Making by making strange

Abstract

This article argues that because the home is so familiar, it is necessary to make it strange, or defamiliarize it, in order to open its design space. Critical approaches to technology design are of both practical and social importance in the home. Home appliances are loaded with cultural associations such as the gendered division of domestic labor that are easy to overlook. Further, homes are not the same everywhere---even within a country. Peoples' aspirations and desires differ greatly across and between cultures. The target of western domestic technology design is often not the user, but the consumer. Web refrigerators that create shopping lists, garbage cans that let advertisers know what is thrown away, cabinets that monitor their contents and order more when supplies are low are central to current images of the wireless, digital home of the future. Drawing from our research in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Asia, we provide three different narratives of defamiliarization. A historical reading of American kitchens provides a lens with which to scrutinize new technologies of domesticity, an ethnographic account of an extended social unit in England problematizes taken-for-granted domestic technologies, and a comparative ethnography of the role of information and communication technologies in the daily lives of urban Asia's middle classes reveals the ways in which new technologies can be captured and domesticated in unexpected ways. In the final section of the article, we build on these moments of defamiliarization to suggest a broad set of challenges and strategies for design in the home.

Ethnography considered harmful

“…[5] The aim of defamiliarization is to render the familiar strange in order that systems designers might appreciate the ways in which people ordinarily or 'naturally' understand social or cultural life and the various objects and implements employed therein. In turn, the approach is intended to provide "defamiliarizing narratives" that help designers rethink the assumptions built into domestic technologies.…”

“…As Bell et al [5] put it, the "role differs from the one usually assigned to ethnography in HCI". It is characterized by "ethnographers turning their attention to consumer culture" and "cultural practices" [2] to provide designers with "critical readings of the social context of use" and to "generate innovative suggestions for and approaches to design problems" [4].…”

Advancing ambiguity

“…Through art installations and critically designed HCI applications, Gaver and fellow designers have demonstrated the usefulness and value of ambiguity in design, such as eliciting self-reflection or heightened engagement [e.g. 2,5].…”

Designing Sustainable Food Systems

“…Some exemplary information challenges include: [3,5,11]. Examples of HCI research in the food system include: supply chain transparency tools for small [4], designing urban food gardens [15], building communication tools for fish farmers in India [10], studying coordination on family farms [12], studying the use of location-based information systems for non-profit food assistance organizations [6], designing better cooking technologies [2], and persuading people to stop putting food waste in landfills [20].…”