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Plans and Situated Actions: The Problem of Human-Machine Communication
This lively and original book offers a provocative critique of the dominant assumptions regarding human action and communication which underlie recent research in machine intelligence. Lucy Suchman argues that the planning model of interaction favoured by the majority of AI researchers does not take sufficient account of the situatedness of most human social behaviour. The problems that can arise as a result are pertinently, and often amusingly, illustrated by the careful analysis of a recorded interaction between novice users and an intelligent machine, whose design has failed to accommodate essential resources of successful human communication. Plans and Situated Actions presents a compelling case for the re-examination of current models underlying interface design. Lucy Suchman's proposals for a fresh characterisation of human-computer interaction which also incorporates recent insights from the social sciences provides a challenge that everyone interested in machine intelligence will seriously need to consider.
203 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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158 people want to read
About the author
Lucy A. Suchman
3 books9 followersLucy Suchman is a Professor of Anthropology of Science and Technology in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University, in the United Kingdom.
Her current research extends her longstanding critical engagement with the field of human-computer interaction to the domain of contemporary war fighting, including problems of ‘situational awareness’ in military training and simulation, and in the design and deployment of automated weapon systems. At the center of this research is the question of whose bodies are incorporated into military systems, how and with what consequences for social justice and the possibility for a less violent world. Suchman is a member of International Committee for Robot Arms Control[3] and the author of the blog dedicated to the problems of ethical robotics and 'technocultures of humanlike machines'.
Before coming to Lancaster, she worked for 22 years at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California, where she held the positions of Principal Scientist and Manager of the Work Practice and Technology research group. While at PARC, she conducted an influential ethnographic study, using video, of office workers struggling to use a copy machine, today often referred to as one of the first instances of corporate ethnography.
Suchman is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, obtaining her BA in 1972, MA in 1977, and Doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology in 1984. While at Berkeley, she wrote her dissertation on the work practices of accountants. She studied procedural office work to understand how it was similar to and different from a program, assumptions around the work, and how the work informed the design of these systems.
Her current research extends her longstanding critical engagement with the field of human-computer interaction to the domain of contemporary war fighting, including problems of ‘situational awareness’ in military training and simulation, and in the design and deployment of automated weapon systems. At the center of this research is the question of whose bodies are incorporated into military systems, how and with what consequences for social justice and the possibility for a less violent world. Suchman is a member of International Committee for Robot Arms Control[3] and the author of the blog dedicated to the problems of ethical robotics and 'technocultures of humanlike machines'.
Before coming to Lancaster, she worked for 22 years at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in California, where she held the positions of Principal Scientist and Manager of the Work Practice and Technology research group. While at PARC, she conducted an influential ethnographic study, using video, of office workers struggling to use a copy machine, today often referred to as one of the first instances of corporate ethnography.
Suchman is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, obtaining her BA in 1972, MA in 1977, and Doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology in 1984. While at Berkeley, she wrote her dissertation on the work practices of accountants. She studied procedural office work to understand how it was similar to and different from a program, assumptions around the work, and how the work informed the design of these systems.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 4, 2017
Halfway through reading this I learned there was a much revised second edition released in 2007. The thirty year old original was so good at that point though I didn't even mind.
In this book Suchman outlines the inherent challenges of designing conversation like interactions between people and computers.
Specifically, she enters an argument regarding the nature and structure of human activity with respect to designing computer systems. One camp thinks human activity is driven by a kind of more or less fully formed "plan". Based on this, some computer system designers think they can create systems that guide human action by 1. identifying and codifying the ideal 'plan' of that action, 2. having the system identify when the user deviates from this plan 3. correcting the user. Suchman's argument is that much of human action is inescapably "situated" in that it is made of responses to the specific circumstances.The evidence she gives in support of her own view is the nature of human communication, which, it so happens, is also considered to be a (ideal?) model for man-machine interactions. Specifcally, she introduces a perspective from ethnomethodolgy that points out how our speach acts shape and create contexts within which further acts are understood—that is to say, the meaning of an utterance is tied to its context, and even the most simple contexts are multi-layered. For example, if a Mother asks her son "Did you hit Billy?", and Billy doesn't respond, the silence is taken to have significance by virtue of the preceeding question. Suchman provides more concrete support of her argument in the form of a study of office workers interacting with a copy-machine. In the study she notes various interaction 'breakdowns' that occur because of the inherent inability of the machine to understand various contexts.
One reviewer says the book is dense. I think the first half is fairly lucid, but that the sections covering the copy-machine study are not something you want to read before bed. The inescapable problem is that Suchman is describing, in very specific detail, sets of exchanges between a machine and a pair of users. This can get tedious. Ideally, we'd have the actual video recordings, but we don't, because book. However, the details describe lead to specific and thoughtful insights and support her larger argument.
In this book Suchman outlines the inherent challenges of designing conversation like interactions between people and computers.
Specifically, she enters an argument regarding the nature and structure of human activity with respect to designing computer systems. One camp thinks human activity is driven by a kind of more or less fully formed "plan". Based on this, some computer system designers think they can create systems that guide human action by 1. identifying and codifying the ideal 'plan' of that action, 2. having the system identify when the user deviates from this plan 3. correcting the user. Suchman's argument is that much of human action is inescapably "situated" in that it is made of responses to the specific circumstances.The evidence she gives in support of her own view is the nature of human communication, which, it so happens, is also considered to be a (ideal?) model for man-machine interactions. Specifcally, she introduces a perspective from ethnomethodolgy that points out how our speach acts shape and create contexts within which further acts are understood—that is to say, the meaning of an utterance is tied to its context, and even the most simple contexts are multi-layered. For example, if a Mother asks her son "Did you hit Billy?", and Billy doesn't respond, the silence is taken to have significance by virtue of the preceeding question. Suchman provides more concrete support of her argument in the form of a study of office workers interacting with a copy-machine. In the study she notes various interaction 'breakdowns' that occur because of the inherent inability of the machine to understand various contexts.
One reviewer says the book is dense. I think the first half is fairly lucid, but that the sections covering the copy-machine study are not something you want to read before bed. The inescapable problem is that Suchman is describing, in very specific detail, sets of exchanges between a machine and a pair of users. This can get tedious. Ideally, we'd have the actual video recordings, but we don't, because book. However, the details describe lead to specific and thoughtful insights and support her larger argument.
January 18, 2026
Would’ve found this much more interesting when I was doing pragmatics
February 1, 2009
This was required reading for a class on 'Understanding and Serving Users'. It is a bit dated, but was on the 'cutting edge' of rethinking human computer interaction when it was first published in 1987. The Intro leads one to believe that the book is going to be an interesting read. However, the writing style is impossible. The author could have used some human-human communication tips. VERY DENSE and not engaging. I wanted to enjoy reading this book, but did not.
March 4, 2014
great book ! still cant believe it is written in 1987 ! the main message of the book is that we cannot plan everything into the details (there is no such a thing as a complete and accurate plan) and the situatedness of action plays an important role !
shelved
May 9, 2009"[A:] powerful critique of artificial intelligence's claim that the mind could be formally specified." -- Geoffrey C. Bowker & Susan Leigh Star
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews