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I have written an abstract for the EASST conference in Lausanne in August and have just been told that they accepted my paper, so now I just have to do it – should be fun though. Here is the abstract:

Becoming User, Becoming Designer - Social Software and the Emergence of User-Designer Cultures

When using social software, such as flickr.com, operating with open APIs (making it possible to alter the technologies), being a user is no longer a valid concept and technology cannot be thought of as something being designed and distributed in the world as a black box. Theories developed in ANT and other areas of STS such as SCOT still operate with some sort of distinction between production of technology and contexts of use when it comes to design. In relation to issues like these social software provokes our ideas of design and use of technology. Adrian Mackenzie’s concept of technology as transduction can facilitate our understanding of the development of social software, where users shift between different forms of becoming (in Deleuze and Guattari’s sense). So instead of users we should start talking about becoming-designer and becoming-user.

In social software technology contingency seems to be the primary parameter in the network established by the different actors. Surprisingly contingency does not decrease domestication it actually furthers it, because users are becoming designers and hereby more familiar with the technology in the cultures surrounding design, use and development of social software. This can be seen as a fulfilment of the ideas inherent in participatory design.

These tendencies are evident if we look at the design and use of applications developed to support the use of flickr.com such as ShoZu, FlickrTools and FlickrToys. By analysing the emergent cultures surrounding flickr.com and interviewing the people behind ShoZu I will show why social software pushes our understanding of design and use.