Beyond use and design: the dialectics of being in virtual worlds

This paper reports on a study of a group of designers constructing a three-dimensional graphical virtual world. By focusing on the human experience of their encounter with new technology we arrive at new concepts for understanding our relationship to information technology. By conceptualising information technology as the organising structure for social interaction and regarding it as an influential mediator of human experiences, our perspective reaches beyond the traditional dichotomy of use and design. In our analysis we attempt to show how being in virtual worlds is formed by the participants' understanding of the system and their inherent desires. Our description of the habitation of virtual worlds suggests the importance of technological inscriptions, shows an ongoing interchange between individual ideas and a mutually constructed reality, and a procedural quality of the worlds that by necessity remain unfinished.