That is very interesting in that that is how I approach design myself. I am a design / cyber anthropologist who happens to be employed as a usability and interface engineer for a software company while I work through grad school. Unfortunately most of what I work on is protected by an NDA and therefore I've not been able to really discuss it. However, I can say all of my designs start from the cultural context and move from there.
Thanks for the link! Best, Diana Harrelson Martin http://www.cyber-anthro.com http://www.webchica.com On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 7:38 AM, Jarod Tang <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Guys, > > There's a good introduction of activity theory, > http://mcs.open.ac.uk/yr258/act_theory/ > > texts from this article > " > As an alternative theory, the conceptual framework of Activity theory > is a good way of providing the means of analyzing the actions and > interactions with artifacts within a historical and cultural context – > an approach which was lacking in the existing cognitive theories. In > this context it is a descriptive tool and not a prescriptive one. > Activity Theory can be useful to design interfaces and systems that > take into account the context of use and thus could play an important > role in better user experiences. However it is not easy to find any > such examples where Activity Theory has been used. It offers concepts > and a language to discuss and describe human activity in a manner that > has a real world context though sometimes the distinctions of levels > of activity are not very clear. If designers could understand the > Activity Theory view of human activity i.e. a holistic view of > activity that takes into account context and culture, it would be > beneficial to a better understanding of user needs. > " > > here, by puting the persona/scenario and use case method under the > umbrella of Activity theory, it makes some sense. > > > Cheers, > -- Jarod > > -- > Designing for better life style. > > http://jarodtang.spaces.live.com/ > http://jarodtang.blogspot.com > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
