Bounds and Freedoms: Re-Opening the Blackbox of Technology

Observations of everyday encounters with information systems or technologies suggest that humans frequently use them in ways not envisaged by their designers or developers. Use, as the saying goes, cannot be arrested by design. No matter what or how designers embody functions in artefacts, the context of life is such that new uses emerge out of the habitual deployment of artefacts (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006; Orlikowski, 2000). I believe this statement to be correct in principle. However, some of the conclusions that are supposed to derive from this are not, because this state of affairs has frequently been interpreted as ample evidence of the malleable and locally negotiable character of technology. This assumption is neither warranted nor can it unproblematically be derived from the fact that the use of artefacts often confers on them properties other than or additional to those that design embodies. Let me explain.