This Manual for the user illustrates an interpretation of how manufacturers are guiding their smart objects through the interaction with human individuals. Now that the roles of agency shifts from humans to objects, the manual is addressed to the smart object (in this case the smart speaker) instead of its user, to point out that “smart devices introduce an ambiguity over who is in charge” (de Graaf, 2016). This manual highlights the idea that variety and spontaneity are unable to exist in the system – the human system.

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Illustrated as a positive theory of the Human Computer Interaction, the manual shows how the user ends up living in a self-designed automated pattern, depended on the interaction with the system – the Internet of Things. Of course, the manual has been written in a rather sarcastic style for the purpose of discussion. The arguments are broadly conceptual in character to open up a dialogue for not only designers and researchers, but most of all for the user.

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The Smart manual is split in two parts, the brochure and the user manual. Through these links below you can read the full article: