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[Update]: Minor edits made. Also, some HTML errors were fixed *cough* –JB

Phenomenology and structuralism are approaches to understanding something, they are not embedded in an object. A film is not inherently phenomenological, but it can be interpreted phenomenologically.

User centered design reconfigures the user as a component of the system. Humans as users become part of the software system.

Human centered design puts humans outside the system. Humans are complex with lifeworlds, horizons, etc. and interact with technology but are not necessarily a part of it.

What is the place of realism in HCI?

Levels of participation. Example: Theatre never quite feels real because the participant shares a spatio-temporal reality the actors and can never forget that they’re actors. Film however is often quite “real” because there is a different spatio-temporal reality combined with perceptual realism, which allows the audience to forget about the actors and identify with the characters directly.

Descartes – Scientific Rationalism

• Mind/Body Dualism
• Reductionism: Complex reality -> modeled -> programmed into interfaces
• Expert Systems -> Turbo Tax
• Idea starts in a mind -> goes into a tool -> artifact created [sequential]
• Intention is primary
• Hammer-ness: The abstract truth of what it is to be a hammer. The objective hammer or perfect hammer.
• Knowledge is representational, but I have no way to access objects directly (Kant’s Wall)

Heidegger – Phenomenology

• Embodied
• Action gives rise to thinking
• Ready-to-hand vs. Present-to-hand
• When you’re using a tool and your not conscious of its use, that’s ready-to-hand
• When the use of the tool results in a breakdown (breaking of “flow”) and you become aware of it, that’s present-to-hand
• Proprioception – something is so ready-to-hand that it feels like it’s part of you