Design and use issues in HCI

HCI, as a field centrally concerned with user experiences with computing systems , has long been taking the intersection between technology and human being as its central focal of inquiry. However, the relationship between technology and human being has been reduced to relationship between technology and users, the relationship between designers and technology, and relationship between designers and users are largely under explored.

Daniel Fallman discusses three accounts of design: conservativeness, romanticism, and pragmatism. While conservative account as derived from science and engineering tradition, emphasizes a transparent , rational and rigid process which lead to design solutions to preset problems; romanticism, following artistic practices from poetry, sculpture, music, etc, emphasizes individual imagination and creativity, which put more attention to the final product and individual designer, and largely regard the design process as a "black box"; pragmatism, rather than science or art, takes the form of a hermeneutic process of interpretation and creation of meaning. It views design as a dialogue between designers and the settings crammed with people, cultures, values, materials, etc., where designers engage with the world, make do with what is available in a specific situation, define the materials and tools at hand by its potential use. (I feel it was an extension of phenomenology from issues of use to issues of design). It operates from the available means, and treats them abstractly, by seeking to determine and redefine the roles they can play in a given situation by entering into a dialogues with them. So rather than leaning on theories and methodology for guidance, pragmantic accounts acknowledge the pre-reflective knowledge of everyday life and work as the main elements of knowledge. Designers in this veiw is thought of as a "self-organizing system" with constructutive as well as reflective skills.

He argues that none the three aspects alone can fully account for what design is. We can not treat it as a fully scientific conduct, nor black-box, nor an unimportant practical bustle with reality. It should not be treated as a disciplinary mix, existing in between science and arts. Rather, he argues, design is a tradition that guides action and thought. "it is a tradition f pro-activity; and active stance. It includes the archetypal activity of sketching by which designers becomes involved in the reflective conversation needed to bring new artifacts into being." "the role of design in HCI is thus to be found in the act of trying to unfold a coherent whole, from the various bits and pieces gathered together in the process of research." "Field work, theory, and evaluation data provide systematically acquired input to this process, but do not by themselves provide the neccesary whole. For the latter, there is only design."

However, I am not convinced how distinction between design-oriented research and research-oriented design can be useful.

Shall we consider deployment as design, shall we consider use as design? design is a very fuzzy word.

Phoebe Sengers and her colleagues propose for reflective design. They argue that reflections on unconscious values embedded in technologies and every practices it supports should be a core principle of technology design. In their definition, reflection is referred to as critical reflection, which bring unconscious aspects of experience to conscious awareness, thereby making them available for conscious choice. Therefore, reflection, or critical reflection, is important for "individual freedom and our quality of life in a society as a whole", because it allows us to consciously think about attitudes, practices, values and identities that we might unconsciously espouse.Furthermore, since our everyday experiences with the world are shaped by our unconsciously held assumptions as part of our identity and the ways we experience the world, critical reflection can open opportunities for us to experience the world and ourselves in a fundamentally different way.

Senger's reflective design encompasses a much broader agenda. It include reflections for designers to rethink about their design practices, what values are embraced in their design choices, the role of users in the design process, and also provoke reflection on users what role the technology play, what is the relationship between technology and every lives. Much of their work of reflection design focusing on challenging the role played by technologies in our lives. Thus, they propose to embrace reflection not just in the final products, but in the whole design and evaluation process.

Furthermore, sengers also argues for an integration between reflection and actions, "critical relfection is effective only when it is immediately folded back into our experiences, actions, identities, and practices, rather than intellectual practice separate from actions." Thus social information, information about user presence and activities and patterns over time, should not just used for post-hoc reflection and evaluation, as traditionally favored, but should provide an "ongoing opportunity for everyday, open-ended reflection for the users during their own activities".


Phoebe Senger is very inspiring. It inspires me to think, traditional conception of location-based computing centered around locating, tracking, coordination, and etc. It is concerned with the accuracy, granularity, and ways of locating people. However, location could mean much more. It does not just indicate activities, but also collective and historical whereabouts can convey an atmosphere of the collective. Are they all together, are they isoloated in a quiet space? how often do they use the public space? will they tend to spend a lot time at certain play, or move around? How busy the faculity life is, they might be able to people's sense? people's collective use of the space overtime is a narrative of people, and vsualization provide a means to engage people to reflect and think of these questions.

Also by providing an easy means for people to opt in and opt out, it provokes them reflect on presentation, not just merely disclosure. to think of what does the place mean for them. when exposure is too much, how do they adjust to level of exposure. By providing simple means for them to supply place name and activity information, give them an chance to play with it, give them opportunities to shape the use of the technologies.

reflective design is a framework and a set of design strategies derived from a set of critical approaches: participatory design, value sensitive design, critical design, ludic design, critical technical practice, reflection-in-action. They argue, design should incorporate reflection as its fundamental principle.


reflect design argues for incorporating dialogue between designers and users in the

Bill Gaver suggests using ambiguous output to discount the interpretations made by sensing and learning in ubiquitous computing systems. Due to the inherent heterogenous and idiosyncratic nature of human activities, computer are relatively incapable to understand the full meaning and activiites and context. Therefore, they explor using embiguous outputs as a tactic to undermine system authority in favor of user's interpretations, stimulating reflection in ways.