Activity Theory

1
Activity Theory

• Kathryn Summers
• Fall 2004

2
Definitions

• Praxisways of doing work grounded in tradition
  and shared by a group
• Consciousnesslocated in everyday practice, i.e.,
  you are what you do
• What you do is embedded in a social matrix of
  people and artifacts/tools
• Tools can be physical or social (i.e., sign
  systems such as language)

3
Set of basic principles

• Object orientedness
• Internalization/externalization
• Tool mediation
• Hierarchical structure of activity
• Continuous development

4
Object-orientedness

• Human beings live in an objective reality which
  shapes the nature of subjective phenomena
• Social/cultural properties are objective just as
  much as physical, chemical, or biological
  properties, i.e., they can be measured, analyzed,
  transferred, etc.

5
Internalization/externalization

• Internalization is transformation of external
  activities into internal activities.
• Internalization allows people to try or imagine
  potential interactions with reality without
  manipulating actual objects (mental simulations,
  planning, weighing alternatives)
• Externalization is transformation of internal
  activities into external ones.
• Externalization happens when an internal action
  needs to be repaired or is shared
  (collaboration) or comes to rely on a cognitive
  artifact

6
Internal activities

• Means mental processes
• Cannot be understood separately from external
  activities
• They are mutually transformative
• Internal activities become external and vice
  versa
• Internal and external activities share a common
  function (they mediate between the individual and
  the world) and they share a common structure
  (they mirror one another)

7
Tools or artifactsMediation

• Tools shape the way human beings interact with
  reality
• Tools shape external activities external
  activities shape internal activities
• Tools shape activities and are shaped by
  activities (tool mediation)
• Tools reflect the experience of other people
  trying to solve the same (or similar) problem.
  This experience is accumulated in the
  structural properties of the tool
• That istools accumulate and transmit social
  knowledge

8
Hierarchical structure of activity

• Activitiestop level, directed at an object that
  motivates the activity, made up of activities
• Actionsmiddle level, conscious, associated with
  goals
• Operationsbottom level, not conscious, they
  adjust actions to current situations
• An automatic operation can become an action if
  theres a breakdown that raises it to the
  conscious level actions become operations as
  they become routinized

9
Development

• Changes in the participants
• Changes in the tools
• Changes in the process
• Changes in the goals/motives

10
The model
community
tool
object
user
object
user
11
The model
motive
activity
action
goal
operation
conditions
12

• Motives are the objects (goals) which motivate
  human activities
• Goals are the objects human activities are
  directed at
• Operations dont have goalsthey adjust
  activities to current situations

13
Liam Bannon

• Mainstream cognitive psychology not much help in
  understanding HCI problems?shift away from theory
  toward practice
• Calls usability, scenarios, ethnography
  atheoretical or even antitheoretical

14
Bodker

• Focus on artifacts
• Look for breakdowns, situations where unexpected
  problems occur, or the tool behaves in an
  unexpected way
• Focus shiftsa change in the focus or object of
  actions or activity that is more deliberate than
  the changes caused by a breakdown

15
Engestrom

• Focus on contradictions
• Look at collective activity system
• Historical analysishow did system evolve to
  current state
• Inner contradictions of system as source of
  innovation, change, or development

16
Kaptelinin and Nardi

• Use activity theory to provide rigor and theory
  to support ethnography and participatory design
  activities
• Activity checklist
• Means and ends
• Social and physical aspects of environment
• Learning, cognition, articulation
• development

17
Activity checklist

• Structure of user activities
• Structure of environment
• Structure and dynamics of interaction
• Development (history)