User Centered Design in Practice - Problems and Possibilities

User-Centered Design as Negotiated
Relationships
Ellen Balka
Associate Professor and Director, Assessment of Technology in Context Design Lab
School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C. V5K 1K1
ebalka@sfu.ca
Biography:
In 1987 I began working with national, provincial and local women’s organizations in
Canada that were interested in developing or adapting computer networking systems for
organizational communication. My work was influenced heavily by both feminist
critiques of scientific expertise (e.g., Benston, 1986), and the emerging participatory
design literature. Through this work I began to develop a critique of participatory design
that reflected my attempts to utilize a participatory approach with voluntary and non-profit
women’s organizations (see Balka, 1995; 1997a and 1997b). In 1995 I began a project
(now nearing its completion) that has included interviews with practitioners of
participatory design and participatory ergonomics projects that have focused on designing
technology for women users. i I established the Assessment of Technology in Context
Design Lab (ATIC-DL) at Simon Fraser University, which serves as a focal point for
researchers and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and work contexts to engage in
user-centered design projects that include observation of emergent technologies in their
use context. The project described here, although not specifically about women users,
raises questions about power relations in UCD projects that are important to consider in
relation to UCD projects with women end users.
Introduction
User-centered and participatory literature has addressed numerous issues to date.
Participatory design boasts many approaches to working with users, as well as
methodologies that are well suited to participatory design. While obstacles to user
involvement have been identified (e.g., Grudin, 1991), limitations in terms of what user
participation can and cannot deliver have been addressed (Hales, 1993) and it has been
argued that the “relationship between user participation and conflict is more complex than
previously considered” (Barki and Hartwick, 1994, p. 422), the phenomenon of power
(between users and designers, between different user groups, between men (often
designers) and women (often concentrated in specific user groups), and between
i A rationale for my continued focus on women users of technology can be found in the project proposal
for my research that is nearing completion. The proposal text is available at
http://www.sfu.ca/~ebalka/sshrc.htm.
28 (85) CID-40 • User Centered Design in Practice