Introduction to Activity Theory

Stephanie Gokhman
HCDE 501: May 17, 2011 6:00pm
Mary Gates 074
University of Washington
Today's readings

• Kaptelinin & Nardi "Do we need theory in interaction design?"

• Kaptelinin & Nardi "Activity Theory in a Nutshell"
• Winsor "Using Texts to Manage Continuity and Change in an Activity
System"
Refresher:
Why do we need theory in HCI?
“The value of any theory is not “whether the theory or
framework provides an objective representation of reality”,
but rather how well a theory can shape an object of study,
highlighting relevant issues. In other words, a classification
scheme is only useful to the point that it provides relevant
insights about the objects it is applied to.”
Barthelmess and Anderson

• Ways to approach understanding a phenomena (analytical

power)
• Ways to find patterns across interactions (inferential power)
• Ways to describe phenomena (descriptive power)
• Ways to present phenomena (rhetorical power)
Kaptelinin & Nardi "Do We Need
Theory in Interaction Design?"
Postcognitivist perspective on interaction design (cognitivist
view was "limited")
Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel and Sacks, who "distrusted"
theory)
Subjects are experts in their field
Why these theories?

Activity Theory...
Actor-Network Theory...
Distributed Cognition...
etc ?

• Minimizes the complexities of ethnography by providing

focus
• Maps reality to theoretical constructs
Kaptelinin & Nardi "Activity Theory in a
Nutshell"

"Separately hydrogen and oxygen are flammable but together

they make water"
Kaptelinin & Nardi "Activity Theory in a
Nutshell"
Origins of Activity Theory
• Developed from Vygotsky & Leont'ev in the 1920s
o Vygotsky's Cultural & Historical Perspective: the mind
exists within a human who exists in the world
o Leont'ev claims that you cannot pull apart human activity
from the sociocultural context within which the activity is
conducted
o Leont'ev: activities, actions, operations
• AT came to the West in the 1950s through Engestrom,
"mediating artifacts"
• AT first used in HCI in the 1990s
Activity Theory
Tree
What is "activity"?

• "Purposeful interaction" between subject and object in the

world mediated by tools (both psychological and physical)
• Socially and culturally determined
• Fulfill motives (which are not always consciously aware)
• Any task can be broken into actions and subdivided into
operations
• Hierarchy of activity:
o Goal (intentional)
o Task (intentional)
o Operation (automatic)
Activity as the Unit of Analysis

From whole system to specific interaction

Subject + Object + Mediating Tools + Sociocultural Rules

Context: Subject-object interaction

Analysis: Meaningful goal-directed action
Methods: Real life use
Time span: Developmental transformations (practices
over time, dynamic, continual change)

Activity theory is truly "human-centered"

Object Orientedness

• Reality is objective: always doing "something" to

"something"
• Always directed toward "something"
• Automatic, conscious actions
• Goal-directed actions
• Intentionality
• Agency of humans
Agency

Agency is an Actor-Network Theory concept

Asymmetry of agency:
• Humans are information processing entities
• Humans have needs
• Humans have power over and attraction to objects
• Objects do not have agency
• Object provides motives
Contrast with Actor-Network Theory

• Agency of non-humans
• Symmetry between human and non-human
• "Actants": both humans and non-humans
• Material-semiotic: maps things and concepts into a network
• Intermediaries vs mediators
Mediation & Mediating Tools

• Tools shape the way a human interacts with an object

• Use of tools reflects previous societal attempts at solving
similar problems
o knowledge of how the tool should be used
o convergence of internal and external
• Mediating tools are also changed by the interaction as
activity occurs
• Mediating tools have been changed through previous
interactions
Internalization/Externalization

• Transformation of physical action into mental processing

• Example: mental modeling
• With repetition, goal-directed activities become
operationalized/internalized
• When an internal activity needs to be manipulated it is
generally externalized (especially in collaboration)
The Triangulation of Activity Theory
Activity Theory & Distributed Cognition

Differences:

• In DCog, Less vocabulary and less constructs (requires

more descriptive work)
• In DCog, more flexibility in unit of analysis
• In DCog, cognition is foreground
• In AT, cognitive processes are underlying
• In DCog, all elements are actors contributing to the cognitive
process
• In AT, needs/motivation/goals belong to the subject and are
only possessed by living things
Activity Theory & Distributed Cognition

Similarities

• Common intellectual history (cognition)

• Began appearing in HCI at the same time w Hutchins /
Engestrom
• Emphasize social, cultural and historical context
• "Unity of Consciousness": the human mind is intrinsically
related to the outside world
• The social nature of the human mind (deeply influenced by
cultural/historical)

More comparison next lecture...

How can we apply Activity Theory in
HCI?
What are the main things AT does for HCI?
• Demonstrates context
• Demonstrates usefulness and limitations of tools

Technology...
• ... is also embedded in meaningful context just like humans
• ... is more than information processing and exists at several
levels of operation
• ... facilitates and constrains activity
• ... supports human goals
• ... is used and built based on social rules
How can we apply Activity Theory in
HCI?
Physical:
operation of a device as a physical object

Handling:
logical structure of interaction
Subject-object directed:
How objects are related to reality
Winsor "Using Text to Manage
Continuity and Change in an Activity
System"
Activity Theory in practice:
• Enthographic approach w/ interviews on n=4 group of
engineers in cooperative engineering department
• Documents serve as common objects/"illusion of stability"
• Uses AT to demonstrate regulation in the creation of
documents does not exist as a hierarchy but instead shared
negotiation serving the self interests of those involved
• AT serves "to ask us where regulation (and genre) come
from"
• AT provides triangulation at a particular moment in time,
representing a stable reality despite that reality is in a state
of constant change
Activity: Become an AT Analyst!
Working Alone:
• Pick out an activity or two that you captured in your field
notes that could be looked at through the lens of Activity
Theory.
• Plot out who are the actors, what is the object, what is the
mediating tool, what is the context, what is the goal, etc.

Then, Working Together:

• Select the most appropriate activity of the collective activities
from the previous exercise. Flesh out how you would talk
about this activity. Include discussion of technology
affordances and constraints as well as
internalization/externalization.

For the week:

• Post to Go-Post: Activity and some notes, questions
 Questions?

Stephanie Gokhman
sgokhman@uw.edu