Potential Examination Questions...

...and Answers!

Activity Theory

Ethnography

Participatory Design

Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

Neill A. Kipp, Martha L. Haigler, Linda S. van Rens

(table of contents)

1. ACTIVITY THEORY

• Why did the activity theorist cross the road?
  • To get through the Vygotskian Zone of Proximal Development.

• What is the primary way a learner can achieve the zone of proximal development?
  • Through social scaffolding set up by the more knowledgeable other, the learner can achieve the zone.

• According to activity theory, what are the steps in the learning process?
  • The learner ABSTRACTS the concept from his practical experience. He SYNTHESIZES it with his past knowledge, he SYMBOLIZES it with a word in his language and then he UNDERSTANDS the concept--- it is placed in his conceptual system.

2. ETHNOGRAPHY

• Why did the ethnographer cross the road?
  • To enter a workplace, locate an informant, ask many, many questions, make an ethnographic record, do a domain analysis, and write an ethnography.

• Why was ethnography adopted by HCI practicioners?
  • the narrow focus on isolated individuals using computational artifacts was inadequate

  • an emerging consensus that human intelligence is socially constituted

  • a growing interest in developing computer technologies that acknowledged and supported the cooperative nature of human activity

• What is the usefulness of ethnography by HCI practicioners?
  • viewed as a way of gaining insights into the nature of human activity that could provide the grounds for the design of new technologies

• What are the potential problems with using ethnography to guide system design?
  • takes long time

  • result is not concrete

  • expensive

  • invasive

3. PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

• Discuss the advantages of going to the workplace to do an ethnography instead of studying work processes in a laboratory.
  • Coincides with principles of activity theory

  • Laboratory cannot fully emulate the subject's real environment (effect)

  • Subjects behave differently in the lab than in the regular workplace (affect)

• Discuss how PICTIVE might encourage premature focus on detailed user-interface design and drive the focus away from analysis of higher-level issues.
  • By its own nature, PICTIVE stresses the way an application looks, rather than concentrating on its functional offerings. This emphasis may lead to an attractive interface, but could miss critical issues of functionality and wider applicability.

4. COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK

• Contrast study of ``groupware'' and study of CSCW.
  • Groupware only covers the software design problems for implementation of multi-user systems CSCW includes this, but also opens itself to the philosophies that allow integration of technology into the workplace and the study of the workplace itself.