in a narrative trajectory.

✦ An actant is not necessary a human being!!



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From actants to actors

✦ Bruno Latour describes in “Technology is society made durable” how Kodak become a world leader in camera and camera equipment.

✦ He describes Kodak as actants following a narrative trajectory; a line connecting programs to further programs.

✦ There were no overall plan at all, but Kodak managed to recruit many other actants for its cause: It became an actor.

✦ But this happens only at the end of the story.



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The procedure

✦ Identify actants✦ Follow them through narrative trajectories.✦ The actants that succeeds in combating anti-

programs or vice versa shows ability to form stable networks of actants, which then can be called actor-networks or simpler: An actor.

✦ An actor is in this meaning a network or a system and needs a spokesperson.



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Fights

✦ Fights, which are common in modern organisations, creates instability and insecurity.

✦ Actor networks introduce a stabilising force, where rituals, roles, behaviour etc. of the actants and actors are stabilised and aligned to each other – at least for some time.

✦ As an example it can be mentioned that new technologies today plays a key organising role.

✦ ANT provides a vocabulary for describing and discussing this.



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Two concepts

✦ Translation✦ Problematisation✦ Intressement✦ Enrollment✦ Mobilisation

✦ Inscription QuickTime™ and aMPEG-4 Video decompressor


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Problematisation

✦ Building a network where actors position themselves as indispensable resources in solving the problems they have defined.

✦ Initiators also establish roles and identities for other actors in the network.

✦ They also establish themselves, due to their problem identification, as an obligatory passage point for problem solution.



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Intressement

✦ The process where the initiators tries to enroll other entities

✦ Locking the allies into position and attempt to corner the other so they have to enroll.

✦ Successful intressement confirms the validity of the problem formulation and the alliances it implies.



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Enrollment

✦ A set of activities to convince other actors to join them in a multilateral political process.

✦ Talking other actors into joining you and form the alliance; the success of interessment.

✦ There is also a significant amount of ideological control of the actors and changing their apprehension of reality in the “right” direction.



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Mobilisation

✦ A set of methods that initiators use to ensure the spokespersons of their allies represent them in the intended way.

✦ In this way the network stabilise and this implies that its contents is institutionalised and no longer controversial (blackboxed).



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Inscription✦ The process where technical objects are transformed

to programs of action which coordinate social roles.✦ In other words: Technical artefacts controls human

behaviour.✦ An obvious example is a legacy system where the

users are supposed to enter the information in a specific way and in a specific order.

✦ But also a bike has inscriptions about oldfashioned, wealthy, lifestyle etc.

✦ Social meanings thus can be inscribed in any artefact!



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IS inscriptions

✦ The inscriptions in an Armani-suit is very public, but the inscriptions in an information system are not.

✦ Therefore the system creates “frozen orgaisational discourses” which resist change and is irreversable!

✦ Users of the IS are aware of this and thus they tries to resist.

✦ This could explain a lot of the phenomenon we observe when implementing information systems.



The QuestThe Quest



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Bringing ANT to design

✦ ANT gives us a vocabulary for understanding and explaining a lot of the phenomenon that occurs in the IS World.

✦ They are oriented towards the artefact and thus...

✦ ... it ought to be possible to provide some hints, guidelines, ideas or even models for the transformation of the understanding to design!

✦ Or maybe make us understand why this is not possible!

✦ So this is your quest in this part of the course!



Good Luck!Good Luck!



Narratives and design A way of seeing and evaluating the result of a design.

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