The tool is more than the physical or digital object in itself. The tool includes the network of accompanying support, including documentation such as the user manual and technical support such as the help desk. In recent years the help desk has become an increasingly important element of (...)

As electronic objects accumulate an ever increasing number of functions, they become more and more difficult to learn to use. One could give endless examples of small catastrophes resulting from failure to master overly-complex products, such as accidental erasure of photos in a digital camera, (...)

There appear to be two meanings of the word durability with respect to technical products: life-cycle durability and database durability. Life-cycle durability In the first sense, durability refers to the length of the working life of tool. We could call this "life-cycle durability." A (...)

It has been suggested in the previous articles that social theory tends to interpret social reality as a collective fact imposed upon the individual, and is generally blind to the possibility of individuals modelling social reality. Thus even social constructionism, which sees institutions as (...)

The following is brief history of social theory, focusing on how social constructs have been seen as implements. Plato’s Philosopher-King It is generally held that the emergence of rational argumentation in the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers is linked with the emergence of (...)