The Turn to Practise in HCI: Practise makes Imperfect

To help soothe the turbulence and confusion generated by Human Computer Interaction’s (HCI) eclectic mix of disciplines and approaches, authors Kuutti and Bannon propose in “The Turn to Practise in HCI: Towards a Research Agenda” that a novel ‘Practise paradigm’ is emerging in areas across the field. The authors identify two paradigms within HCI; the ‘Interaction’ paradigm and the ‘Practise’ paradigm before discussing the philosophical framework behind practise theory, instances and their core features of the latter in existing Computer Science fields. The pair conclude with a call for researchers to strive for a common conceptual framework upon which to base more nuanced research questions on.

From the paper’s premise, thinly-veiled criticism is directed at the dominant, unfairly privileged “Interaction” paradigm – centred on scrutinising a dyadic human-machine relationship displayed in limited short-term lab studies, individuals engaged in pre-determined modularised tasks whilst all other factors categorised as context. The ‘Practise’ paradigm is presented by Kuutti and Bannon as an alternative, but not outright replacement, arguing – which I strongly agree with – that the formerly described relationship can only be comprehensively understood when the large material and cultural framework in which a human actor is situated is given the same prevalence as the interaction. Technology is but only one element amongst others that are of equal importance. In a simple but effective appeal to reason, the authors ask: how can we claim to understand the interaction taking place if we fail to grasp understanding of the interactors themselves? Practises and performances are not “momentary and ahistorical HCI situations” (Kuutti and Bannon, 2014: 3543) [1] that occur in a vacuum, but acts of organisations, infrastructures, culture and rituals that provide a rich configuration for understanding challenges and imagining the possibilities of information technology (Carroll and Rosson, 2013: 16:1) [2].

Kuutti and Bannon’s main argument is through evaluating other ‘turns to practise’ in Social Sciences, citing work done in subfields of HCI of Information Systems (IS), Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Participatory Design (PD) imploring HCI as a whole to catch up. However, examples cited in these sections are highly theoretical in nature, perhaps evidencing its juvenile state, appealing to individual viewpoints rather than citing papers within these fields. This could be a result of practise theory in IS research in particular being reported to be less faithful to the engagement of the overall concept of practise; cherry-picking concepts of agency and materiality without introducing original sources, underlying worldviews or assumptions (Tavakoli and Schlawein, 2016: 8) [3]. Furthermore, despite appeals to theoretical foundations of practise theory in listing philosophy moguls such as Marx and Heidegger, the paper surprisingly fails to make mention of John Dewey’s practical rationality. This would have provided a softer and perhaps a more convincing introduction to understanding a world that is not a fixed and stable depiction that the ‘Interaction’ paradigm describes, encouraging individuals to resist solely on given conceptualisations (‘human’, ‘computer’, ‘interaction’) as these will likely change over time, but instead establish temporary stability in a given situation. Despite these minor criticisms, I believe that the paper is significant in addressing and prompting the move towards a more human-focused HCI research agenda.

A paper that exemplifies what HCI (or rather what it should be) to me is “I don’t want to wear a screen”: Probing Perceptions of and Possibilities for Dynamic Displays on Clothing” http://artfordorks.com/pubs/16_CHI_Ebb.pdf. Although the paper is a very specific example of an emerging niche area within computing (dynamic thermochromatic textiles) it is a playful and intriguing take on what it means to ‘interact’ with technology.

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[1] Kuutti, K. Bannon, L. (2014) ‘The Turn to Practise in HCI: Towards a Research Agenda’, Proceedings of the 32^nd annual ACM conference, pp. 3543 – 3552, URL: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2556288.2557111

[2] Carroll, J. Rosson, M. (2013) ‘Wild at Home: The Neighborhood as a Living Laboratory for HCI’, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) – Special Issue of “The Turn to The Wild”, 20:3, p. 16:1, URL: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2491504

[3] Tavakoli A, Schlagwein, D. (2016) ‘A Review of the use of Practise Theory in Information Systems Research’, PACIS 2016 Proceedings, Paper 267, p. 8, URL: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1310&context=pacis2016