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

Some background

cc Per Flensburg 3 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.

cc Per Flensburg 4 The user gap Systems design and engeneering User interface Work praxis Understanding Prerequisites Logic, Power Meaning Knowledge, Interpretation Designers Users

cc Per Flensburg 5 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....

cc Per Flensburg 6 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

cc Per Flensburg 9 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).

cc Per Flensburg 10 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?

cc Per Flensburg 11 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.

cc Per Flensburg 12 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!

cc Per Flensburg 13 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

cc Per Flensburg 15 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!

cc Per Flensburg 16 Historical roots ✦ Thomas Hobbes ( ) 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.

cc Per Flensburg 17 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.

cc Per Flensburg 18 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!!

cc Per Flensburg 19 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.

cc Per Flensburg 20 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.

cc Per Flensburg 21 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.

cc Per Flensburg 22 Two concepts ✦ Translation ✦ Problematisation ✦ Intressement ✦ Enrollment ✦ Mobilisation ✦ Inscription

cc Per Flensburg 23 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.

cc Per Flensburg 24 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.

cc Per Flensburg 25 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.

cc Per Flensburg 26 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).

cc Per Flensburg 27 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!

cc Per Flensburg 28 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 Quest

cc Per Flensburg 30 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!