ABSTRACT
What if the engineer’s perspective and the perspective of users of technology in nonindustrial application were radically different? What if they were related to incomparable cultural settings that do not allow a direct mapping from one to the other? Applications of technology outside of industry, as they are increasingly discussed due to the ongoing digitization, then require an additional, creative effort from the users. Translation studies allow us to interpret this effort as a form of paraphrasing technical operation in a new contextual setting. In addition, if the assumption of a radical difference is taken seriously, users of technology actually add something new to technology. Following Walter Benjamin’s approach to translation, we can say that users open up paths for relations across boundaries without eliminating foreignness. Personal experience with technology can accordingly not be treated as a secondary phenomenon in the aftermath of technical operation. It has to be appreciated on the same level as the engineer’s approach in the design and analysis of technology and its reflections in other disciplines. Metaphorically, one might say that engineers provide the music and users make the steps. Both have to be considered at the same time in order to gain an appropriate understanding of technology
