From Boxes and Arrows
Semiotics: A Primer for Designers by Challis Hodge
Once you acknowledge that meaning arises, as Saussure frames it, not from some inherent meaning in objects, but out of differences among signs in complex symbol systems. That's not to say (as some postmodernists do) that contingency equals complete breakdown. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall says, just because objects don't automatically correspond to words doesn't mean that objects never correspond to words. The correspondances exist because we, as cultures, perpetuate them--we teach them to each other in everyday practice, in schools and homes and workplaces.
A "computer" used to be, in the nineteenth century, someone who performed calculations. There was no necessary connection between that word and a job occupation. But the connection was upheld in some communities by active use, by defining "computer" as something different than "boss" or "slave" or "clock".
But the contingency of that connection provides a deconstructive hinge for changing--slipping in the system of signification. So after several decades of active development and education, a "computer" referred to an extremely large piece of technology, run by highly trained specialists for very specific, often esoteric purposes. Developments in computing during the last quarter of the twentieth century, "computer" became an increasingly general purpose, small, common object. Things change.
Why is this important to designers? Because we have to acknowledge that the meaning of our communications--web pages, novels, interactive videos, or even consumer technologies like mice--is contingent, created in the interaction between specific users and specific communications with specific contexts. It's literally out of our control.
But, avoiding the yawning maw of postmodernism, we avoid this falling completely into chaos because we involve ourselves in the communities that we develop for--through usabilty testing, participatory design, contextual inquiry, and a myriad of other methods--for understanding tendencies in meaning. This concern for the user is what sets good design apart from bad design in many cases.
In addition, we need to be careful when we make proclamations about users--there's no such thing as a universal user. There are tendencies, there are trends and rules of thumb. But these are only ever guesses, no matter how accurate they seem in practice. We have to always keep ourselves open to the ideas that
Although I've just shown why there's no such things as the One True Meaning, theoretical deconstruction (as opposed to simply taking something apart) is about finding the contingency with an object or term and teasing it open, showing how that term actual contains within itself its own negation. The concept of "usability" for example, necessarily contains within it some form of difficulty, because without at least some fleck of resistance or tension, usability would disappear into non-action. In other words, usability has as its goal its own disappearance.
This might seem to be merely so much wordplay, but it also suggests (as I have in several other places) that usability theory frequently places so much emphasis on the user as an idiot that it forgets sometimes users have to think. Learning isn't passive, it's active. And it requires work. Without that work, there's nothing to learn.
Posted by johndan at August 12, 2003 08:20 PM | TrackBack