CCT 333: Imagining the Audience in a Wired World

Class 9: Complexity, Activity Theory and Final Test Review

Complexity and Interaction

• What technologies may get more complex to use when more people are involved?

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

• Xerox technician example – formalized plans complimented by dialogue, sharing of stories

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

Subject Object

Praxis Community Division ofLabour

Nodes in Activity Triangle

• Subject - people• Object - goal, task (think objective, not things)• Artefact - tools, technologies• Community - others affected by the activity• Division of Labour – the role of power

relations in accomplishing task• Praxis – norms/mores governing activity

Contradictions

• Primary - conflict at node (e.g., two subjects having different notions)

• Secondary - conflict between nodes (e.g., division of labour causing ineffective power relations)

• Tertiary - conflicts when activities are redesigned (e.g., change in model conflicts with old expectations)

• 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.

Final Test Review

• Some MC – 15 for 30%• A case study – a set of questions based on a

single premise• Mostly based on lecture material, but do

know the general lay of the land of the labs (e.g., if you were going to pick 3 things you learned from labs on case X, what would they be?)

• 1:00-2:50pm, right here.