Worlds apart: Exclusion-processes in dds

Abstract

More and more interfaces are designed for ‘everybody’, instead of with a specific user-group in mind. In practice, most of them are still used by the ‘typical Internet-user’, the highly educated, white young male with extensive computer and Internet-experience. Amsterdam-based digital city DDS is no exception to this rule. In this article, the interface of DDS is studied with the help of ten first-time users with a more diverse background. Did they face any barriers in using DDS? And what kind of work did they need to perform to use the interface? This study shows that the most serious problems the first-time users faced were not caused by a lack of skill, but by the different technological frame they had. Thus, a script-analysis with the help of ‘outsiders’ seems to be an effective way to uncover some exclusion-processes of a digital city.