Generative Theories of Interaction

Although Human–Computer Interaction research has developed various theories and frameworks for analyzing new and existing interactive systems, few address the generation of novel technological solutions, and new technologies often lack theoretical foundations. We introduce Generative Theories of Interaction , which draw insights from empirical theories about human behavior in order to define specific concepts and actionable principles, which, in turn, serve as guidelines for analyzing, critiquing, and constructing new technological artifacts. After introducing and defining Generative Theories of Interaction, we present three detailed examples from our own work: Instrumental Interaction, Human–Computer Partnerships, and Communities & Common Objects. Each example describes the underlying scientific theory and how we derived and applied HCI-relevant concepts and principles to the design of innovative interactive technologies. Summary tables offer sample questions that help analyze existing technology with respect to a specific theory, critique both positive and negative aspects, and inspire new ideas for constructing novel interactive systems.

Explaining multistability: postphenomenology and affordances of technologies

A central issue in postphenomenology is how to explain the multistability of technologies: how can it be that specific technologies can be used for a wide variety of purposes (the “multi”), while not for all purposes (the “stability”)? For example, a table can be used for the purpose of sleeping, having dinner at, or even for staging a fencing match, but not for baking a cake. One explanation offered in the literature is that the (material) design of a technology puts constraints on the purposes for which technologies can be used. In this paper, I argue that such an explanation—while partly correct—fails to address the role of the environment in which human beings operate in putting constraints on technology use. I suggest that James Gibson’s affordance theory helps highlighting how stabilities in technology use arise in the interaction between human being and environment. Building on more recent approaches in affordance theory, I suggest that the environment can be conceptualized as a “rich landscape of affordances” that solicits certain actions, which are not just cued by the environment’s material structure, but also by the normativity present in the form of life in which a human being participates. I briefly contrast the approach to affordances developed in this paper with how Klenk (2020) and Tollon (2021) have conceptualized the “affordance character” of technological artifacts, and highlight how a focus on the situated nature of affordances augments these earlier conceptualizations.

The Informational Behavior applied to the PIM-PKM pair through the HCI in a mobile device ecology

Technological artifacts, physical and digital, have occupied an increasing space in society. Through these artifacts, individuals’ access, store and share information, which may be spread across different equipment. On the other hand, through human-computer interaction, individuals use and appropriate this equipment, creating an ecology of artifacts that appears to be able to expand the physical and mental capacities of its users. In turn, the aforementioned expansion of capabilities seems to contribute to changes in the informational behavior of users of artifact ecologies during practices such as personal information management, the passage from information to knowledge, and the management of personal knowledge. However, there seems to be little literature relating concepts such as human-computer interaction through the use or appropriation of an artifact ecology, with informational behavior, and the aforementioned management of information and personal knowledge. This scarcity reduces the information available, the understanding of these relationships, and their action on the individual. That said, this work will start from a brief systematic review of the literature, to learn about recent works developed on the subject investigated. Afterward, the recovered literature will be confronted with each other, to find relationships between the concepts. The results obtained from this confrontation will contribute to informing other investigations related to the appropriation of artifact ecologies, for information management practices and personal knowledge.

News automation, materialities, and the remix of an editorial process

Software studies is a research field that focuses on the social and cultural implications of the software. They are grounded by interdisciplinarity, borrowing to digital humanities, cultural studies, or new media studies. Their application domains are as heterogeneous as software can be, from interfaces to new digital mediatic forms. This paper examines the relevance of software studies for journalism studies in the context of automated news production, where technological artifacts can also be understood as being shaped by professional values and cultural practices. It also explores methods nourished by software studies’ theories to tackle news automation through a process-oriented approach. The cursor is placed on the materiality of the upstream components of automated news production: the data that feed the systems and the process that will make the news. Automated news production appears as a remixed editorial process nourished by previous editorial experiences that will be standardized through a some-how imitation game where technological and human mediation interplay. This paper addresses the issue of transparency with the flattening of the processes at work, relying on theories and methodological tools based on software studies.

Multiverse Ethnography: A Qualitative Method for Gaming and Technology Use Research

This article introduces multiverse ethnography as a systematic team-based qualitative method for studying the mechanical, structural, and experiential properties of videogames and other technological artifacts. Instead of applying the ethnographic method to produce a single in- depth account of the studied research object, multiverse ethnography includes multiple researchers carrying out coordinated synergetic ethnographic work on the same research object, thus producing a multiverse of interpretations and possible meanings. To test the method, 41 scholars carried out a multiverse ethnography on two videogames, Cyberpunk and Among Us. Explorative thematic findings regarding both titles are reported and methodological implications of multiverse ethnography are discussed.

Transmitting Insulin: The Design and Look of Insulin Delivery Devices as Technologies of Communication

In this article, we examine how insulin pens and pumps – two major devices for delivering insulin, the anabolic hormone used to treat Type 1 diabetes – are designed to conceal and fashion insulin delivery around their appearance as key communication technologies. Insulin pens and insulin pumps transform the aesthetics of insulin delivery away from the medicalized appearance of syringes toward that of beautiful technological artifacts. They both hide and draw attention to their status as technological artifacts and their medical use through a set of desirable, though sometimes incongruous, device aesthetics. Deliberately marketed around their resemblance to pens or pagers, insulin delivery devices are examples of skeuomorphs that “materialize the metaphor” of writing instruments and telecommunication tools into their design. We analyze how diabetes education and marketing materials present insulin delivery devices through skeuomorphic performances of use that uphold norms of concealment in diabetes self-management in conditions of social and medical surveillance. Drawing on patents, educational and marketing materials, and our own experiences with these devices, we argue that the skeuomorphic design of these devices morally regulates the embodied performance of diabetes.

On The Verge of the Hybrid Mind

Recent advances in neurotechnology allow for an increasingly tight integration of the human brain and mind with artificial cognitive systems, blending persons with technologies and creating an assemblage that we call a hybrid mind. In some ways the mind has always been a hybrid, emerging from the interaction of biology, culture (including technological artifacts) and the natural environment. However, with the emergence of neurotechnologies enabling bidirectional flows of information between the brain and AI-enabled devices, integrated into mutually adaptive assemblages, we have arrived at a point where the specific examination of this new instantiation of the hybrid mind is essential. Among the critical questions raised by this development are the effects of these devices on the user’s perception of the self, and on the user’s experience of their own mental contents. Questions arise related to the boundaries of the mind and body and whether the hardware and software that are functionally integrated with the body and mind are to be viewed as parts of the person or separate artifacts subject to different legal treatment. Other questions relate to how to attribute responsibility for actions taken as a result of the operations of a hybrid mind, as well as how to settle questions of the privacy and security of information generated and retained within a hybrid mind.

On The Verge of the Hybrid Mind

Recent advances in neurotechnology allow for an increasingly tight integration of the human brain and mind with artificial cognitive systems, blending persons with technologies and creating an assemblage that we call a hybrid mind. In some ways the mind has always been a hybrid, emerging from the interaction of biology, culture (including technological artifacts) and the natural environment. However, with the emergence of neurotechnologies enabling bidirectional flows of information between the brain and AI-enabled devices, integrated into mutually adaptive assemblages, we have arrived at a point where the specific examination of this new instantiation of the hybrid mind is essential. Among the critical questions raised by this development are the effects of these devices on the user’s perception of the self, and on the user’s experience of their own mental contents. Questions arise related to the boundaries of the mind and body and whether the hardware and software that are functionally integrated with the body and mind are to be viewed as parts of the person or separate artifacts subject to different legal treatment. Other questions relate to how to attribute responsibility for actions taken as a result of the operations of a hybrid mind, as well as how to settle questions of the privacy and security of information generated and retained within a hybrid mind.

Developmentalism and Territory: Three Transport Infrastructures in Santa Fe (Argentina, 1957-1971) as Case Studies

This study aims to recognize the elements that make up the notion of technological determinism and the power (in a political sense) of technologies in the transformation of a given area. Three major infrastructure projects are addressed, understood as technological artifacts, built in the 1960s, that consolidated the physiognomy of the corridor of National Route 168 —Santa Fe city, Argentina—. The hypothesis that guides the study assumes that infrastructures and their materiality have influenced the transformation of the territory that contains them, specifically in the Santa Fe-Paraná metropolitan area. The cases addressed —two bridges and a subfluvial tunnel— were analyzed through the recognition of their construction systems, architectural aspects —if any— and production conditions. Concrete as the predominant material turns out to be, not only the condition of possibility to experience the territory, but also, a constituent part of it. It is considered that the context of production of the works —developmental model— and the level of appropriation and assessment achieved, are fundamental aspects to understand the notion of technological determinism in these infrastructures.