User-Centered Technology

Robert R. Johnson is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Master's Program in Technical and Scientific Communication at Miami University.

• List of Figures Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Part I. Situating Technology 1. Users, Technology, and the Complex(ity) of the Mundane: Some "Out of the Ordinary" Thoughts 2. Refiguring the End of Technology: Rhetoric and the Complex of Use Part II. Complicating Technology 3. Not Just for Idiots Anymore: Practice, Production, and Users' Ways of Knowing 4. Human Factors and the Tech(no)logical: Putting User-Centered Design into Perspective 5. Sociology, History, and Philosophy: Technological Determinism Along the Disciplinary Divides Part III. Communicating Technology 6. When All Else Fails, Use the Instructions: Local Knowledge, Negotiation, and the Construction of User-Centered Computer Documentation 7. Technical Communication, Ethics, Curricula: User-Centered Studies and the Technical Rhetorician References Index

"I believe that this book is a unique contribution to the field. The argument, based upon insightful analyses of a variety of sources, is enlightened. Robert R. Johnson has clearly revealed that the vast bulk of relevant research on technology and use/learning has been dominated by either system-centered or text-centered views. In addition, he places the evolution of these views in their theoretical/historical contexts. That alone is enlightening. But his analysis of the user-centered view is also a significant contribution because it provides a foundation, a rationale, if you will, for certain disparate but promising developments in ongoing efforts to adapt technological innovations for wide-ranging use." — Stephen Doheny-Farina, Clarkson University