Most recent edit on 2005-01-25 15:16:45 by JudeYew
Additions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapter6 (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
JudeYew
I agree with both Laurie and Xiaomu that Simon's 2 chapters do provide a good foundation of what Caroll is trying to put forward in HCI being a Science of Design. However, I would like to raise a query about Activity Theory that Caroll brings up in the article and make links to Simon's points. Caroll's sees activity theory as being "human behavior and experience (that) both adpats to and transforms social and technological context" (p. 515) This sounds very much like Simon's "Generatest cycle" that he proposes in his Science of Design. It is interesting to note that Caroll views HCI as being endemic to the "Waterfall" development cycle of software and systems. Here we see how a theory which Simon puts forward is linked by Caroll to Activity Theory and seen to be applied in the development cycle. I would like to know more about Activity Theory and how it relates to the design of online communities. It would seem to me that Activity Theory sounds very much like "Structuration Theory". Comments welcome.
Deletions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapter6 (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Edited on 2005-01-25 13:29:34 by DerekHansen
Additions:
This article was a good companion to the Simon readings for this week. While Simon discussed the necessity of studying design, the Carroll reading discussed how people have attempted to approach this task in the HCI arena. In terms of practical research involving online communities, by discussing the history and future of the field of HCI, Carroll demonstrates to researchers what has happened in the past and what the current trends of research are. By highlighting contextual design, Carroll suggests that this is the way that we should be outlining any investigative studies concerning technologies due to the fact that this is the way that research is heading at the moment. By looking at online communities from a contextual standpoint, not only can we strive to develop better communities, but we can strive to do better research on them as well.
I thought the Chen2004 proposal was a very nice example of what Carroll1997 envisioned as a science of design. Chen2004 attempts to methodically (i.e., scientifically) explore various social and technical design options and discover in what circumstances they occur. [DerekHansen]
As Laurie said, this paper is a good companion to the Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial. Actually, as the author mentioned at the beginning of this paper, his touchstone is Simon’s book. Before reading this paper, I was wondering why we were assigned to read this paper (as the paper mainly reviews the history of HCI). What I got from this paper particularly important to our class theme, eCommunities, is Carroll’s interpretation and argument of the steps of HCI’s development toward a science of design. According to him, the design of human activities and the technologies that support them are a special case of “design”, which is frontier for a science of design. If we agree with this argument, we would think the design of eCommunities is also a science of design since it involves more complicated human activities and technologies. In HCI research area, human activities more likely refer to people’s interactions with computers and interface; whereas in the eCommunities, human activities involves people’s interactions with both computers and other people who are online. [I think that in the past this may have been true, but nowdays HCI is much more about how social systems use computer/communication technology. For example, CSCW has become an ever-more important part of the HCI community. Unfortunately, the term Human Computer Interaction is a bit outdated and misleading today - DerekHansen] As Carroll points out, the science of design involves design and the design process though rationale and history to understand better what was done, why it was done and how it might be improved, which we could borrow as our eCommunities design principles.
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapter6 (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Deletions:
This article was a good companion to the Simon readings for this week. While Simon discussed the necessity of studying design, the Carroll reading discussed how people have attempted to approach this task. In terms of practical research involving online communities, by discussing the history and future of the field of HCI, Carroll demonstrates to researchers what has happened in the past and what the current trends of research are. By highlighting contextual design, Carroll suggests that this is the way that we should be outlining any investigative studies concerning technologies due to the fact that this is the way that research is heading at the moment. By looking at online communities from a contextual standpoint, not only can we strive to develop better communities, but we can strive to do better research on them as well.
As Laurie said, this paper is a good companion to the Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial. Actually, as the author mentioned at the beginning of this paper, his touchstone is Simon’s book. Before reading this paper, I was wondering why we were assigned to read this paper (as the paper mainly reviews the history of HCI). What I got from this paper particularly important to our class theme, eCommunities, is Carroll’s interpretation and argument of the steps of HCI’s development toward a science of design. According to him, the design of human activities and the technologies that support them are a special case of “design”, which is frontier for a science of design. If we agree with this argument, we would think the design of eCommunities is also a sceicen of design since it involves more complicated human activities and technologies. In HCI research area, human activities more likely refer to people’s interactions with computers and interface; whereas in the eCommunities, human activities involves people’s interactions with both computers and other people who are online. As Carroll points out, the science of design involves design and the design process though rationale and history to understand better what was done, why it was done and how it might be improved, which we could borrow as our eCommunities design principles.
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapter6 (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Edited on 2005-01-25 10:20:44 by DerekHansen
Additions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapter6 (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Deletions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapterSix (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Edited on 2005-01-25 10:20:17 by DerekHansen
Additions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that SimonChapterSix (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Deletions:
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that Simon’s Chapter Six (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Edited on 2005-01-24 23:17:58 by phd13-xp.si.umich.edu
Additions:
Class Discussion
XiaomuZhou
As Laurie said, this paper is a good companion to the Simon’s The Sciences of the Artificial. Actually, as the author mentioned at the beginning of this paper, his touchstone is Simon’s book. Before reading this paper, I was wondering why we were assigned to read this paper (as the paper mainly reviews the history of HCI). What I got from this paper particularly important to our class theme, eCommunities, is Carroll’s interpretation and argument of the steps of HCI’s development toward a science of design. According to him, the design of human activities and the technologies that support them are a special case of “design”, which is frontier for a science of design. If we agree with this argument, we would think the design of eCommunities is also a sceicen of design since it involves more complicated human activities and technologies. In HCI research area, human activities more likely refer to people’s interactions with computers and interface; whereas in the eCommunities, human activities involves people’s interactions with both computers and other people who are online. As Carroll points out, the science of design involves design and the design process though rationale and history to understand better what was done, why it was done and how it might be improved, which we could borrow as our eCommunities design principles.
However, in terms of social dynamic nature of eCommunities, I believe that Simon’s Chapter Six (Social Planning) provides us more applicability as JudeYew also agrees. Simon clearly addresses many important issues in designing an evolving artifact (e.g. eCommunties social process in our case).
Oldest known version of this page was edited on 2005-01-22 15:20:49 by LaurieBuis []
Page view:
Carroll, J. M. (1997) Human-computer interaction: psychology as a science of design. Int. J. Human-Computer Studies. 46, 501-522.
Discussion leader/summarizer:
LaurieBuis
Research Question:
This article is an overview summary of the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Because of its nature as an overview summary, this article does not truly address any specific research question.
Key Points/Claims/Methods
This article is broken up into three different sections; the emergence of usability, user-centered system development, and the creation of a new discipline.
Emergence of Usability
This section presents the evolution of HCI starting from its beginnings in software psychology in the 1970’s and 1980’s. At this time, the goal of software psychology was to establish a more rigorous approach to understanding how people interact with software and how in turn to design software for human use. The field of software psychology introduced this notion of usability and identified how the design model of the time, which involved a top-down design process (aka waterfall model of design) had inherent problematic implications for software design. Because design is truly an iterative process, it was necessary to restructure the business practices of a software company to reflect the iterative nature of the design process.
Also addressed in this section was the notion of introducing scientific research methods that could aid in system development. GOMS was identified as being one of the first scientific approaches to understanding human interaction with technology. While GOMS was a great effort to systematically approach usability, it was not without limitations and flaws. Not only did it fail to address issues of human learning in computer interactions, but it did not address error and error recovery.
User-Centered System Development
Though the usability of systems was not considered of great import in the mid-1970’s, by the mid-1980’s and 1990’s, HCI was thoroughly embedded in computer science. Not only are HCI specialists employed in the usability testing phase of software design, but by this time, they had been employed at all stages of the design process, from start to finish. Usability engineering has become a legitimate and necessary addition to the design process. Usability specifications are standard practice for all system designs and scientific methodologies have been introduced to study usability in a systematic format (though the last decade has seen a trend toward more qualitative research methods). In addition, the cost effectiveness of usability engineering has been identified and software developers now must understand the balance between testing to a point of diminishing returns.
Synthesizing a discipline
In his book Sciences of the Artificial, Simon states that “the proper study of mankind is the science of design”. Carroll argues that the study of technology design and human behaviors is a broad interpretation of Simon’s quote, but a valid one. Carroll argues that this is perhaps the frontier of a science of design. He goes on to discuss HCI as having a promising future.
Critique
This article provided a nice overview of the creation and evolution of the field of HCI. In a way, it managed to condense the two year teachings of the SI specialization in HCI into a simple to understand summary. I think that this article should be required reading for anyone thinking of going into the HCI track here at SI. While it did not go too deep into the different research methods (though it did address many of the main ones), it provided a solid account of the history of the field, its core objectives, and the past and present issues that researchers in the field have had to, and will have to face. Carroll did a nice job nailing home the both the importance and value of HCI. Though this article is five years old, I do not really feel like too much has changed since its publication. Many of this issues central to HCI are still the same.
Connections with other readings, ideas, etc.
This article was a good companion to the Simon readings for this week. While Simon discussed the necessity of studying design, the Carroll reading discussed how people have attempted to approach this task. In terms of practical research involving online communities, by discussing the history and future of the field of HCI, Carroll demonstrates to researchers what has happened in the past and what the current trends of research are. By highlighting contextual design, Carroll suggests that this is the way that we should be outlining any investigative studies concerning technologies due to the fact that this is the way that research is heading at the moment. By looking at online communities from a contextual standpoint, not only can we strive to develop better communities, but we can strive to do better research on them as well.