Making the Technology

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Making the Technology at Home University of
Art and Design, Helsinki11th September 2006
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Harvey Sacks

• Heres an object introduced into a world ...
  Now what happens is, like any other natural
  object, a culture secretes itself onto it in its
  well-shaped ways ... ... ... This technical
  apparatus is, then, being made at home with the
  rest of our world. And thats a thing thats
  routinely being done, and its the source for the
  failures of technocratic dreams that if only we
  introduced some fantastic new communication
  machine the world will be transformed. Where what
  happens is that the object is made at home in the
  world that has whatever organization it already
  has. A single instance of a phone-call opening
  caller-called, etc., Lectures on Conversation
  (ed. Jefferson, G.), Lecture 3, Spring 1972, pp.
  542-553, Oxford, Blackwell, 1992.

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Basic Principles

• Culture turns technology into something that is
  at home in our everyday lives
• something that resonates with everyday life and
  is familiar, like the the fridge, the cooker, the
  washing machine and vacuum cleaner
• The secretion of culture consists of situating
  the technology in the organization or orderliness
  of everyday life
• such as in the storing, preparation and eating of
  food, or the maintenance of a hygienic
  environment.
• The situating of technology in the organization
  of everyday life is done through routines
• through going shopping, making breakfast, lunch
  or dinner, washing clothes, etc.
• But how do routines make the technology at home?

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Harvey Sacks

• Routines enable us to incorporate technology into
  our ordinary, everyday lives
• Its not that somebody is ordinary it takes
  work some kind of effort, training, etc.
  Among the ways you go about doing being an
  ordinary person is spending your time in usual
  ways so that all you have to do to be an
  ordinary person in the evening, is turn on the
  TV set. Its not that it happens that youre
  doing what lots of ordinary people are doing, but
  that you know that the way to do having a usual
  evening is to do that. Its not just that youre
  selecting, Gee Ill watch TV tonight, but
  youre making a job of, and finding an answer to,
  how to do being ordinary tonight. Doing
  being ordinary, Lectures in Conversation (ed.
  Jefferson, G.), Volume II, Part IV, Spring 1970,
  Lecture 1, pp.215-221, Oxford, Blackwell, 1992.

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Basic Principles

• Incorporating technology into our day-to-day
  routines takes work, effort, training, etc.
• This work is - for members - ordinary,
  unremarkable, taken for granted or (in ethno
  terms) right in front of their eyes, seen but
  unnoticed
• What does this ordinary work consist of then?

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Harold Garfinkel

• Harvey Sacks speaks of a curiosity in the work
  and history of the social sciences the missing
  interactional what in lay and professional
  studies of organization. Several observable
  phenomena make specific what he is talking about.
  1) Available for observation is the omnipresence
  of accountable organizations of commonplace
  activities like families, faculties,
  traffic 2) It is a matter for observation too
  that endlessly many inquiries accompany these
  accountable organizations as constituent features
  of them. It is to be observed in these
  accountable organizations and their inquiries
  that the occasioned, embodied, interactional
  just-so just-what of ordinary activities remains
  ignored, unknown, unsuspected, and unmissed as
  technical phenomena. 3) Finally, there is to be
  observed that 1) and 2) taken together compose a
  technical phenomenon that is discoverable, is
  consequential, and for the study of naturally
  organized activities is criterial. The phenomenon
  consists of the essential, used, and ignored
  relevance to ordinary activities, of the
  occasioned, embodied, interactional
  just-so-and-just-what of ordinary activities.
  About the Missed Orderliness of Ordinary
  Activities (unpublished manuscript), University
  of California Los Angeles Department of
  Sociology and Anthropology.

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Basic Principles

• Ordinary work consists of the interactions that
  make up our ordinary activities
• Through interaction with others and technology we
  assemble our ordinary activities, construct
  routines, organize everyday life, and thereby
  situate technological objects in the world
• What my colleagues and I want to do is tease out
  the ordinary interactional work that is at the
  root of the enterprise and from there unpack the
  routines and orderliness of everyday life to
• understand how technologies are made at home in
  the world and,
• to thereby develop technologies that resonate
  with the naturally organized character of
  everyday life

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Summary

• Technology is made at home in the world by
• A culture secreting itself onto it
• The secretion consists of people situating
  technology in the organization of everyday life
• The organization of everyday life is produced
  through routines
• Routines are constructed through ordinary work
• Ordinary work consists of the social and
  technological interactions that make up our
  ordinary activities
• The aim is to explicate ordinary interactional
  work and identify the routines and orderliness of
  everyday life that emerge from it to inform design

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A Practical Example

• The Domestic Environment - a machine for living
  in
• SITE - physical location of the home and
  construction requirements that shape the
  building
• STRUCTURE - foundations and load-bearing elements
• SKIN - exterior surfaces (stone, brick, wood,
  concrete, etc.)
• SERVICES - guts of the building (electricity,
  plumbing, gas, communications, etc.)
• SPACE-PLAN - interior layout (rooms, ceilings,
  doors, stairs, cupboards, etc.)
• STUFF - furniture (kitchen units, sofas,
  tables, chairs, showers, etc., etc., etc.)
• Stuart Brand (1994) How Buildings Learn, New
  York, Viking.

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Space-Plan and Stuff

• A dynamic relationship
• Elements of the home that are changed most often
• Partitioning walls removed or added
• Cupboards built and rebuilt
• Stairs altered or adapted
• Kitchen units and bathroom fittings replaced
• Communication and entertainment devices updated,
  etc.
• Understanding interplay between space-plan and
  stuff a prime are for IT development (elements of
  the home that we interact with most in our daily
  lives)
• The missing what of Brands study the
  interactional interplay between the space-plan
  and stuff of the home

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Unpacking the Relationship

• There is order at all points (Harvey Sacks)
• Which means you can start your studies anywhere,
  with anything
• We started with 6000 hours of video from a
  previous project
• We sampled the video, but fixed camera angles
  limited its value
• It did put us onto some orderly features of
  domestic life, however
• Which we investigated through a small number of
  ethnographic studies with family and friends (who
  are, after all, competent inhabitants of the home)

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Ethnographic Studies

• Looking at order from within
• Seeing the orderliness of everyday life from
  members point of view
• Through immersion in the setting of action
• Videoing what goes on in the home
• Talking through videoed events with household
  members
• Analysing video without use of theory to tease
  out the routine and orderly character of ordinary
  activities in the home

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Example of Order at All Points

• Handling the mail
• A known in common delivery / collection point
• Obviously contingent on particular home (detached
  house, terraced house, flat, etc.)
• Access to mail is far less contingent just
  about any household member may collect mail, but
  not any may open it

The Porch
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Who Can Open Mail?

• Working out entitlements
• Opening mail is not governed by names but by
  entitlements to open mail (e.g., parent/child)
• The visibility of the practical character of mail
  (conveyed by logos, organizational stamps,
  postmarks, and handwriting, etc.), articulates
  entitlement rights

The Phone Bill
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Who Is The Mail For?

• Sorting mail
• The person who opens and / or sorts the mail is
  not necessarily the recipient of the mail
• Mail is subsequently placed at known in common
  sites to 1) announce that new mail has arrived

Mail for Others in General
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Should I Look At This?

• 2) Display the relevance of mail to others
• The placement of mail is done in fine-grained
  ways to display its the relevance to particular
  people in the home
• For example, a card from a family friend may be
  placed by one partner at the others seat at the
  table to draw attention to its relevance

Mail for a Particular Person to Read
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Do I Need To Do Anything?

• 3) Respond to mail
• Mail often requires a response of some kind
• Opened mail is placed to articulate at-a-glance
  the kind of action that needs to be taken in
  response
• For example, a bill may be placed at the front of
  the table to show that it needs to be taken out
  of the home and paid

Placing Mail for External Use
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Will It Wait?

• 4) Delay response
• Mail that requires no immediate action is placed
  on a pending pile, which displays outstanding
  tasks
• For example, bank statements, subscriptions,
  notifications of future events, etc., may be
  placed at the back of the kitchen table

The Pending Pile
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Do I Need To Be Aware Of This?

• 5) Keep track of important events
• Mail that is not of immediate relevance but which
  members need to be aware of is placed in a
  location that maintains its visibility
• For example, invitations, appointments, concert
  tickets, etc., may be placed on a notice board

The Notice Board
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Is It Special?

• 6) Reflect the intimate character of mail
• Certain mail is put on show after it has been
  read in order to display its special character
• For example, birthday, anniversary, thank you
  cards, etc., may be placed on the mantelpiece
• This placing may also serve a mnemonic function

Thank You Card from a Friend
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The Orderliness of Mail

• Mundane interactions reveal
• The routine ways in which mail is handled
• Through a known in common collection point
  (anyone)
• Entitlements to open mail (status of household
  member)
• Sorting mail into relevant categories of action
  -
• 1) Displaying mail to announce to others that new
  mail has arrived
• 2) Displaying the relevance of mail to particular
  others
• 34) Displaying what kind of responsive action
  needs to be taken (immediate or pending)
• 5) Displaying mail to maintain awareness of
  events
• 6) Displaying the intimate character of mail
• And despite architectural and aesthetic
  contingencies, a distinct organization to mail
  handling in the home

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An Ecological Network of Coordinate Displays
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Studies a Resource for Design

• E.g., thinking about email applications for the
  home
• Currently a peripheral feature of domestic life
• Interactional interplay between space-plan and
  stuff reveals mail to be a distributed feature of
  domestic life

Email in the Here and Now
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Making the Technology at Home

• Developing an ecological network of coordinate
  displays

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Beyond Mail Use

• Managing the digital home
• Broad set of studies looking at interplay between
  space-plan and stuff
• Focusing on
• Personal information management (mail, calendars,
  address books, etc.)
• Domestic media (films, music, radio, etc.)
• Sens-able and sens-ible configuration of sensors
• Aim to support the work to make the home
  network work

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Making the Technology at Home
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Exploiting Space-plan and Stuff

• The digital home manager

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Conclusion

• Unpacking the secretion of culture prior to
  design
• E.g., the home
• Exploiting studies of the ways in which
  technologies of all kinds are made at home as a
  resource for thinking about design (generating
  requirements)
• Studying the deployment of technology as resource
  for elaborating the design space (evaluation)
• Elaboration through iteration -
  study-design-deploy-study-design-deploy-study-
  
• One can start anywhere - there is, as Sacks
  reminds us, order at all points