Hi Mattias,
Thanks for the reference.
I find many of these recent conceptualisations in this area a bit bare and
simplistic.
There are other understandings of the relationships between people and
technology that are richer.
A richer and longer established approach is that which emerged out of the
early work on treating war psychosis.
The understandings originated in the complexity of situations that involve
large and small scale groupings of individuals real life activities, which
also involve technology.
I'm thinking of Emery's work that lead to the establishment of the Tavistock
Clinic and created the foundations of socio-technical systems theory with
such classic papers as " Trist, E., and Bamforth, W. (1951) Some Social and
Psychological Consequences of the Long Wall Method of Coal-Getting, Human
Relations, Vol. 4, 3-38 ". There are several sweet histories of the
Tavistock's complex approach from the first world war onwards to
rehabilitating soldiers and children with war-related stress. From this
emerged the Sociotechnical Systems approach to design and research, and,
interestingly, Fred Emery's development of the 'Participative Design
Workshop' which built on his earlier work in Norway at the Norwegian Work
Research Institute with Trist and Thorsrud and seems to offer a richer
conceptual foundation than the original.
I'm guessing this is old knowledge for you?
What seems true, is that for almost any theory and concept development in
the Design literature it is possible to find a conceptually richer version
elsewhere, in this case in the social sciences, psychology and
organisaitonal design - also in the case of Activity Theory which has
similar roots. Tantalisingly, theory of similar quality appears to be
available in developments in Islamic science, social science and
philosophy of around 1000 years ago.
Best wishes,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mattias
Arvola
Sent: Saturday, 5 November 2011 4:18 PM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: word for walked path
Terry wrote:
> The implication is it isn't simply the difference between 'what was
> designed' and 'what users do' as a fixed situation, rather it is a dynamic
> activity with one or more feedback loops.
> The same seems true for all interfaces.
This is what in human-computer interaction design usually is referred to as
the "task-artifact cycle":
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/task_artifact_cycle.html
Cheers,
// Mattias
--
Mattias Arvola, Ph.D. in Cognitive Systems.
Director of Studies for the Undergraduate Programme in Cognitive Science.
Sr. lecturer in Interaction Design.
Linköping University.
www.arvola.se
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