CCT 333: Imagining the Audience in a Wired World Class 8: Complex Interaction/ Activity Theory

Research Method Choice What are you trying to uncover? Who are you trying to involve in the process? What is your time frame, budget? What is complementary to what’s already done/proposed?

Ethical concerns Privacy and confidentiality Situations where research impacts context Concerns and how to resolve them

Complexity and Interaction What technologies may get more complex to use when more people are involved? Designing for lots of simultaneous users can be daunting (e.g., scalability in web design)

Task Analysis Flowcharting interaction patterns - order of actions, decisions made A good first step for unpacking interaction, but can be arbitrary and acontextual - how things should be done, not necessarily how they are Difficulties in representing multiple actors, especially when actors act at different times (conflict in swimlanes, delays in process)

Distributed Cognition People interact with other people using other tools to realize activity Communication and coordination becomes essential - interaction challenges?

Internal/External/Shared Internal representations - individual mental models of reality External representations - anything outside individual that guides activity (e.g., layout, notes, diagrams, etc.) Shared representations - individuals come together over external representations to create shared understanding (or confusion…)

Plans and Situated Actions Treats user interaction as a set of defined plans Plans in context - often contingent and less cut and dry than expected Humans don’t crash when plans fail - we adapt, create new plans on the fly

Cognitive Walkthrough Going through the task analysis as actually performed in context Do users actually perform tasks as set out in plans? If not, what problems do they have? “think aloud” strategy - get users to vocalize their decision patterns and their confusion

Activity Theory Represents complexity of interaction among subjects, objects, artefacts and cultural expectations As a theory, can be hard to use in practice - but also quite powerful

Artefact SubjectObject Praxis Community Division of Labour

Nodes in Activity Triangle Subject - people Object - goal, task Artefact - tools, technologies Community - others affected by activity Division of Labour - Power relations Praxis - norms governing activity

Contradictions Primary - conflict at node (e.g., two people, different notions) Secondary - conflict between nodes (e.g., power relations frustrating action) Tertiary - conflicts when activites are redesigned (e.g., new process conflicts with models used in old) Quarternary - conflicts between simultaneous activities (e.g., one activity diagram contradicts another)

Example: CVEs Collaborative virtual environments - VR which embodies user in virtual space Affords interaction with other embodied users in real time Second Life example

CVEs in Conferences Interesting way to bridge distance gaps Time gaps a problem Orientation issues in virtual world - people talking to walls, etc. (and why it doesn’t matter) Confusing spaces and avatars - fantastic displays but for what purpose?

Activity Theory Analysis Subjects - conference attendees Object - engage in collaboration, talk Artefacts - virtual conference environment, posters, websites, etc. Community - attendees, lurkers Division of Labour - who is/is not allowed to talk at any given time, access restrictions Praxis - expectations of conference environment, turn-taking, etc.

Limitations of HTA Difficult to analyze as whole - there’s no “right” way to attend a conference Specific elements can be analyzed though - e.g., conference registration and payment Nested series of tasks possible - in software design, essential - but conflict and error handling becomes an issue

Limitations of Activity Theory Hard to map connections – many iterative loops Terminology and theory can be dense – hard to describe, hard to engage others in use

Next week Complex User Interaction issues and scenarios/requirements planning