Peter Wright, Department of Computer Science University of York UK: Technology as Experience

Today we don’t just use technology, we live with it. Much more deeply then ever before we are aware that interacting with technology involves us emotionally, intellectually and sensually. So people who design, use, and evaluate interactive systems need to be able to understand and analyse people’s felt experience with technology. While there is a great deal of concern with user experience in HCI and related fields, both in practice and comment, it is often unclear what is meant by the idea. Part of the problem here may be the traditional scientific and narrow cognitivist assumptions that underlay HCI as a discipline. Phil Agre has argued that from time to time we should deconstruct such taken-for-granted assumptions if we are to ensure a critical technical practice. In this talk, I shall argue the value of an approach to human activity based on a concept of meaning and experience rather than information and cognition (narrowly construed). Taking as my starting point the ideas of pragmatist philosophers of experience, especially Bakhtin and Dewey, I’ll describe a framework for analysing user experience and show how we have used it to explore people’s interactions with technology in terms of aesthetic engagement, situated creativity, centres of value, and sense making.

Dr. Peter Wright is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK. He has a research background in Applied Cognitive Science. He has developed new approaches to modelling interaction in work contexts and new evaluation methods for HCI and safety critical applications. Most recently he has been involved with John McCarthy for UCC, Ireland in developing a framework for analysing user experience inspired by film, literary and aesthetic theories The results of their research is due to be published in a book by MIT Press in 2004.

Välkomna!
Mikael Wiberg