Understanding the work of an HCI practitioner

Users should be involved in the development of information technology (IT) artifacts. However, this is challenging, especially in product development context, in which Human Computer Interaction (HCI) practitioners tend to be hired to 'represent the users' in the development. However, also their work has proven to be challenging. This paper analyzes their work by utilizing a metaphor of IT artifacts as texts and their development as writing. It is assumed that during writing the IT artifact texts 'users are configured'. HCI practitioners are to contribute to the 'configuration of the user'. However, divergent roles are assigned to these practitioners, both in theory and in practice. Therefore, both theoretical and empirical analyses of the work of the HCI practitioners are carried out, and implications both for theory and practice are discussed. Particularly the semiotic approach introduced in this paper and its implications on HCI theory are reflected on.

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