Untitled and Undecided

This past week at GroupTalk, an “informal, student-run, participatory forum for addressing challenges in Berkeley research projects at the intersection of people and technology” I raised the questions:

Is it possible to design for appropriation and unintended uses? If so, how? If not, why not?

In this post, my primary goal is to present the notes from that discussion. At the same time, my notes are incomplete. It was hard to capture everything and I found myself mixing up my own interpretations of what was said and what the person saying might have said. Therefore, I have decided to also go ahead an add some additional commentary. If you participated in that conversation and think that: a) I have missed something completely, b) misunderstood a point that you or someone else made, or c) have any reactions or thoughts since then, please comment below! (And, of course, to everyone who didn’t participate, feel free to weigh in however you see fit).

My motivation for raising these questions is based on my interest in investigating the design of socio-technical systems while somehow coming to an understanding of groups’ everyday practice in relation to media production.

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