Not just a pretty (inter)face: A critical analysis of Microsoft's 'Ms. Dewey'

Sweeney, Miriam

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/46617 Copy

Description

Title

Not just a pretty (inter)face: A critical analysis of Microsoft's 'Ms. Dewey'

Author(s)

Sweeney, Miriam

Issue Date

2014-01-16T17:56:19Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Smith, Linda C.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Smith, Linda C.

Committee Member(s)

• Nakamura, Lisa M.
• Brock, André
• Renear, Allen H.

Department of Study

Library & Information Science

Discipline

Library & Information Science

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Anthropomorphized design
• Virtual agents
• Search engines
• Human-computer interaction
• Feminist informatics
• Microsoft
• Ms. Dewey
• Social informatics
• Race and technology

Abstract

"Increasingly anthropomorphism is used as a design strategy in computing interfaces to make them more accessible and intuitive to users. Technologies are never neutral, and always consist of a complex arrangement of technical, social, and cultural (ideological) aspects. Computing interfaces designed to have the characteristics of people raise ethical questions about what it means to explicitly gender and racialize technologies. This project explores these broader questions through a case study of Microsoft's former search engine interface, ""Ms. Dewey."" The titular character featured in the interface was anthropomorphized as a sexy librarian virtual agent who performs search results in response to user queries. I explore how the Ms. Dewey search engine is gendered and racialized and, ultimately, how Ms. Dewey reveals specific assumptions about gender, race, and technology in the search engine. I conduct an interface analysis that investigates the semiotic and material aspects of the interface in terms of technological and cultural affordances, finding that gender and race function as crucial infrastructural elements that frame the search process and results as more explicitly ideological rather than instrumental. This research contributes to understanding the broader implications of anthropomorphization as a design strategy, blending concerns of technology design and cultural beliefs about gender and race."

Graduation Semester

2013-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/46617

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Miriam E. Sweeney

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