On: Products and Practices: Selected Concepts from Science and Technology Studies and from Social Theories of Consumption and Practice

by Jack Ingram, Elizabeth Shove, and Matthew Watson

Of all the articles I've read about in creating personas, it was this one that really helped me hone-in on how I wanted to describe my use-cases for my study. The group's six themes (acquisition, scripting, appropriation, assembly, normalization, and practice) were much like something I think I read recently in Donald Norman's newest book about emotional design [cognitive psychology, yum.], but when I read how they applied basic social psychological concepts to the motives for a stage, I was more than on board.

I found myself taking notes about each of my personas- how did social comparison fit into "Lisa and Greg's" lifestyle, was "George" subject to the Diderot Effect? Were the three of them beginning to Specialize, and how/why had Self-Identity through new objects taken a back seat to a whole generation of people? Had "Anna and Susan" Scripted their objects into a role that was at risk of being in opposition to the sustainability movement? How could new designs alter their behavior without confusing, irritating, or alienating who they felt they themselves were while also assembling into the group of older more emotionally charged but perhaps less sustainable products?

Also, and I'm not sure exactly how this fits in at all, but after having read so much about Martha Stewart's Living, I am drawn back to the Donna Hay and Real Simple magazines that I loved before Stewart became part of my vocabulary. How do sections in their magazines that celebrate new uses play into the "themes" set out in this article? What happens when that which establishes a (if even somewhat fairy-tale-like) status quo embraces an old technology over a new one that may be advertised on the next page? Do the "30 things you can do with a paper clip" ever really get used, or are they simply party tricks for the imaginary house wife?

I am officially in love with this article, and only hope that I can one day implement these incredibly valid issues into my own work- whether academic or applied.