Devious Design: Digital Infrastructure Challenges for Experimental Ethnography

TitleDevious Design: Digital Infrastructure Challenges for Experimental Ethnography
Publication TypeJournal Article
AuthorsPoirier, Lindsay
JournalDesign Issues
Volume33
Issue2
Pagination70-83
ISSN0747-9360
AbstractDiverse disciplinary communities approach design with diverse design logics design directives informed by critical theoretical commitments that are to be translated into material form. Recounting the design of a digital humanities platform, this paper shows how design logics of existing digital infrastructure can at times be out of sync with those of a design community seeking to leverage it. I argue that, in such situations, a designer should do more than simply “make do” with available infrastructure; the designer should instead design deviously – leveraging infrastructure in ways that undercut its logics. This suggests that reflective design involves reflecting, not only on design practice, but also on the logics of the infrastructure available to designers.
URLhttps://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00440
DOI10.1162/DESI_a_00440
Short TitleDevious Design