Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as a basis for understanding our relationship with technology. Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi describe activity theory's principles, history, relationship to other theoretical approaches, and application to the analysis and design of technologies. The book provides the first systematic entry-level introduction to the major principles of activity theory. It describes the accumulating body of work in interaction design informed by activity theory, drawing on work from an international community of scholars and designers. Kaptelinin and Nardi examine the notion of the object of activity, describe its use in an empirical study, and discuss key debates in the development of activity theory. Finally, they outline current and future issues in activity theory, providing a comparative analysis of the theory and its leading theoretical competitors within interaction design: distributed cognition, actor-network theory, and phenomenologically inspired approaches.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"With elegance and clarity, Acting with Technology outlines a theoretical perspective that helps interaction design meet its future. This book delves into the intricacies of collective activities and mediated cognitive systems, while offering a principled guide for codeveloping technology and societal practices. It is essential reading in an age when computers and software have long since escaped the confines of individual users and workstations." Sampsa Hyysalo , Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work, University of Helsinki
"With elegance and clarity, *Acting with Technology* outlines a theoretical perspective that helps interaction design meet its future. This book delves into the intricacies of collective activities and mediated cognitive systems, while offering a principled guide for codeveloping technology and societal practices. It is essential reading in an age when computers and software have long since escaped the confines of individual users and workstations."--Sampsa Hyysalo, Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, University of Helsinki
About the Author
Victor Kaptelinin is Professor in the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden and coeditor of Beyond the Desktop Metaphor: Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments (MIT Press, 2007).
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fantastic Book for Activity Theory,
By Yang Li (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design (Hardcover)
Acting with Technology is a great book that introduces Activity Theory to the field of human computer interaction and interaction design. This is a great expansion on "Context and Consciousness"--an earlier book edited by Bonnie Nardi (one of the authors). This new book strengthens two important aspects that were not elaborated on previously. First, the authors talked about Activity Theory not only in a sense of what it is but also "why" it is. As a reader, I benefited by knowing the history and evolution of the theory. In particular, the authors made a great effort to clarify those difficult, elusive concepts such as activities and objects. Second, the book illustrates a collection of design examples that were designed based on or informed by Activity Theory. These examples demonstrated how Activity Theory can be applied in practice to a good extent. As a ubicomp researcher, I see the great value of the theory being able to articulate interaction design for less structural, contextual everyday activities. This top-down, human-need driven approach provides good ingredients to existing ubicomp research. I believe more compelling design examples will emerge as the theory is grasped and employed by researchers and practitioners. To this end, this new book certainly makes a great contribution to explaining this valuable theory to the field. The book is very well written and easy to understand. It should be appealing to many HCI/ubicomp researchers.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best part is the context,
By Brent G. Wilson (Louisville Colorado) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design (Paperback)
As an instructional designer with a starting familiarity with activity theory, I most enjoyed the chapters comparing CHAT with other "post-cognitive" theories - distributed cognition, actor-network theory, ethnomethodology, etc. These sections helped me better understand this theoretical terrain, which I think is hugely important for understanding human activity. Great implications for education, interaction design, and other human studies.
Activity theory differs from distributed cognition and actor-network theory in placing human agency above artifacts and tools - the authors call this an "asymmetry" between human and artificial actors. Activity theory differs from ethnomethodology in its greater use of theory and models and abstractions - something the ethno-methods folks try to avoid. This is the best intro to activity theory (for theorists) that I'm aware of.
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