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Everyone everywhere: A distributed and embedded paradigm for usability

Author

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  • Michael B. Twidale
  • David M. Nichols
  • Christopher P. Lueg

Abstract

We present a new paradigm to address the persistence of difficulties that people have in accessing and using information. Our idea consists of two main aspects: engaging wider society with usability and distributing the topic across disciplines. We claim that bad usability is a social justice issue. Primarily, we propose that usability should become the subject of widespread activism across society, enabling more people to realize that their usability problems are not due to inadequacies in themselves but in current designs. People should be encouraged and enabled to complain about their experiences with an expectation of improvements. We also propose that the current restriction of this topic to certain disciplinary units is overly narrow and that instead there should be radical embedding of usability concepts across many different fields and settings. We believe that the usability of information systems is core to information science and that information scientists should resume their historic role as heralds and pioneers of human–computer interaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael B. Twidale & David M. Nichols & Christopher P. Lueg, 2021. "Everyone everywhere: A distributed and embedded paradigm for usability," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(10), pages 1272-1284, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:72:y:2021:i:10:p:1272-1284
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.24465
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Certomà, Chiara & Corsini, Filippo & Frey, Marco, 2020. "Hyperconnected, receptive and do-it-yourself city. An investigation into the European “imaginary” of crowdsourcing for urban governance," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    4. Christine L. Borgman, 1996. "Why are online catalogs still hard to use?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 47(7), pages 493-503, July.
    5. Marcia J. Bates, 1999. "The invisible substrate of information science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 50(12), pages 1043-1050.
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