Interaction criticism and aesthetics

Abstract

As HCI becomes more self-consciously implicated in culture, theories from cultural studies, in particular aesthetics and critical theory, are increasingly working their way into the field. However, the use of aesthetics and critical theory in HCI remains both marginal and uneven in quality. This paper explores the state of the art of aesthetics and critical theory in the field, before going on to explore the role of these cultural theories in the analysis and deployment of the twin anchors of interaction: the user and the artifact. In concludes with a proposed mapping of aesthetics and critical theory into interaction design, both as a practice and as a discipline.

An Anxious Alliance

“…I hope that writing about this project in a first person, autobiographical voice helps to fulfil a commitment to support a "fuller range and richness of lived experiences" [4], wherein we draw on aesthetic principles and techniques [1,21,35] to achieve that goal. As a method for both understanding others and the self, I believe this voice marries well with a desire to deeply describe and engage with those moral, political, emotional and ineffable experiences in our work.…”

Design e tecnologia: uma abordagem bibliométrica no periódico Design Studies.

“…Para Levy (1999, p. 37), a interface permite a comunicação entre os sistemas de informação e comunicação, englobando "todos os aparatos materiais que permitem a interação entre o universo da informação digital e o mundo ordinário". Estudos recentes têm abordado a interface como a interpretação de códigos de máquina em um conjunto inteligível de estímulos multissensoriais, cuja efetividade leva em conta não só a funcionalidade, mas também os aspectos estéticos e emocionais (JOHNSON, 2001;BARDZELL, 2009;CHAPMAN, 2011;LOWDERMILK, 2013). A facilidade com que o usuário identifica a funcionalidade de uma interface sem a necessidade de treinamento prévio, de forma a atingir metas específicas com eficácia, eficiência e satisfação é chamada de usabilidade (ISO, 1998).…”

Conceptualizing the self: A critical analysis of the self as a discursive trend in human-computer interaction research

“…Although fewer in number, several HCI researchers addressing the discourse of the self acknowledge the need to explore alternative aspects of the self (e.g., Bardzell, 2009;Bardzell & Bardzell, 2008a;Schmidt, 1997). An early attempt was Sherry Turkle's studies of virtual reality (Turkle, 1994(Turkle, , 1996(Turkle, , 1997.…”

“…Traditionally, the human in HCI has been discussed in terms of the user (see, e.g., Bardzell, 2009;Cooper & Bowers, 1995). Performing a quick search in the ACM Digital Library 1 reveals that approximately 95% of all papers presented at the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) mention the user, a number that has been nearly constant since the turn of the millennium.…”