Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction

by Paul Dourish

Computer science as an engineering discipline has been spectacularly successful. Yet it is also a philosophical enterprise in the way it represents the world and creates and manipulates models of reality, people, and action. In this book, Paul Dourish addresses the philosophical bases of human-computer interaction. He looks at how what he calls "embodied interaction"—an approach to interacting with software systems that emphasizes skilled, engaged practice rather than disembodied rationality—reflects the phenomenological approaches of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and other twentieth-century philosophers. The phenomenological tradition emphasizes the primacy of natural practice over abstract cognition in everyday activity. Dourish shows how this perspective can shed light on the foundational underpinnings of current research on embodied interaction. He looks in particular at how tangible and social approaches to interaction are related, how they can be used to analyze and understand embodied interaction, and how they could affect the design of future interactive systems.

Genres: Design, Technology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Research, Academic

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Paul Dourish is Chancellor's Professor of Informatics in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction and coauthor of Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing, both published by the MIT Press.

Reviews

[teo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too heavy on jargon and light on substance. This made it a difficult read, not because the subject was particularly hard, but because it was articulated in such an unnecessarily elaborate fashion. Raising more questions than answers is not necessarily a bad thing but it could certainly have been done in fewer pages.
All that said, I still think it is worthwhile reading, if nothing else for the valuable introductions to the philosophical foundations of interaction design.

[Lilly Irani · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the first 5/6 of this book. It gave great summary of various philosophies, explained what there is to appreciate about tangible computing projects I used to (okay, sometimes still) find frivolous, and connected sociality and tangibility in a brain bending way. But at the end I hit a wall when it got to design implications and never read the last 30 pages. I need to get on that.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant but difficult to read. Dourish presents a model for a new approach to the science of interaction, that he calls Embodied Interaction. The most interesting is the different perspectives brought, mainly the phenomenological ones, to design the framework.
The problem, and that's why the book became so difficult to read, is that Dourish tried to work a model that would serve any kind of interaction. This took him to elevate the discourse unto a very high level of abstraction.

Anyhow, a relevant book for any academic working with interaction sciences.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seminal text for interaction designers.

(viii)
"While any software system introduces some kind of formalization of the world, HCI (like AI) deals with formalizations of human cognition and activity. These are the issues that have lay at the heart of philosophical debate for centuries. In some ways, it would be hard to imagine a more philosophical enterprise."

[Blair Neal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has some really interesting sections but it depends on what you’re looking to get out of the book. I feel like I could have skipped the middle section entirely. I made the most notations around the beginning and end. I plan to come back and write down some of the most relevant parts I found. I could have used some more practical “how would you apply this” examples or even visual diagrams for some of the complex topics. The book has aged alright but some project examples are pretty old and haven’t really lasted as memorable projects, so you’ll have to look them up. Overall I’d recommend it for interaction designers for the beginning and end.

[Mikal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A challenging read. The author writes in a philosophical style that often "buries the lede".
However this book is at the intersection of philosophy and design where my current interests are taking me.
Like an academic paper however, the implications are few.
I will update this review once I have a moment to go back and review my notes.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating concepts. As is mentioned in the book, need more practical application to go to the next level with these concepts. Interesting connection between tangible and social computing. Worth a read for technologists and designers.

[Nik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dourish provides an interesting view of Embodied theory, unfortetely, it is out of date quickly.

[Michael Sharp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, with great examples of different ways to make HCI "places."

[Wanda Wang · Rating 3 out of 5]

difficult to read.........

[Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good, yet very difficult to read, book

[Senake Atureliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Currently on the cutting edge of human - computer interaction.