Activity-Centered
Design: An Ecological Approach to Designing
Smart Tools and Usable Systems
Geri Gay
and Helene Hembrooke
The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004
144 pp., illus. Trade, $30.00
ISBN: 0-262-07248-3.
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Southern Cross University, Australia
recluse@lis.net.au
This book is essential reading for anyone
involved with the design and development
of ‘anything’ and is especially
relevant to the design of technological
‘things’—from hand held
computers to virtual cyberspaces. Its
basic message expounds the virtues of
"activity-centered design".
The theoretical basis of activity-centered
design is located in a "social constructivist"
approach and, simply stated, notes that
learning is—"a complex process in
which an individual’s cognition is
defined by its relation to the material
setting and the forms of social participation
encouraged by those settings" (p. 53).
To put this in the context of technological
artefacts, of which tools are a part,
the tool changes what the end-user does
and, then, in a feedback situation, what
the end-user does and wants to do
modifies the design of the tool.
This is the theory; in practice, however,
especially in the immediate past, this
concept has rarely been employed. "Developer
knows best" was the philosophy underpinning
much of the activity of designer/developers
(p. 18). This meant little or no dialogue
or consultation with the users of the
products, consequently much of the ‘technological
junk’ foisted upon the public was
(and still is) irritating to use, underutilized
because of the lack of user-friendliness
and, therefore, wasteful of both time
and energy.
One can only applaud any attempts to critique
bad design and to foster research into
both ACD and HCI (Human Computer Interaction)
and their resultant practical applications
and artefacts; however, it should never
have been necessary! Much of what this
slim volume attempts to convey is ‘glaringly
self-evident’. If designers put aside
their ‘electronic prowess’ and
‘plastic injection moulding magic’
for just a few minutes and used some common
sense, the world would be a much better
place.
An example of what I call the "brilliance-stupidity"
paradox will illustrate my point. My five-year
old laptop recently had a CMOS battery
failure. I marvelled at the designer’s
brilliance as I attempted to ‘deconstruct’
the computer; after many hours I managed
to find the battery, then rang numerous
computer shops to buy a new one. "Sorry
don’t sell ‘em probably have
to chuck the laptop away". Yeah right!
I bought a cordless phone battery (same
specs) and installed it––this
time in a position that could be accessed
without completely disassembling
the entire machine. The stupidity of placing
a ‘consumable’ in such a place
is the other side of the paradox.
If activity-centered design and the wisdom
of this book is understood and utilised
by designers, it will go a long way toward
decreasing the endemic design stupidity
in many of our day to day gadgets and
products. These range from sauce bottle
tops that cannot be opened without a mechanic’s
multi-grip pliers to VCRs that a few years
ago were so over-designed that consumers
refused to buy them!
The book has an excellent bibliography
and six chapters as follows: Chapter (1)
Activity Theory and Context-Based Design,
(2) Understanding Perspectives: Social
Construction of Technology, (3) Creating
a Sense of Place: Designing for Online
Learning Conversations, (4) Blurring Boundaries:
A Study of Ubiquitous Computing, (5) Designing
for Context-Aware Computing, and (6) Configural
Analysis of Spaces and Places.
Whilst the book applies to artefact design
generally, it is very much specifically
orientated towards mobile, wireless, and
computer based technologies. Probably
its greatest strength, other than putting
designers of these technologies ‘on
notice’, is its insistence that these
technologies must be integrated
"within cultural and social contexts".
I found the book a little heavy with theoretical
jargon, but this is all right as the book
is not really intended for general readership.
