John C. McCarthy

Aesthetics and experience-centered design

The aesthetics of human-computer interaction and interaction design are conceptualized in terms of a pragmatic account of human experience. We elaborate this account through a framework for aesthetic experience built around three themes: (1) a holistic approach wherein the person with feelings, emotions, and thoughts is the focus of design; (2) a constructivist stance in which self is seen as continuously engaged and constituted in making sense of experience; and (3) a dialogical ontology in which self, others, and technology are constructed as multiple centers of value. We use this framework to critically reflect on research into the aesthetics of interaction and to suggest sensibilities for designing aesthetic interaction. Finally, a digital jewelery case study is described to demonstrate a design approach that is open to the perspectives presented in the framework and to consider how the framework and sensibilities are reflected in engagement with participants and approach to design.

Making sense of experience

When this chapter appeared in the first edition of Funology in 2003, there was an emerging interest in user experience. However, the information processing theories and models of interaction that were used at the time lacked the concepts and vocabulary necessary to understand how to design for experience. So, in ‘Making Sense of Experience’ we offered a vocabulary and a set of concepts to be used by HCI researchers and designers interested in user experience. When we were invited to revise the chapter for Funology 2, we decided to leave it as originally published but to add an endnote reflecting how our ideas have developed since 2003. This ‘endnote’ features as the preface to this chapter, and to also our other chapter, The Enchantments of Technology.

The experience of enchantment in human–computer interaction

Improving user experience is becoming something of a rallying call in human–computer interaction but experience is not a unitary thing. There are varieties of experiences, good and bad, and we need to characterise these varieties if we are to improve user experience. In this paper we argue that enchantment is a useful concept to facilitate closer relationships between people and technology. But enchantment is a complex concept in need of some clarification. So we explore how enchantment has been used in the discussions of technology and examine experiences of film and cell phones to see how enchantment with technology is possible. Based on these cases, we identify the sensibilities that help designers design for enchantment, including the specific sensuousness of a thing, senses of play, paradox and openness, and the potential for transformation. We use these to analyse digital jewellery in order to suggest how it can be made more enchanting. We conclude by relating enchantment to varieties of experience.

Experience-Centered Design: Designers, Users, and Communities in Dialogue

Experience-centered design, experience-based design, experience design, designing for experience, user experience design. All of these terms have emerged and gained acceptance in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design relatively recently. In this book, we set out our understanding of experience-centered design as a humanistic approach to designing digital technologies and media that enhance lived experience. The book is divided into three sections. In Section 1, we outline the historical origins and basic concepts that led into and flow out from our understanding of experience as the heart of peoples interactions with digital technology. In Section 2, we describe three examples of experience-centered projects and use them to illustrate and explain our dialogical approach. In Section 3, we recapitulate some of the main ideas and themes of the book and discuss the potential of experience-centered design to continue the humanist agenda by giving a voice to those who might otherwise be excluded from design and by creating opportunities for people to enrich their lived experience with and through technology. Table of Contents: How Did We Get Here? / Some Key Ideas Behind Experience-Centered Design / Making Sense of Experience in Experience-Centered Design / Experience-Centered Design as Dialogue / What do We Mean by Dialogue? / Valuing Experience-Centered Design / Where Do We Go from Here?

Positioning in Practice: Understanding Participation in the Social World

In this paper we explore the possibilities of building on the complementarities of practice and discourse, specifically community of practice and discursive positioning, as a way of developing accounts of the childs experience in the classroom. Our accounts are based on interpreting extracts of classroom practice which are drawn from a broader project concerned with describing participation in schooling. Our aim is. to develop conceptual resources for understanding particular moments of interaction in a social setting.

An experimental study of common ground in text-based communication

An experiment was performed to examine predictions from Clark’s contribution theory of discourse. Pairs were asked to use a text-based synchronous messaging system to solve a problem involving the layout of a bank. Contribution theory suggests that in such text-only communication common ground will be difficult to achieve. This was shown to be the case. A parallel system, where participants could use a common report space in addition to the messaging space, significantly reduced these probIems. The implications for design are discussed in terms of providing additional channels for communicating the results of discussion separate from the conversation itself.

Putting ‘felt-life’ at the centre of human–computer interaction (HCI)

In this article, we argue that putting felt-life, that is life as lived, sensed and experienced, at the centre of human–computer interaction (HCI) both focuses attention on the sensual and emotional and throws new light on the cognitive and intellectual aspects of people’s interactions with technology. As a consequence, it offers an opportunity to address issues such as resistance, identity, and attachment that are not otherwise addressed in HCI. Some of the analytic and empirical possibilities for addressing issues such as these are described, and the methodological requirement for local, context-rich research discussed. Finally, the opportunity that a felt-life approach opens up to raise critically reflective questions about technology and self is discussed. In this context, a framework for exploring interaction by placing technologies and activities in relation to each other on felt-life dimensions, such as interpassive–interactive and mutual-one-sided, is exemplified. The framework is used here to address design and evaluation questions that relate to self and agency in human computer interactions.

The value of the novel in designing for experience

If future interaction design is to take designing for experience seriously we must first understand more clearly what we mean by experience. We argue that the science-based disciplines usually associated with human-computer interaction may not be the best place to look for such theoretical foundations and that it may be time for human-computer interaction to look farther afield to the arts and humanities. We have turned towards the pragmatic philosophy of John Dewey and the literary theory and philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin as our starting point. In this chapter we lean on Bakhtins analysis of the novel and “felt life” and use this to explore ways in which we can help designers engage with experience. Building on Bakhtins analysis of creative understanding, we argue for a dialogical analysis of the relationship between designer and user. We conclude with one or two interesting examples of design work that seem to capture the spirit of this approach to design.

Reviewing the "Community of Practice" Metaphor: An Analysis of Control Relations in a Primary School Classroom

Treating classroom learning as a community process of transforming participation in social practices has provided a useful corrective to predominantly abstract, mentalistic conceptualizations of learning. For example, Laves community of practice and Rogoffs community of learners emphasize the ways in which learning is deeply situated in a persons becoming part of a community through participation in socially organized activities or practices. Although highly suggestive, both practically and conceptually, a review of the community metaphor and its development in theories such as Laves and Rogoffs is necessary. In current use the metaphor pays insufficient attention to the complex and often messy relations between individuals and between individuals and communities, which contribute to shaping the very social practices in which learning is situated in these models. Further development of community models of classroom learning requires a clearer conceptualization of these relations, if individual and community are not to be reified and rendered useless in a relational account of learning. We develop this argument with reference to an analysis of control relations in a primary school classroom. Our reading of extracts from interactions in this classroom highlights shifting relations of responsibility and control in the classroom and the negotiated nature of participation in particular practices.

Measures of Process

It has been said that all work is cooperative, and so any work supported by a computer is computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). To some, such a position would seem to give a book on evaluation for CSCW a very wide brief: we would like to widen it still further. Our primary concern is how one can evaluate the wide range of electronic facilities now being provided to help people communicate and cooperate. These facilities range from email and on-line electronic conferencing to video links used as an adjunct to shared tools. Their purpose is to mediate conversations between people about work, and their use has been dubbed “mediated” communication in order to differentiate it from the more common face-to-face communication.