The Activity Checklist: A Tool for Representing the “Space” of Context

In HCI, people are more and more aware of the importance of understanding the context in which computer-supported activities take place. There are several approaches to achieve this goal: task analysis (Dix et al., 1997), participatory design (Bødker et al., 1988), contextual design (Holtzblatt and Beyer, 1993). They are for the most part “bottom-up” one.

The author suggested that “bottom-up” – or empirically driven strategy – can be complimented with a “top-down” one. They presented a broad theoretical framework: Activity Theory (Leont'ev, 1978) and a tool called Activity Checklist which reifies the theory. The tool is not the only attempt to deal with context in the field of HCI, but can be applied to broader field. 

 

What is Activity Theory?

Activity Theory is a general conceptual approach to take into account context in the design and evaluation of a system. Activity consists of a subject (an individual or group), an object or motive, artifacts, and sociocultural rules.

Activity Theory has some principles:

·      Object-Orientedness

Ex: a computer pro- gram is an object of a programmer’s activity.

·      Hierarchical Structure of Activity

Human interactions with the world can be organized into 3 levels: activities, actions and operations. Actions are goal-directed processes that must be carried out to fulfill a motive. Operations: actions, which are carried out automatically.

·      Internalization and Externalization

Constant transformation between external and internal is the very basis of human cognition and activity. Internalization provides a means for people to try potential interactions with reality without performing actual manipulation with real objects. Externalization transforms internal activities into external ones.

·      Mediation

Tools shape the way human beings interact with reality. Tools usually reflect the experience of other people who tried to solve similar problems before and invented or modified the tool to make it more efficient and useful.

·      Development

Activity theory requires that human interaction with reality be analyzed in the context of development.

Understanding the hierarchical structure of an activity requires an analysis of its object or motive, as well as developmental transformations between actions and operations and between internal and external components.

What is Activity Checklist and why we need it?

Activity theory does not provide ready-made solutions that can be directly applied to specific problems. To make such an application of activity theory more practical, the author introduce an analytical tool, the Activity Checklist (Kaptelinin et al., 1999).

There are different versions of the Checklist, the “evaluation version” and the “design version”. It is intended to be used first by examining the whole space for areas of interest, then focusing on the identified areas of interest in as much depth as possible.

The checklist covers 4 main perspectives:

·      Means and ends: How target technology affects obtainment of goals

·      Social and physical aspects of the environment: Integration of target technology with environment

·      Learning, cognition, and articulation: How target technology affects the transformation between internal and external activities

·      Development: Activities undergo permanent developmental transformation

Some sample questions of Activity Checklist:

Activity Checklist is a tool totally new to me. After reading about it, I find its potential use on my research project to evaluate an existing e-commerce system. Sample questions give me insights into understanding Activity Checklist and suggest ideas to evaluate information systems. In later posts, after using this tool, I may post my experience.

Reference

BØDKER, S., EHN, P., KNUDSEN, J., KYNG, M. & MADSEN, K. Computer support for cooperative design (invited paper).  Proceedings of the 1988 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work, 01/01/1988 1988. ACM, 377-394.

DIX, A., FINLAY, J., ABOWD, G. & BEALE, R. 1997. Human-computer interaction.

HOLTZBLATT, K. & BEYER, H. 1993. Making customer-centered design work for teams. Communications of the ACM, 36, 92-103.

KAPTELININ, V., NARDI, B. A. & MACAULAY, C. 1999. Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the “space” of context. interactions, 6, 27-39.

LEONT'EV, A. N. 1978. Activity, Consciousness, Personality., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall.