Victor Kaptelinin

In recent years, involving users in the design of Internet of Things (IoT)-based solutions for everyday settings has received significant attention in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) studies. This paper aims to contribute to that line of research by proposing an interaction design approach, which extends the scope of user-driven design beyond conc...

In HCI there is an increasing trend to approach computing artifacts as agents. In this article, we make a case for “Objects with Intent” (OwI's) as an emerging type of agents that take advantage of the meaning of everyday things as the site for their intelligence and agency. After reviewing relevant existing research in HCI and related fields, we d...

The aim of this one-day workshop is to provide a forum for HCI researchers to discuss a wide range of issues at the intersection of philosophy and HCI. The participants will reflect on how philosophy influenced the development of HCI in the past, how philosophical insights are being utilized in current HCI research, and how philosophy can help HCI...

Robotic telepresence technologies are becoming ever more usable and affordable, as well as increasingly available as consumer products. In the coming years, a significant number of people are likely to encounter the technology for the first time, and many, if not most, of them are going to be “non-technical” users, that is, people who do not have s...

The profound impact of digital technologies on human life makes it imperative for HCI research to deal with the most fundamental aspects of human existence. Arguably, insights from existential philosophy and psychology are highly relevant for addressing such issues. Building on previous attempts to bring in existential themes and terminology to HCI...

Robotic technologies are being increasingly integrated into real life settings. The adoption of robots by the society is transcending the initial fascination with novel technology and is gradually entering a new phase, characterized by a massive impact of the technology on various aspects of our everyday lives. These developments emphasize the need...

A telepresence robot is a mobile telecommunication device, remotely controlled by its "pilot", which supports an embodied presence of the pilot in a different location (the "local setting"). A common problem with telepresence robots is their limited capability of interacting with the physical environment. A potential solution, explored in the prese...

The general problem addressed in this paper is supporting a more efficient communication between remote users, who control telepresence robots, and people in the local setting. The design of most telepresence robots does not allow them to perform gestures. Given the key role of pointing in human communication, exploring design solutions for providi...

This paper reports a study of the use of activity theory in human–computer interaction (HCI) research. We analyse activity theory in HCI since its first appearance about 25 years ago. Through an analysis and meta-synthesis of 109 selected HCI activity theory papers, we created a taxonomy of 5 different ways of using activity theory: (1) analysing u...

The aim of the workshop is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss the present and future of ecological perspectives in HCI. The participants will reflect on the current uses and interpretations of "ecology" and related concepts in the field. The workshop will assess the potential of ecological perspectives in HCI for suppor...

The paper describes the design, implementation, and tentative evaluation of a web-based coordination tool named Tabula. The tool employs a shared representation that has the form of a task/participant table. Individual cells of the table are designed as minimalist interactive workspaces, each supporting a particular user in performing a particular...

The paper reports an experimental study of the effects of visual style, information access selectivity, and content-related challenge on user experience of a mobile museum app prototype. Higher visual richness and added content-related challenge were found to positively affect museum experience, while the effect of information access selectivity wa...

Interpretations of the concept of "affordances" in HCI are becoming increasingly diverse, extending well beyond the original Gibsonian meaning. We discuss some of the key analyses of affordances in HCI research and make three related claims. First, we argue that many current interpretations of the concept are essentially incompatible with Gibson. S...

Activity theory -- a conceptual framework originally developed by Aleksei Leontiev -- has its roots in the socio-cultural tradition in Russian psychology. The foundational concept of the theory is human activity, which is understood as purposeful, mediated, and transformative interaction between human beings and the world. Since the early 1990s, ac...

The term “agency” is used in many different ways. We examine its place in activity theory and suggest some extensions to notions of agency. The nature of agency is an old and ongoing debate. It has been reintroduced into contemporary social theory by actor-network theory (Latour, 1993; Law and Callon, 1992; see Kaptelinin and Nardi, 2006). We will...

Moving beyond discussion of theoretical precepts, we consider a body of HCI work that takes “activity” as a grounding orientation. This work grows out of dissatisfaction with the prevailing application-centric view of computing in which it is up to the user to manage a set of individual applications largely ignorant of one another. Even operations...

The paper presents the concept, implementation, and a feasibility study of a user interface technique, named VAVS ("voice-assisted visual search"). VAVS employs user's voice input for assisting the user in searching for objects of interest in complex displays. User voice input is compared with attributes of visually presented objects and, if there...

The paper proposes a conceptual framework, informed by activity theory, for designing technological support for meaning making in museum learning. The model describes a complex interaction between two activity contexts, the one associated with learners' own interests, goals and expectations, and the one associated with the design, functionality, an...

The field of interaction design has to-date been predominantly concerned with designing products, that is, devices, systems, and more recently, services. A growing body of theoretical and empirical analyses suggests that the scope of interaction design needs to be expanded: an explicit concern of the field should include not only helping designers...

This paper deals with the use of personal technologies in decentralized university education. Decentralized education combines elements of campus and distance education and is offered to off campus students within a certain geographical area. Personal technologies can successfully support collaborative learning in this setting. Our empirical studie...

The paper systematically explores the social dimension of external interruptions of human activities. Interruptions and interruption handling are key issues in human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) research. However, existing research has almost exclusively dealt with effects of interruptions on individual...

Leading developers and researchers report on what the next generation of digital work environments may look like, analyzing the theory and practice of designing "out of the box" to facilitate multitasking, collaboration, and multiple technologies. The computer's metaphorical desktop, with its onscreen windows and hierarchy of folders, is the only d...

Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as a basis for understanding our relationship with technology. Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi describe activity theory's principles, history, relatio...

The paper reports a study of a videoconference-based environment in decentralized university education and factors contributing to the success of teaching and learning in the environment. The focus of the paper is on the role of a person having the formal responsibilities of a technician. An ethnographic study conducted over the course of a year re...

The concept of "the object of activity" plays a key role in research based on activity theory. However, the usefulness of this concept is somewhat undermined by the fact that a number of problems related to its meaning and its contexts of use remain unsolved. This article is an attempt to address some of these problems. The article focuses on 3 pot...

The paper deals with design issues related to creating conditions for productive learning in network learning environments. It describes an approach to learning in technologically based environments, based on the Vygotskian cultural-historical approach and activity theory. The paper introduces the cultural-historical approach, provides an overview...

Various aspects of learning with cognitive artefacts were discussed. It was found that cognitive artefacts were intended for individual rather than collective use and they were not found to change the 'individual' capabilities. The enhancement of system cognition to accomplish more with the artefact than without the artefact was also elaborated.

Virtual environments based on the desktop metaphor provide limited support for creating and managing project-specific work contexts. The paper discusses existing approaches to supporting higher-level user activities and presents a system named UMEA (User-Monitoring Environment for Activities). The design of the system is informed by activity theory...

The paper reports a study of a videoconference-based environment in decentralized university education and factors determining the success of teaching and learning in the environment. The focus of the paper is on the role of a person having the formal responsibilities of a technician. An ethnographic study conducted over the course of a year reveal...

The paper reports a study of a videoconference-based environment in decentralized university education and factors determining the success of teaching and learning in the environment. The focus of the paper is on the role of a person having the formal responsibilities of a technician. An ethnographic study conducted over the course of a year reveal...

Historically, the dominant paradigm in HCI, when it appeared as a field in early 80s, was information processing ("cognitivist") psychology. In recent decades, as the focus of research moved beyond information processing to include how the use of technology emerges in social, cultural and organizational contexts, a variety of conceptual frameworks...

Historically, the dominant paradigm in HCI, when it appeared as a field in early 80s, was information processing ("cognitivist") psychology. In recent decades, as the focus of research moved beyond information processing to include how the use of technology emerges in social, cultural and organizational contexts, a variety of conceptual frameworks...

The paper reports an empirical study, in which regular scrolling was compared with a novel scrolling technique featuring transient visual cues (TVC), that is, visual cues temporarily presented on a page to help the user locate new contents. An advantage of scrolling supported with TVC over traditional scrolling was found.

The paper reports an empirical study of the use of videoconferences in decentralized university education. The study focuses on breakdowns that occur during the transition of educational practices from regular classrooms to videoconference-based environments. It was found that the breakdowns were mainly caused by physical and organizational distrib...

The paper reports an empirical study, in which regular scrolling was compared with a novel scrolling technique featuring transient visual cues (TVC), that is, visual cues temporarily presented on a page to help the user locate new contents. An advantage of scrolling supported with TVC over traditional scrolling was found.

When discussing computer tools it is common to say that these artefacts “augment” human cognition by the functionality that has been programmed in them. Augmentation is a powerful idea: the hypothesis is that a person becomes more capable when the functionality of a cognitive tool is added to his or her own cognitive functionality-in augmentation a...

The Fifth Dimension is an afterschool setting where collaborative learning is organized around computer game playing. Learning and cooperation in the Fifth Dimension are analyzed in the paper from the point of view of Activity Theory, a conceptual approach originating from Russian cultural-historical psychology. It is proposed that the mechanisms u...

The objective of the tutorial is to introduce attendees to Activity Theory, a general theoretical framework for the analysis of human and communal action in the world. After an overview of the theory, focus shifts to how this framework can be utilized in practice. Some examples are shown of how this framework can provide a fresh perspective on cert...

Each of three window navigation techniques --- scroll bars, zoom, and fisheye view --- were implemented in two versions: with animation (a gradual transition from one state to another was provided) and without animation. A highly significant effect of navigation technique, but not of animation, was found in the experiment reported in the paper.

My main concern is about the meaning of the concept of "the perpetual novice" (PN). Undoubtedly, an exploratory and qualitative first step into examining a phenomenon can make a very interesting article. And I think the article does contain new and interesting ideas that will be of interest to the readers of the journal. I believe, however, that an...

This tutorial introduces participants to Activity Theory, a conceptual approach that provides a broad framework for describing the structure, development, and context of computer-supported activities. The tutorial will consist of lectures, discussion and small group exercises. A Web community will be established so attendees will be able to continu...

Two approaches to externally distributed individual cognition are contrasted in the paper. The first begins with making a distinction between minds and artifacts, both considered as structural components of larger-scale cognitive systems, while the second focuses on the dynamic coordination of internal and external resources within the context of h...

An abstract is not available.

Four window navigation techniques were compared in the experiment: scroll bars, dragging, and two modifications of a “birds eye view.” It was found that standard scroll bar navigation was associated with the slowest performance and was rated by the subjects as least preferable, The best performance and the highest preference ranks were observed und...

This paper presents the results of empirical study of mental representations of the field of HCI, obtained by statistical analysis. Eight HCI experts participating in the study were asked to classify the papers presented at the EWHC'92 Conference. The results show satisfactory agreement between the experts' classifications, as well as high interpre...

This study examines the role of global and local visual features in menu seieaicu M&r being trained to work with a simple menu-driven system, subjects performed two series of tasks with two types of rnodifled menus: “Jumbled” ones (the sequence of items within a menu changed from task to task) and “Dotted” ones (item names were replaced with string...

This paper deals with mental models of interactive systems and their role in human - computer interaction. In the first section, mental models are differentiated from two other kinds of cognitive phenomena: production rules and "functional cognitive maps". Next, an experiment is described, in which an interactive system was presented to students wi...

The paper deals with exploiting the potential of interaction histories for managing multiple project contexts in both traditional and smart environments. Mapping interaction histories to specific projects is proposed as a way to make interaction histories a useful resource for supporting continuous, coordinated work on a set of projects over time a...

A common problem with virtual work environments is a lack of support for setting up and managing project contexts. The paper presents a system that addresses this problem by providing low-overhead support for personal project management. The system monitors the user and creates an interaction history containing MS Office 2000 events mapped to indiv...

With the emergence of children as important new consumers of technology, it is critical that they are supported in ways that are useful, effective, and, meaningful for their needs. The problem for designers of children's technology is that they are not fully aware of what children need in technology to be satisfied. The solution for designers might...

The objective of this book is to present and discuss new approaches to designing next-generation digital work environments. Currently the most pervasive computer systems, such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, are based on the desktop metaphor. For many users and designers, these are the only digital work environments they have ever known. It is all...

The paper argues that fear is a powerful factor of user experience, which is likely to have a general effect on utility and usability of interactive technologies. Currently interaction design lacks methods and concepts, which would allow the field to properly understand – and deal with – users' fears. The paper presents a tentative exploration of t...