Regimes of Design, Logics of Users

Abstract

The following text is an edited version of the introductory chapter of my Ph.D. thesis ‘User Assemblages in Design: An Ethnographic Study’. The thesis was supervised by Mike Michael and Bill Gaver, examined by Lucy Suchman and Matthew Fuller. The degree was awarded by the University of London in October 2010. This text sets out the sociological importance and relevance for conducting an ethnography of design and users. In doing so I sketch out the rationale for the thesis, following perspectives in STS, the empirical approach I undertook as well as the research questions I pursued. Lastly, I present a chapter outline of the thesis including a brief summary of the major theoretical contribution of the thesis, namely the concept of the user-assemblage, which draws on the work of Deleuze and Guattari and contributes to developments after actor-network theory.