User-Centered Technology Summary

Reading Summary for User-Centered Technology: A Rhetorical Theory for Computers and Other Mundane Artifacts

1) the problem the author sees: 
--At the point in time that the author was writing (1998), most approaches to the development and the technical writing for technology have been system-centered. In other words, the approaches too often place the artifact or the system as the most important thing in its development. The author believes that instead, technology developers (and etc.) should start with the people who actually use and engage with the technology (user-centered), because they are the ones who have knowledge on their localized needs and uses of the technology. The author also says that some approaches try to imitate a user-centered model, but instead only end up with a user-friendly model. The difference here is that in a user-centered model, the user is assumed to have useful, expert knowledge on the technology that contributes to its development, whereas in a user-friendly model, the technology may be accessible initially to the average user, but at some point the user will run into a situation where he/she is no longer considered an expert or knowledgeable.
--The author says that user-friendly and system-centered approaches are problematic because it assumes the user is not knowledgeable and that the user does not have the power to contribute to how technology is defined. He engages in the dispute between whether technology and its evolution are deterministic or socially constructed, ultimately aligning more toward the latter. The problem then, is that if technology has power and is powerful, then it has real consequences for society, which means that people as users should be valued because they should have some say in what kind of consequences may result, whether that be in how technology is defined/symbolized/seen or in how these things further affect society and other technologies.
2) the solution/theory/practice/method the author suggests: user-centered approaches to technology and technical writing! In a little more depth, this essentially looks like bringing users in throughout the design process to get their opinion and knowledge on how the system (and the accompanying writing) should work, and actually respecting the information they provide. For example, instead of assuming that users cannot use the system or read the writing because THEY are lacking something, assume instead that it is a flaw of the system/writing and that it should be fixed to more localized situations and problems. One suggestion that the author gives for cutting the resulting added costs by doing this is by making the technical writer into a multi-positioned job: not only are they technical writers, but they are also system administrators, etc. Essentially, the author is asking for an entire overhaul of how we look at the knowledge binary of user/developer, novice/expert.
3) Questions/Issues for Discussion:
    A) At one point, the author prescribes a user-centered classroom because it is a socially-active pedagogy in that it i) is committed to actual audience participation (so it will practice what he preaches in the "real world" and essentially does what service learning does-- show actual results and effect of your learning and work), ii) advocates involvement of the audience (it displaces traditional authority systems both in terms of the classroom and the writing produced) and iii) it will show that communication problem-solving is a lengthy and recursive affair (thus resulting in a lack of procrastination or looking for an ultimate, one-size-fits-all solution, especially by relying on genres). How realistic is this last point in terms of teaching? How do you teach without an end-point in technical writing? How creative are typical assignments in terms of genre?
    B) At the very end of the book, the author states that as time goes on, the history and theory of technical writing will be more important. It has been fifteen years since the book was published. How much has the field developed in terms of this? Are these things taught in typical tech/prof writing courses, and if so, to what degree?
C) Do you think design teams have changed to be more user-centered today? The author gave the example of the microcomputer as being user-friendly, not user-centered...has it changed, and if not, is it possible to change it?
4) Connections to Readings Prior: I have no idea what this means.