BIB_07: Massanari, A. L. (2010). Designing for imaginary friends: Information architecture, personas and the politics of user-centered design. New Media & Society, 12(3), 401-416.

In this article, Massanari interrogates the notion of "user" in HCI and UCD discourse and three tropes commonly used: the "stupid user," the "user as victim," and the "user as co-creator" (p. 404). He associates the three tropes of the "user" with three approaches to design; the "stupid user" is an assumption of system-centered design, the "user as victim" is associated with user-centered design, and the "user as co-creator" is associated with participatory and activity-centered design. In response to the idea and practice of using personas to understand users, Massanari argues that personas are hegemonic and often reductive in nature. He also points out other researchers' work that indicates that personas cannot always effectively solve the problems of "the elastic user," "self-referential design," and "design edge cases" in the design process in practice (p. 409). In addition, the perceived non-scientific nature of personas in an organization makes it difficult to convince everyone to take them seriously. However, Massanari seems to agree that personas can serve as effective communication tools. Drawing on cultural rhetorical theory, specifically, the Marxian concept of "interpolation" and postmodern idea of "simulation," Massanari argues that personas interpolate the users into what the designers want them to be, and since the personas are simulacra of the real users, they tend to blur the distinction and create an illusion for the designers that they are designing for the real users but actually they are designing for their simulacra. In the conclusion, Massanari points out that the advance of technology and its increasing integration in our life "will likely require new approaches to user research" p. 412).

Massanari's view on personas is challenges the practice increasingly accepted and employed in the IA and technology design industry, partly as established experts such as Alan Cooper's promotion. Using personas in the design process is almost inevitably hegemonic and reductive, yet it is well received in the industry as Cooper indicates in the foreword on his book The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. There certainly connects to what Coppola (2005) has pointed out "a universal drive for utility [that] underlies technical communication research" (p. 263) and beyond. Massanari has briefly touched the topic of Web 2.0 technology in this article, but has not further elaborated on the idea. Nevertheless, the insight this piece offers is still valuable in the context of Web 2.0.