Activity-centered design: an ecological approach to designing smart tools and usable systems

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20. Gay G. Hembrooke H., 2003, Activity-centered design: an ecological approach to designing smart tools and usable systems, London, The MIT Press.
a. The emphasis on understanding specific needs and behaviours on individuals has evolved to an emphasis on understanding the activities and the meaning of those activities in social and networked context.
b. An individual’s relationship with and orientation toward an objective is mediated by the tools that are used to attain the objective, the community that participates in the activity, and the division of labor that exists in that community.
c. Two important subcategories within the concept of object orientedness: 1. Psychological and social objects can be ranked ata the same level of importance as physical objects, 2. Artifacts can be transported into objects status and vice versa.
d. As disturbance become evident within and between activity systems, participants may begin to address the underlying issues and change their situations, their activities or themselves.
e. Design questions and practices revolve around the interactions and interdependence of these nested environments. These interactions and their interrelatedness constitute the complexities of design.
f. Integrating activity theory with ecological principles involves understanding an outcome [such as specific technology or user need] at a particular point in time in the context of interacting systems.
g. The interaction between actors in an activity system is mediated by the object of activity, by language and tools, by a division of labour, by conventions an d by social rules.
h. Within any design ecology,some systems are perceived as stable and thus require less attention from designer, while others are perceived as being in flux and become the focus of design research or development.
i. Computer mediated activity and design need to be understood within their relevant context.
j. Communication and collaboration between subjects are processes that are critical for coordinating different versions of design and other component of systems.
k. After several iterations, groups eventually share an acceptance or a conceptualization of the technology.
l. The most productive design exchanges take place when users, developers and other groups interact, develop and maintain a technological innovation.
m. To design an effective system that meets the needs of various users, consistent and simultaneous attention must be paid to variety of social, organizational, administrative and technical concerns.
n. Cognition and planned activities are inexplicably connected and that both are by products of the social and physical interactions that individuals have with and through their environments.
o. Developing relevant aware applications requires researchers to redefine context as a multidimensional construct that has overlapping and interacting layers.