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Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-computer Interaction (Hardcover)

by BA Nardi (Author) "What is activity theory, and how will it benefit studies of human-computer interaction? ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 376 pages
  • Publisher: MIT Press (2 Jan 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0262140586
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262140584
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 779,291 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #90 in  Books > Health, Family & Lifestyle > Psychology & Psychiatry > Specific Topics > Artificial Intelligence

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Product Description

Product Description

Intended for designers and researchers, "Context and Consciousness" brings together 13 contributions that apply activity theory to problems of human-computer interaction. Understanding how people actually use computers in their everyday lives is essential to good design and evaluation. This insight necessitates a move out of the laboratory and into the field. The research described in "Context and Consciousness" presents activity theory as a means of structuring and guiding field studies of human-computer interaction, from practical design to theoretical development. Activity theory is a psychological theory with a naturalistic emphasis, with roots going back to the 1920s in the Soviet Union. It provides a hierarchical framework for describing activity and a set of perspectives on practice. Activity theory has been fruitfully applied in many areas of human need, including problems of mentally and physically handicapped children, educational testing, curriculum design, and ergonomics. There is growing interest in applying activity theory to problems of human-computer interaction, and an international community of researchers is contributing to the effort.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Introduction to Activity Theory, 6 Jun 2006
By G. Boag-Munroe "gillboag" (West Midlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I have found this collection to be one of the best introductions to Activity Theory. In a range of papers which gives a feel of the field it explains the key concepts and draws attention to the variety of applications of the theory. Although AT has moved on since the publication of this text, I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting to work with the theory. Use it alongside Cole's Cultural Psychology and Engestrom et al's Perspectives on Activity Theory.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Still not clear on the details, 7 Jul 2004
I, as one new to the idea of Activity Theory, felt I didn't get as much out of this book as I should have - many issues were glossed over as if they were assumed to already be familiar to the reader. A more thorough grounding in the ideas of Activity Theory would probably have been beneficial to understand the finer details. As far as I got it, a summary of the message of the book is:
People do what they do for a purpose, and one will make a better computer system if one knows what the user's purpose is.

To me that seems neither controversial nor particularly different from what ethnomethodology purports to do. I found the descriptions of actual systems analyses in Part II to be the most interesting and useful material, but they were also so different in execution from one another that I was left to wonder whether there in fact is any *method* to Activity Theory, or if it is simply that idea that users have reasons that then has inspired researchers to make analyses in whatever manner they felt like.

Part III contains a long and rambling philosophy of Activity Theory in the light of the poetry of Mandelstam, extended with psychedelic diagrams. I really felt the book would have been better off without this chapter. Sadly, all the authors' diagrams tend to be more confusing than illustrative and perhaps that also speaks for the less than precise nature of the theory in that there is no well-developed notation for describing one's findings.

The book was produced in the amazingly short time of a year from idea to print, and while that speaks much for the discipline and ability of the authors, I think the publisher should have spent a bit more effort on proofreading and better-quality images.

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