First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Based on two case studies of the design of electronic communication networks developed in the public and private sector, this article explores the barriers within current design cultures to account for the needs and diversity of users. Whereas the constraints on user-centered design are usually described in macrosociological terms, in which the user–technology relation is merely understood as a process of the inclusion or exclusion of users in design, the authors suggest that it is important to adopt a semiotic approach. (...) Moreover, they argue that we need to take into account the gender identity of designers to understand how design practices in ICT prioritize male users. The article shows how configuring the user as “everybody” and the use of the “I-methodology” are important constraints in the development of technologies that aim to reach users in all their diversity. (shrink)

This article contributes to Science and Technology Studies on vulnerability by putting cyborgs at center stage. What vulnerabilities emerge when technologies move under the skin? I argue that cyborgs face new forms of vulnerability because they have to live with a continuous, inextricable intertwinement of technologies and their bodies. Inspired by recent feminist studies on the lived intimate relationships between bodies and technologies, I suggest that sensory experiences, material practices, and cartographies of power are important heuristic tools to understand the (...) vulnerabilities of hybrid bodies. Based on an analysis of how patients in the Netherlands and the United States cope with appropriate and inappropriate implantable cardioverter defibrillator shocks, I describe how defibrillators introduce two new kinds of vulnerabilities: vulnerability as an internal rather than an external threat, and as harm you may try to anticipate but can never escape. Despite these vulnerabilities, some heart patients don’t position themselves as passive victims of faulty machines. They actively engage in material practices of resilience by using magnets to stop inappropriate shocks. I conclude that anticipating and taming the improper working of technologies inside bodies constitutes a new form of invisible labor that is crucial to diminishing the existential uncertainties of cyborgs. (shrink)

In the last fifteen years, testing has attracted much attention in science and technology studies. Most researchers have focused almost exclusively on testing in the laboratory, specifically designed test locations, and, for medical technologies, the clinic. What counts as testing has largely been described in terms of the activities of scientific experts. This is not to say that science and technology studies have completely neglected other institutional discourses. Journalistic texts have been a favorite research site for scholars in science and (...) technology studies, particularly those seeking to understand the dynamics of public controversies on science and technology. Although most constructivist studies of science and media relations have treated journalistic texts as secondary to scientific texts, other scholars have dismissed this hierarchy. In this article, scientific texts and journalistic texts are considered equally important locations in which to analyze the testing of technologies. Based on a case study on the testing of a new contraceptive technology for men, the article shows that what counts as successful testing is not solely in the hands of scientific experts. In the case of male contraceptive technologies, journalists have contested the claims of scientific experts, particularly their claims about the cultural feasibility of the new technology. (shrink)

Studies of drug development have described the role of clinical trials in the selection of drug profiles. This article presents a case study of the development of hormonal drugs in the 1920s and 1930s to illustrate that clinical trials have a more extensive role than is assumed. Clinical trials are instrumental in mediating the relationships between the pharmaceutical industry, the laboratory, and the clinic, resulting in a network of actors collectively creating medical knowledge, drugs, and markets for these drugs.

The role of users in innovation processes has gained increasing attention in innovation studies, technology studies, and media studies. Scholars have identified users and use practices as a source of innovation. So far, however, little insight has been generated in innovation processes in which communities of users are the driving force in all phases of the innovation process. This article explores the conceptual vocabularies of innovation studies and actor— network theory and discusses their adequacy for describing and understanding the dynamics (...) of user-initiated innovation processes in which community and innovation are closely intertwined. The authors introduce the concept of community innovation and argue for its relevance for understanding the full dynamics of innovations initiated and shaped by user collectives. The article elaborates a qualitative case study of Wireless Leiden, a local wireless network infrastructure in the Dutch town of Leiden initiated, designed, and maintained by a local community of users. (shrink)