Lucy Suchman’s dedication as an anthropologist and researcher towards the relationship between technologies’ abstract models that idealize the user’s interaction with a system with the real world user’s realistic interaction that often diverges from expectations as well as the concept of participatory design had made groundbreaking impact on the industry’s understanding on recognizing whether or not if the technologies we designed are truly suitable for audiences. Through studies such as observations on how people interacted with the new Xerox high-speed copiers of their time with the instructional screens and how people understood instructions after a malfunctioning jam, Suchman challenged the assumption of automating everything if given specific procedures and poland to follow and introduced embodied cognition—the idea of understanding through doing—to technology. By taking on a user-centered approach in her research, she addresses the importance of to situate designs with abilities to accommodate the improvisational and unforeseeable nature of human interaction with machines. This understanding encouraged designers to emphasize on design process methods such as user testing, multiple rounds of prototyping to better ensure the suitability of an invention in real world context.
