User oppression in human-computer interaction: a dialectical-existential perspective
Aslib Journal of Information Management
ISSN: 2050-3806
Article publication date: 14 March 2022
Issue publication date: 5 September 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This research theorizes the condition of human beings reduced to being users (and only users) in human-computer interaction (HCI), a condition that favors them becoming objects or targets of commercial dark patterns, racialized profiling algorithms, generalized surveillance, gendered interfaces and heteromation.
Design/methodology/approach
The reconceptualization of the users’ condition is done by confronting HCI theories on users with a dialectical-existential perspective over human ontology. The research is presented as a conceptual paper that includes analyzing and revising those theories to develop a conceptual framework for the user oppression in HCI.
Findings
Most HCI theories contribute to the user oppression with explicit or implicit ontological statements that denies their becoming-more or the possibility of users developing their handiness to the full human potential. Put together, these statements constitute an ideology called userism.
Social implications
HCI needs to acknowledge its role in structuring oppression not just in sexism, racism, classism and ableism, but also the specific relation that pertains to HCI: userism. Similar to other fields, acknowledging oppression is the first step toward liberating from oppression.
Originality/value
The user is an existential condition for HCI theories, yet few theories can explain in depth how this condition affects human development. From the dialectical-existential perspective, the user condition can be dehumanizing. Computers may intensify existing oppressions through esthetic interactions but these interactions can be subverted for liberation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research stems from the groundwork done by the first author in his doctoral thesis on users and the production of existence. The second author built upon that work and brought userism as a discussion theme in the Design & Oppression network meetings. The authors are grateful to all the people who joined these meetings and to Mateus F. Lima Pelanda, Luiz Ernesto Merkle and Eduardo A B M Souza for the insightful comments on earlier versions of this text.
Citation
Gonzatto, R.F. and van Amstel, F.M.C. (2022), "User oppression in human-computer interaction: a dialectical-existential perspective", Aslib Journal of Information Management, Vol. 74 No. 5, pp. 758-781. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-08-2021-0233
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited