This research thesis attempts to define an existing subset of end users as makers.
These makers bridge the gaps between technological gadgets, creative appropriation, and identity through their bricolage of hacking, crafting, online tutorials, and the materials and knowledge ready at hand. Further, in studying makers this thesis refers to the exploding online and offline culture of Steampunk as a case study.
What can the field of Human-computer Interaction learn from the Steampunk makers? What will you, as an interaction designer, do to empower and facilitate such personally identifiable creative acts?
What will you do to make appropriation possible?
Making and Unmaking of Chandigarh - A City of Two Plans2-4-24.ppt
Conceptualizing the Maker - Presentation
1. Conceptualizing the Maker Empowering personal identity through creative appropriation Binaebi Akah Advised by ShaowenBardzell April 20, 2010 HCI/d, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University
2. 2 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
3. 3 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
4. 4 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
5. 5 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
6. 6 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
7. 7 “Products can be more than the sum of the functions they perform. Their real value can be in fulfilling people’s emotional needs, and one of the most important needs of all is to establish one’s self-image and one’s place in the world.” Norman, D. 2005. Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic Books, New York, NY.
11. 11 “Designers are seen as creative people, often indistinguishable from artists.” Gross, M. D. and Do, E. Y. 2007. Design, art, craft, science: making and creativity. SoD '07, vol. 364. ACM, New York, NY, 9-11.
30. IdentityThe unique set of experiences, characteristics, thoughts, behaviors, etc, recognizably defining an individual or community, and the relationships between them. Leary, M. 2004. Editorial: what is the self? A plea for clarity. In Self and Identity 3, 1-3. Markus, H., and Kitayama, S. 1991. Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. In Psychological Review 98 (2), 224-253. Oring, E. 1994. The arts, artifacts, and artifices of identity. In The Journal of American Folklore 107 (424), 211-233. 30
34. 34 Buechley, L., Rosner, D. K., Paulos, E., and Williams, A. 2009. DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY. Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2001. Identity, power and fragmentation in cyberspace: technology appropriation by young people. In ACIS 2001 Proceedings. Paper 6.
35. 35 Buechley, L., Rosner, D. K., Paulos, E., and Williams, A. 2009. DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY. Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2001. Identity, power and fragmentation in cyberspace: technology appropriation by young people. In ACIS 2001 Proceedings. Paper 6.
36. 36 Buechley, L., Rosner, D. K., Paulos, E., and Williams, A. 2009. DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY. Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2001. Identity, power and fragmentation in cyberspace: technology appropriation by young people. In ACIS 2001 Proceedings. Paper 6.
37. 37 Buechley, L., Rosner, D. K., Paulos, E., and Williams, A. 2009. DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY. Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2001. Identity, power and fragmentation in cyberspace: technology appropriation by young people. In ACIS 2001 Proceedings. Paper 6.
38. 38 Creative customization and/or appropriation makes an object a creation of one’s selfrather than the creation of some “other.” Odom, W. and Pierce, J. 2009. Improving with age: designing enduring interactive products. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY. Rosner, D. and Ryokai, K. 2008. Weaving memories into handcrafted artifacts with Spyn. CHI EA ‘08. ACM, New York, NY
39. 39 “People show social relationships as well as their own history with the objects they own.” Ahde, P. 2007. Appropriation by adornments: personalization makes the everyday life more pleasant. DPPI '07. ACM, New York, NY, 148-157.
40. 40 Appropriation The act of adapting an object to oneself in a way that not only redefines the object, but also relates the object to one’s sense of self. Ahde, P. 2007. Appropriation by adornments: personalization makes the everyday life more pleasant. DPPI ‘07. ACM, New York, NY, 148-157. Dix, A. 2007. Designing for appropriation. BCS-CHI ‘07. BCS, Swinton, UK, 27-30. March, W., Jacobs, M., and Salvador, T. 2005. Designing technology for community appropriation. CHI EA ‘05. ACM, New York, NY, 2126-2127. McCarthy, J. and Wright, P. 2004. Technology as experience. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Salovaara, A. 2009. Studying appropriation of everyday technologies: a cognitive approach. CHI EA ‘09. ACM, New York, NY, 3141-3144. Wakkary, R. and Maestri, L. 2007. The resourcefulness of everyday design. C&C ‘07. ACM, New York, NY, 163-172.
52. Interviews “Pull something out of the trash, experiment, rip out the parts until you know how to fix it.” Artifacts Etsy DeviantArt Blogs Flickr 52 Steampunk inventor/artist
55. Interviews “I can’t understand how a computer chip works. But I can conceptualize a watch, and it’s amazing.” Artifacts Etsy DeviantArt Blogs Flickr 55 Steampunk digital artist
61. Interviews “The computer is this sad lump of beige plastic and metal. It should look like its importance.” Artifacts Etsy DeviantArt Blogs Flickr 61 Steampunk inventor/artist
69. 69 Makers see technological artifacts as “creative resources.” Wakkary, R. and Maestri, L. 2007. The resourcefulness of everyday design. C&C '07. ACM, New York, NY, 163-172.
71. 71 “Knowledge of materials is fundamental to making.” Gross, M. D. and Do, E. Y. 2007. Design, art, craft, science: making and creativity. SoD '07, vol. 364. ACM, New York, NY, 9-11.
72. 72 “Manipulate the [artifact] to evoke emotions or induce beliefs.” Janlert, L. and Stolterman, E. 1997. The character of things. In Design Studies 18, (1997), 297-314).
73. 73 “Improve rather than deteriorate with age.” Buechley, L., Rosner, D. K., Paulos, E., and Williams, A. 2009. DIY for CHI: methods, communities, and values of reuse and customization. CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY, 4823-4826.
74. 74 “Create spaces for play.” Galloway, A., Brucker-Cohen, J., Gaye, L., Goodman, E., and Hill, D. 2004. Design for hackability. DIS '04. ACM, New York, NY, 363-366.
75. 75 “‘Unpack’ the parts or functions.” Carroll, J., Howard, S., Vetere, F., Peck, J., and Murphy, J. 2001. Identity, power and fragmentation in cyberspace: technology appropriation by young people. In ACIS 2001 Proceedings. Paper 6.
95. Existing Examples in the Wild Utilize Interpret Alter Adapt Explore Amazon.com Twitter Gmail, iGoogle Adobe toolbars Wikipedia
96. Limitation of the Study 9 interview subjects Approximately 15 artifact analyses
Notas do Editor
I’d like to open with a quote that helps frame the work this capstone highlights.
I like this quote because it highlights the relationship between products, emotional needs, and establishing one’s self-image.
Now I’m gonna do something crazy and take a cue from Gilbert Cockton: I’m going to start at the end and talk about the framework I’m proposing first. I’m hoping that by the end of this presentation, you will have some new ideas and concepts to think about as you continue your design work.
This is the framework in its entirety. Don’t be alarmed, I’m going to walk you through it step-by-step.
This is the design world as we know it, essentially, as shown in Stolterman’s design theory course.
In popular culture, designers are often seen as no different from artists. That we see ourselves as the creative genius, the keepers of design thinking.
But we know that’s not true, that designers are more often than not on teams.
We use the methods, tools, and philosophies available to us in order to navigate the design space.
In navigating the design space, we utilize the design process to…
Create an artifact.
We struggle, doing our best to design for clients and users who we may or may not meet.
Sometimes we have clients who know exactly what they want. And we still don’t get it right.
Sometimes we have users who have no idea what they want, and they expect us to figure it out.
To have perfect designs, we need perfect users. Because we will never have perfect users because there are no perfect people, we will never have perfect designs. And that’s a good thing.
So what do we do?
Well, we can recognize that there is a third category of persons to design for, makers.
I’d like to argue that we empower this group of makers to take ownership of our designs.
Makers, like designers, recognize that an as-is design is good enough for the masses, but not good enough for the individual.
So who is this maker, and what is the value in designing for them?
In order to conceptualize the maker, we need to define personal identity and appropriation. I’ve chosen Steampunk culture as a case study for the relationship between personal identity and appropriation. And in studying Steampunk, we’ll have a better idea of the Maker theory.
Identity is a hot topic in multiple disciplines, and I could get into it but that isn’t the focus of this study. The point is that there are many definitions of the self and identity…
But in this study, we are focusing on self as object. What do I mean by that?
Self as object is the collection of experiences, characteristics, etc, that we use to determine how we are different from others, when describing ourselves to others.
So now that we’ve talked about identity…
Let’s talk about the methods, tools, and philosophies that a maker usees.
As with anything, there are varying degrees of appropriation.
There is one end of the spectrum, that being buying an object and integrating it into your life.
And then the other end, that being creatively customizing it to suit your needs.
This study focuses on the creative customization end of the spectrum.
We chose creative customization because in act of customizing, the object becomes a creation of one’s self, and not some other. The other, in this scenario, is the designer.
It’s important to look at artifacts because people show their social relationships and personal histories through them. Artifacts are a part of personal identity.
So we’ve covered the idea of personal identity, and now appropriation.
Let’s now discuss a case study.
Because we’re looking at the overlap between appropriation and personal identity…
We need a case study which exemplifies the relationship.
We chose Steampunk.
We analyze a number of data sets, including artifacts, interviews, and a number of online communities to get a holistic understanding of the Steampunk culture.
When analyzing artifacts, which is what this presentation will be highlighting, we used the Fleming model.
The Fleming model works because it breaks down the analysis of artifacts in a way that analyses the culture as well.
So as an overview, Steampunk is a kind of Mad Max meets Jane Austen, or a futuristic interpretation of the past.
For this presentation I’m going to highlight keyboard appropriations, many of which are appropriations of the IBM Model M from the 1980s.
Can we design for affordability?
And you won’t be too upset if you destroy it while you experiment.
Sometimes we see appropriations of keyboards making them look glamorously Victorian, but here we see an experiment with a sort of “field style” keyboard, meant to be taken on adventures in the wild.
Can we design for experimentation?
There’s a level of interpretation and understanding that goes on during appropriation which is difficult to do with computer technology.
But with material objects, it’s more approachable to learn.
Can we design for learning?
Steampunks like the Victorians because everyday items were crafted and unique.
I love this example because the function keys have been modified as roman numerals.
Can we design for modification?
We look at Victorian objects and see the importance due to the crafting and detail.
This appropriation uses analogue gauges for the numLock et al lights on the keyboard, which I just love.
Can we design for suggestion?
There’s something to tangible appropriations that I think interaction design can learn from.
There’s a matter of being able to open and pull it apart without ruining the function that is important to realize.
Can we design for transparency?
As mentioned by one of my interviewees, the maker culture has been around before Steampunk, but Steampunk is an awesome case study.
So now that we’ve dipped into the case study, let’s try to conceptualize the maker.
As shown in the artifact study, makers see technological artifacts as creative resources.
By utilizing their existing knowledge to interpret, alter, adapt, and explore, makers are able to appropriate an artifact.
Makers need to know the materials used in the creation of the design if they’re to appropriate.
Makers need to feel as if they can interpret the artifact, emotionally or through beliefs.
Makers like to work with artifacts where the materials improve, rather than deteriorate, with age.
Let’s try to create spaces for play.
So makers can unpack the parts and/or functions.
So to summarize…
We talked about a framework that suggested the idea of the Maker.
When talking about the maker, we talked about personal identity, appropriation, and Steampunk.
With personal identity, we talked about how it recognizably defines who a person is.
Appropriation has the power to deconstruct, construct, shape, condition, insert another verb, one’s personal identity
Who we are determines what we appropriate.
The act of appropriation adds a new experience, and therefore affects our personal identity.
We talked about Steampunk as a case study of this hermaneutic circle.