Arrested Pulse

In Western culture there persists a prejudice against the mundane--the ordinary, the everyday--which is reflected in epistemology and hence academic institutions. Theory is valued over know-how. What experts say is heard while what nonexperts say is lost in silence. Technological history celebrates inventors and designers; users of that technology--and they are legion--are rendered invisible. Rhetoric, however, can resurrect this "lost form of knowledge." In User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts, Robert R. Johnson, currently a professor of technical communication at Michigan Technological University, argues that regaining this lost knowledge and making it central to innovation has far-reading implications:


Western culture has a system-centered view of technology which regards the system as primary and the inventor/designer as expert. This system is fundamentally teleological, "progressing" toward an end that is thought to be "good." Johnson refigures this view to center on users--one that sees them as active participants in the design, development, and maintenance of technology. Power and knowledge is dispersed across the technological realm, not just concentrated in the province of designers. Technology can be like rhetoric: users of language are capable of making the language accomplish things for them--why can't the same be done with technology?

Unfortunately, users have adopted ideological constructions of themselves (helped by popular "how-to" publications) as "dummies" and "idiots." In ancient Greek culture, however, practitioners of technological activities possessed a type of knowledge called techne--knowledge acquired through use of something. An even more refined know-how knowledge, which the Greeks called metis (cunning intelligence, or what we call a "knack" for doing something), was valued in that culture. The rise of Christianity, however, subjugated this knowledge while reifying "absolute" knowledge. Ideological residues of this stratification of knowledge between high and low--and hence between specialists and nonspecialists--continue to this day in technology studies.

The Role of Human Factors Research

Human Factors as an academic discipline has contributed much in the way of qualitative research about usability, participatory techniques, and egalitarian goals. User-friendly (not user-centered) design borrows from this discipline, but this borrowing is problematic because of the rationalist proclivities embedded in its research assumptions and methodologies. According to Johnson, the Human Factors spectrum of technology has, like politics, a "right" (in which technology drives the design for interaction between humans and computers) and a "left" (in which users drive the design for that interaction). The right holds sway because from the beginning Human Factors research was driven by a concern for economic development.

The study of users may be found most clearly in HCI, or Human Computer Interaction. HCI specialists are divided between "hard" advocates and "soft" advocates. The hard advocates are system-centered while the soft ones are user-centered. Thanks to the latter's emphasis on "usability" and "minimalism," short, more reader-friendly instruction manuals have become a common entity in technical communication.

The Formidable Force of Determinism

The sociology, history, and philosophy of technology have been dominated since ancient times by a sense of technology's determinism, its getting out of human control. From Plato's fear that writing will destroy memory to Shelley's Frankenstein monster, determinism has been a potent force in the Western mindset. Within academic disciplines, Johnson describes a spectrum between "hard" and "soft" view of determinism. The "hard" view is system-centered and the "soft" is more user-centered.

He gives two examples of how these views are expressed. He cites historian Lynne White Jr. claim that the chimney--not the builders or users of chimneys but the chimney itself--"is as important as any single factor in the shift from medieval to Occidental attitudes"(qtd 90). The chimney, abstract as it may sound, is responsible for determining this massive cultural shift--a "hard" deterministic view. As an example of a "soft" deterministic view, he cites Wiebe Bijken and Trevor Pinch's study of the bicycle--the basic design of which evolved over time according to its various riders' modes of dress and purposes. In this case, the users shaped the technology, not the other way around.

At a pedagogical level, students and teachers will need to confront deterministic thinking as technology emerges as a force in educational settings. Computer-enhanced classrooms offer new learning methods but pose questions such as: does learning and collaboration refigure technology or does technology refigure learning and collaboration?

The System-Centered Ideology of Technological Documentation

Johnson offers a sweeping study of the role instructional manuals play in our lives. He claims that they contribute to the top-down myth that experts invent and novices are idiots. These manuals simply disempower users while empowering developers and disseminators of technologies. Computer instruction manuals are but one part of technology documentation, which Johnson divides into two poles. "System-centered computer documentation" contains the design's image of the system (think old UNIX handbooks) and describes its features divorced from any context of use. "User-friendly computer documentation" stresses the readability and accessibility of the directions so that the information is "clear" and easily understood. Page design, visuals, "inviting" colors and tones may engage users, but still users are not part of the design process. "User-centered documentation," on the other hand, sees users as "involved in the initial design planning, iterative evaluation and testing of the documentation or software, and finally the decision-making concerning the implementation of the documentation in their respective contexts of use" (134-5). It's a collaborative, negotiated affair that builds the knowledge of users into products being developed.

The Ethics of a Technical Rhetoric

Johnson concludes his book with a call that the field of technical communication should strive to situate itself within the public sphere (earlier, he uses the Greek concept of "polis" to identify action-based public engagement) and work toward the public good. Doing so will allow technical communicators to ensure that their practice is ethically grounded. Educational institutions may contribute to that end. Johnson constructs a situated academic role for "technical rhetoricians," people who are "sensitive to user-centered concepts and how they shape the nature of public discourse" (161). Working within both the academy and in industry, they can advocate for a more open and participatory approach to the design and implementation of new technologies.