RE: Application Principles and AT Analysis (Help Needed!)

Rob Skinner (Rob.Skinner who-is-at suffolk.ac.uk)
Tue, 25 May 1999 13:34:55 +0100

While I agree with your points below I undestood the original suggestion
that Norman & Winograd are worth consulting to be in respect of the
application area I am interested in rather than any light they may shed
on any aspect of Activity Theory.

It seems to me that the writers using terms such as "Information
Appliance" (e.g Donald Norman) and "Ubiquitous Computing" (e.g. Mark
Weiser) reveal the operation of informal models of human behaviour.

In my opinion Activity Theory can/could be used to formalise and improve
those underlying models and thereby ratifiy, improve or challenge those
terms and the use of them. In any event this is an essential aspiration
for my research.
Regards & thanks
Rob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Yrjo Engestrom [SMTP:yengestr who-is-at ucsd.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 1:32 AM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: Application Principles and AT Analysis (Help
> Needed!)
>
> Thanks for the responses to my query concerning the relationship of
> Don
> Norman's and Terry Winograd's works to activity theory.
>
> Let's be very clear. Terry Winograd has a consciously elaborated
> theoretical and epistemological framework which is entirely different
> from
> activity theory. Don Norman - if he has a theoretical and
> epistemological
> framework, which I doubt (no offense, Don) - is still mainly rooted in
> some
> version of cognitive engineering paradigm.
>
> Both are surely useful for a student of activity theory. So are
> thousands
> of other books and authors. The fact that Don gives a reference to
> some
> activity-theoretical text or that Terry discusses usability and
> artifacts
> does not make them activity theory.
>
> So let's not inflate activity theory into an unrecognizable balloon of
> everything interesting. Let's discuss different approaches
> acknowledging
> their own frameworks and roots.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Yrjo Engestrom
>