In the discussion on what players learn from digital games, there are two major camps in clear opposition to each other. As one side picks up on negative elements found in games the other side focuses on positive aspects. While the agendas differ, the basic arguments still depart from a shared logic: that engagement in game-related activities fosters the development of behaviors that are transf...

This article focuses on our exploration of awareness issues through the design and long-term deployment of two systems: the Hermes office door display system (which enabled staff in a university department to post awareness messages to their door displays) and SPAM (a messaging system for supporting coordination HUMAN–COMPUTER INTERACTION, 2007, Volume 22, pp. 173–220 Copyright © 2007, Lawrence...

The socio-ethical concerns regarding exploitation in commercial surrogacy are premised on asymmetric vulnerability and the commercialization of women's reproductive capacity to suit individualistic motives. In examining the exploitation argument, this article reviews the social contract theory that describes an individual as an 'economic man' with moral and/or political motivations to satisfy i...

Despite the widespread adoption of mobile information and communication technology, there are still relatively few studies of their use. Previous studies often fail to capture the situated practicalities of mobility. Further, many previous studies are work-oriented, viewing the office or the control room as a base, and see mobility as a means of transportation. This thesis contributes to our un...

The revival of the ideas of Alfred Schütz among Austrian economists is examined. In particular, this paper looks at Schütz’s work on intersubjectivity as an alternative approach to market coordination. As opposed to the rational maximization of individuals, some have argued that Schütz’s concept of intersubjective structures of meaning offers a better model for understanding how individuals act...

books by herself and her collaborators, G. Scott Williamson and Lucy Crocker, The case for action (1931), Biologists in search of material (1938), and The Peckham experiment (1943). Set up in the 1930s, the Peckham centre housed under one roof an enomous range of social activities for the community, from carpentry and swimming to ante-natal guidance, in the service of two deeper scientific goal...

Students of psychology are taught to regard the Representational Theory of Mind as a relatively new invention, attached to the rise of modern computer technologies. Yet, as Jerry Fodor—for once—rightly pointed out, “insofar as the Representational Theory of Mind is the content of the computer metaphor, the computer metaphor predates the computer by about three hundred years” (Fodor, 1981, p. 14...

We provide two case studies in the application of ideas drawn from conversation analysis to the design of technologies that enhance the experience of human conversation. We first present a case study of the design of an electronic guidebook, focusing on how conversation analytic principles played a role in the design process. We then discuss how the guidebook project has inspired our continuing...