Developing a transdisciplinary, qualitative approach to writing technology research

Abstract

This research project is built around empirical observations and interviews conducted with expert letterpress typesetters in the United States. These observations and interviews focused on participants' composition processes, placing fine-grained analysis of their observable habits and actions in the context of their explanations of these habits and actions. Observation and interview data was collected and analyzed with the goal of describing "intra-actions" [1] present in the relationship between human and machine. Preliminary results show evidence of a wide variety of intra-actions, including the following: habits and actions based on a desire for efficiency, a cyclical composing process, a concern for correctness, and a deference to letterpress printing's history. By taking seriously the ways in which the traditional concept of agency has been complicated by new materialist and posthuman theories, this study looks for ways to diversify and improve research methods for understanding how humans engage in the complex design activities that is writing. If the user is adding any new data, they should make sure to style it as per the instructions provided in previous sections.