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Gender and Skill in Human Computer Interaction

Ellen Balka

Women's Studies
Memorial University of Newfoundland
St. John's, Nfld. Canada
Phone: (709) 737-2515 Fax: (709) 737-4000
E-mail: ebalka@kean.ucs.mun.ca

Abstract:

Practitioners working in HCI make implicit assumptions about gender and skill in conducting design work. More frequently than not, assumptions about both the gender of computer system users, and definitions of skill relied on in designing computer systems, remain hidden (exceptions include 1,2,10,16). Here, the importance of addressing gender and skill in HCI activities is addressed through a focus on participatory design (PD) and ergonomics. In the tradition of participatory posters [11] participants are asked to engage in generating knowledge about gender and skill in HCI by providing citations to relevant work, and/or anecdotes from their design experience (by computer entry or video clips).

Keywords:

gender, skill, work, participatory design, ergonomics, design theory, design practices.

INTRODUCTION

In the 1970s technological change came under the scrutiny of a wide range of interest groups. In 1974 Braverman's work, [4] which helped spark contemporary debates about the effects of technological change on the labour process appeared. Research concerned with women and technological change documented that women were affected differently by technology than men, and that in general women occupy different positions in the technological change process than men.

By the 1990s, the convergence of labour and feminist analyses of technology and the technological change process resulted in the identification of several theoretical issues and applied problems related to gender and technology. Specifically, focusing on gender while studying technology led to questions about skill, expertise, and user involvement in the design process. For example, one criticism of Braverman's work [4] on technological change is that it is based on notions of skill that reflect jobs traditionally held by men, and it fails to account for the types of skill that characterize women's traditional work, and fails to recognize upskilling in women's jobs related to technological change [18]. Cockburn [5], using Braverman's analysis as a starting point argues that skill is a political concept that plays an important role in maintaining the gender division of labour. Suchman and Jordan [16] point out that in settings where women are primary participants in the design process or are users of technology, the legitimacy of their knowledge is subordinated to claims on authoritative knowledge put forth by men. Gender has been largely neglected in literature about participatory design, although evidence suggests that failures to consider gender as a variable in design projects has contributed to design failures.
In their efforts to solve problems related to the implementation of technology in the workplace, scholars and practitioners with a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds have turned their attention either to research that can be loosely grouped under the heading of participatory design of technology (e.g., 2,7,10,11,12, 14,16,17), or to research in the area of ergonomics (e.g., 3,8,13,15). With few exceptions, advocates of neither participatory design nor ergonomics have incorporated feminist analyses of technology into their work, despite the fact that extensive earlier work has shown that theoretical insights about the implementation and use of technology are gained through a focus on gender as a subject of study.

GENDER AND SKILL in PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

Namioka and Schuler argue that participatory design represents an approach to design that differs from traditional design processes in many respects. For example, it rejects the assumption that the goal of computerization is to automate the skills of human workers, and instead sees automation as an attempt to give workers better tools for doing their jobs. Unlike conventional approaches to design, participatory design assumes that users of technology are in the best position to determine how to improve their work and work lives, and in incorporating users into the design process, the traditional designer-user relationship must undergo significant change.

In efforts to understand and overcome the problems associated with integrating users into systems development, several researchers have examined the theoretical basis of the design process, and developed a number of approaches aimed at creating a development process that supports cooperative systems design. Researchers working in this area have argued that much of the early work concerned with human-computer interaction failed to develop a critical assessment of the technology that would lead researchers to study the ways that social context, power relations and social bias may affect the actual systems that are created.

To counter these difficulties, Suchman and Jordan [16] stress the importance of demystifying technology and legitimating women's knowledge in the system development process. They argue that this will require a dramatic shift in how we view the knowledge and skills that go into system development. Such a shift must incorporate a sophisticated understanding of the social world into the system development process. In the preface to a book about participatory design, Suchman [17] asserts that what distinguishes participatory design from other approaches to system development is the "central and abiding concern for direct and continuous interaction with those who are the ultimate arbiters of system adequacy; namely, those who will use the technology in their everyday lives and work.(vii)" Nonetheless, to date we know little about issues that arise when designers work with women users of computer systems, in attempts to articulate design principles.

GENDER AND SKILL IN ERGONOMICS

Ergonomics seeks to "amalgamate the knowledge and philosophies of such diverse subjects as psychology, biology, and engineering, in order to understand the ways in which humans interact with their surroundings" [13, p.3] (including computers) and how the surroundings can be engineered to suit humans. Ergonomists are concerned with improving the fit between workers and machines. Significant differences exist between the methods that are predominant in the fields of ergonomics and participatory design. This perhaps reflects differences in the extent to which values have been addressed within each of these design traditions. Suchman [17] points out that participatory design "makes explicit the critical, and inevitable, presence of values in the system development process" (p.vii). In contrast, referring to the work of Blacker and Brown [3], Shipley [15] writes "ergonomics apparently fails to take into account the powerful social and structural factors which influence strategic decision making" (p. 828). Echoing concerns raised in feminist work about technological change, Shipley reports that ergonomic experts too readily assume solutions to clients' problems, little has changed. However, as is the case with participatory design, an emergent participatory ergonomics movement (see for example [8]) has the potential of addressing problems related to expertise in technological design, related to both gender and skill is design practice.

Although some ergonomic problems lend themselves naturally to a focus on women workers, gender is often not considered in the context of these studies. And, although Greenbaum and Kyng [7] argue that feminist perspectives on science have had a major impact on participatory design, the emerging "participation ideology and methodology in ergonomics practice" [15] fails to address gender relations despite concern with issues such as collaboration and power sharing in client- consultant relationships. Although women and work is included in the classification scheme of the Ergonomic Abstracts, listings under this classification are few. Similarly, although the ergonomics abstracts include citations to articles that address skill (e.g., [6], these articles are often written from a disciplinary perspective and the connection to ergonomics practice is not explicitly addressed.

QUESTIONS FOR HCI DESIGN PRACTICE

If we shift our attention from the view of technology as product, to the processes surrounding the design, development, and implementation of technological systems (advocated by participatory designers), several issues arise in relation to gender and skill, including: a) How does gender come to bear on the dynamics of system design? b) Are system users primarily men or women? If system users are women, are there any physical or social factors that come to bear on their system use? c) What are the implicit definitions of skill in use by designers? d) Are definitions of skill tied to gender stereotypes? If so, how might different conceptions of skill come to bear on system design?

Conference participants are invited to share information and anecdotes about gender and skill in HCI, either by attaching a card to the poster, entering information into a laptop, or by sharing their tales of gender and skill in HCI by video, at the poster area.

REFERENCES:

  1. Balka, E. & Doucette, L. The accessibility of computers to organizations serving women in the province of Newfoundland: Preliminary study results. Electronic Journal of Virtual Culture, vol. 2 #3, 1994, 739 lines.
  2. Balka, E. Participatory Design in Women's Organizations: The Social World of Organizational Structure and the Gendered Nature of Expertise. Gender, Work and Organizations. In press.
  3. Blacker, F. & Brown, C. Alternative models to guide the design and introduction of the new information technologies into work organizations. Journal of Occupational Psychology, vol. 59, 1986, pp. 287-313.
  4. Braverman, H. Labor and monopoly capital. New York: Monthly Review, 1974.
  5. Cockburn, C. Brothers: Male dominance and technological change. London: Pluto, 1983.
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  7. Greenbaum, J. and Kyng, M. (Eds.). Design at work: Cooperative design of computer systems. Hillside, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991
  8. Imada, A. & Noro, K. Participatory ergonomics. London: Taylor and Francis, 1991.
  9. Linn, P. Gender Stereotypes, Technology Stereotypes in M. McNeil, (Ed). Gender and expertise [Special issue]. Radical Science Journal 19, 1991, pp.127-151.
  10. Mueller, M.J., Carr, R., Ashworth, C., Diekmann, B., Wharton, C., Eickstaedt, C. and Clonts, J. Telephone Operators as Knowledge Workers: Consultants Who Meet Customer Needs. SIGCHI '95 (Denver, Colorado, May 7-11, 1995). In Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings. Annual Conference Series, 1995, ACM SIGCHI, pp. 130-137.
  11. Muller, M.J., Wildman, D.M., and White, E.A. Taxonomy of participatory design practices: A participatory poster. Poster at CHI'92.
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  13. Oborne, D.J., Branton, R., Leal, F. Shipley, P. & Stewart, T. (Eds.). (1993). Person-centred ergonomics: A Brantonian view of human factors. London: Taylor and Francis.
  14. Schuler, D. & Namioka, A. (Eds.). (1993). Participatory design: Principles and practices. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  15. Shipley, P. (1990). Participation ideology and methodology in ergonomics practice. In J.R. Wilson & E.N. Corlett, (Eds.). Evaluation of human work: A practical ergonomics methodology. London: Taylor & Francis.
  16. Suchman, L. & Jordan, B. (1988). Computerization and women's knowledge. In Women, work and computerization: IFIP conference proceedings, 1988. Amsterdam.
  17. Suchman, L. (1993). Foreward. In D. Schuler & A. Namioka (Eds.). Participatory design: Principles and practices. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  18. Women's Skills Development Society of British Columbia. Working women enter the computer age. Vanvouver: Author, 1986.