Thanks for very an interesting description of your field. I'm not very
familiar with your area (a good excuse) so I have a lot of stupid questions
to ask. For example, what it means "Human-Computer Interaction"? I, as a
lay person, would say that I never interact with a computer, like I do not
interact with a fork or a spoon -- I just use them. When I say that I
interact with a text or a book, I feel it is like a metaphor of saying that
I interact with the author of the text or the book. The closest sense I can
think of interaction is when I play chess with a computer. I may feel it as
an opponent and not just conduit of designer's will. So, what do people in
your area mean by "Human-Computer Interaction"?
My second question is about why to study HCI? Is it about designing better
computers? What drives you to work in that area (i.e., Eva's question)?
Sorry that I can't be able to help you with your specific questions.
Eugene
> As I said in my previous message, I have some questions of methodology
> I would like to ask these community.
>
> First of all, I would say I'm doing my Ph.D. in the field of
> Human-Computer Interaction. I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Master on
> Informatics. The university In which I am doing my Ph.D. does not have a
> group on HCI and I doing my job very much alone with the approval of my
> supervisor.
>
> My thesis is related to design processes in HCI, and I'm studying how
> theories of communication, which include areas such as Semiotics (Peirce),
> Literary Criticism (Bakhtin), could be used in technology development and
> what they have to offer. About the "human" component of the HCI, I'm
> drawing upon CHAT, Situated Cognition, and Distributed Cognition. For the
> "computer" side, I'm using studies in "Software Design" and "Science
> and Technology Studies".
>
> My main difficulties are related to how to discuss theories normally
> related to the human sciences in a computer science millieu. In such a
> community, it can be said that there is a "culture of the deliverable"
> that has been established. Or you work on "practice" developing software
> or you prove something "theoretically". For the majority of people, there
> is no middle ground. They are not considered scientific. The solution
> normally is to adopted by people interested in this area is to use
> ethnomethodology to study or propose working environments mediated by
> technology.
>
> I would like to do that in the future but as a one man enterprise I do not
> have the time nor the resources to develop a system and than access its
> use. But I haven't chose this venue because it is my opinion that the
> theoretical frameworks are much more rich than they are being used (see
> my previous message) . But to put them in use, the differences and the
> benefits of each solution or school of though have to be understood. I
> see that with exceptions these solution s are starting to emerge, although
> most of the work still is restricted to specific communities and there is
> no scaffold that enable a comparative analysis of them.
>
> Comparisons made by either Liam Bannon or Bonnie Nardi conclude that most
> of the approaches intersect and are complementary, what I agree. The
> question I'm addressing is "How this happens?" . I'm not satisfied only
> with the use of the Cognitive Sciences within the Technological Sciences
> or vice versa or to chose one approach instead of another. Choices like
> that create dualism traps that are difficult to escape, even if one
> adopts a CHAT aproach.
>
> At the moment I'm comparing different models, both of communication,
> semiosis or mediation, in order to establish a common language in which
> technologists could manage to understand the importance of theories done
> in the Human Sciences and the Arts for this context.
>
> Questions that I ask myself are? Is that too much for a Ph.D.? Will the
> community in which I'm working accepted, although it is an approach
> completely different from standard practice?
>
> If you have any suggestions or comments, I would like to hear from you.
>
> Thank you very much again.
> Luiz
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> Luiz Ernesto Merkle merkle who-is-at csd.uwo.ca
> University of Western Ontario voice: +1 519 858 3375 (home)
> Department of Computer Science fax: +1 519 661 3515 (work)
> N6A 5B7 London Ontario Canada www.csd.uwo.ca/~merkle
>