The Tyrants, Heroes and Victims Narrative in Accessibility Tracks Papers of the Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems

Lima, Bernardo Alves Villarinho; Almeida, Leonelo Dell Anhol

doi:10.1145/3033701.3033702

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…There are, nevertheless, some critical studies that problematize the ideological and rhetorical use of users in HCI. They identified users' as a mere scenic resource in the design space (Sharrock and Anderson, 1994), playing the role of naive (Bannon, 1991), exotic (Cooper and Bowers, 1995) people (at least in comparison to alleged designers), who become prey to usability problems, and for that same reason, demand the constant salvation of heroes who know their ways of interacting with computers (Spinuzzi, 2002;Cooper and Bowers, 1995;Lima and Almeida, 2016). These people are abstracted from their historical or community references (Bannon and Bødker, 1991;Oudshoorn et al, 2004), stereotyped (Melo, 2012), pathologized (Cooper and Bowers, 1995), disembodied (Lupton, 1995) and disempowered (Kerssens, 2016;Clement, 1994;Spinuzzi, 2002) to become passive beings on the designers' hands, similarly to an imaginary friend (Massanari, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

User oppression in human-computer interaction: a dialectical-existential perspective

Gonzatto

Amstel

2022

AJIM

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PurposeThis research theorizes the condition of human beings reduced to being users (and only users) in human-computer interaction (HCI), a condition that favors them becoming objects or targets of commercial dark patterns, racialized profiling algorithms, generalized surveillance, gendered interfaces and heteromation.Design/methodology/approachThe reconceptualization of the users’ condition is done by confronting HCI theories on users with a dialectical-existential perspective over human ontology. The research is presented as a conceptual paper that includes analyzing and revising those theories to develop a conceptual framework for the user oppression in HCI.FindingsMost HCI theories contribute to the user oppression with explicit or implicit ontological statements that denies their becoming-more or the possibility of users developing their handiness to the full human potential. Put together, these statements constitute an ideology called userism.Social implicationsHCI needs to acknowledge its role in structuring oppression not just in sexism, racism, classism and ableism, but also the specific relation that pertains to HCI: userism. Similar to other fields, acknowledging oppression is the first step toward liberating from oppression.Originality/valueThe user is an existential condition for HCI theories, yet few theories can explain in depth how this condition affects human development. From the dialectical-existential perspective, the user condition can be dehumanizing. Computers may intensify existing oppressions through esthetic interactions but these interactions can be subverted for liberation.

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