Summary: Book chapter that examines five challenges to address in designing ubiquitous computing systems for the workplace: That activities are multifaceted, dynamic, collaborative, exist at different levels of granularity, and exist across planes. The authors frame a critique of each of these challenges in an empirical study of Kimura, “an integrated desktop and interactive whiteboard environment that supports individual knowledge workers in managing and shifting among multiple work activities.”
Synthesis: Helpful description of how to integrate activity theory into empirical work and some of limitations that need attention, especially in knowledge work settings. Check literature to see if that fault has been remedied since this paper’s publication. Who has been citing Nardi, et al., in this domain?
Foundational concepts in this study: sociotemporality, activity theory, ubiquitous computing, knowledge work, HCI
Agreement in related work:
Contested areas: The authors mention that temporal dimension extensions are needed for activity theory. See: Boer et al’s, which cites Giddens’ structuration theory as a foundational construct. These extensions help to address some of the ubicomp challenges and improves activity theory’s flexibility re: distributed cognition (see Halverson).
Gaps/Limits in this study: asdf asdf asdf
Connections to my work: sociotemporality, activity theory, knowledge work, social coordination
Annotated paper:
Voida, Mynatt, MacIntyre – 2007 – Supporting Activity in Desktop and Ubiquitous Computing
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