A human-centred perspective on interaction design
Liam Bannon2005
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Abstract
This chapter outlines a "human-centred" perspective on the design of novel interactive artefacts and environments. The approach builds on a variety of human and social science traditions that focus on understanding human activity, all of which seek to provide useful and pertinent observations on human action in the world. While technology may play an important role in these human activities, often the use of the technology is as an intrinsic mediating influence, rather than being the goal of the activity. The relevance of this approach to technology development is that it provides a distinct perspective that encompasses many of the key issues being faced by (ubiquitous) technology designers today-issues such as awareness, context, interaction, engagement and emotion. All of these aspects concern the activities of human actors in a (variety of) setting(s). The chapter then outlines a major research programme being conducted within our research unit which provides an exemplar of the human-centred interaction design research programme that we are advocating, which we believe could significantly shift the way in which we design, develop and evaluate novel technological artefacts and environments.
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