Lucy Suchman’s work has had a huge impact on how we think about the relationship between people and technology. I watched a video of her research at Xerox on how people use photocopiers, and it made me realize that we often think that if something works technologically, it should also work for people. But that’s not always the case.
In her famous study, Suchman observed how copier operators dealt with the machines, despite the fact that the designers thought they had created user-friendly technology. The glaring problem was that people often used copiers in unexpected ways or misunderstood the instructions, leading to frustration. This isn’t because the user is doing something “wrong” – it’s because the design doesn’t take into account the real-world behaviors and needs of the people using the machine.
Suchman introduced the concept of “situated action,” whereby how people use technology depends on the context in which they find themselves. It’s not enough to design something that works in theory; it must also work in real life and take into account all the unpredictability that comes with it. Her work has made designers and researchers aware that human behavior is flexible and often improvisational. It changes the idea that we only need to “train” users to use technology correctly.
In her reading, Suchman’s argument was that in order to design better technology, we need to observe and engage users throughout the design process. This idea is now at the heart of user-centered design, which focuses on understanding the needs of users, not just on making technically complex things.