Lately, a lot of my intellectual energy has been devoted to issues that one way or another pertain to the notion of the hermeneutic circle. The following is an effort to develop some clarity on it. Defining the Hermeneutic Circle Just so everyone knows what I am going on about here, let me first attempt…
One problem that is likely impeding the development of critical approaches in HCI is equivocation. Equivocation occurs when different meanings or uses of the same word are used interchangeably. “Criticism” appears to be just such a word, and the origin of this post was to offer some fundamental distinctions among different uses of “criticism” in…
Readings: Going Off on Your Own Continued from Part 6 of the Interaction Criticism series, which starts here. Acknowledgment: Many of the ideas and readings cited throughout this series and particularly in this post reflect the research and contributions of my colleague and spouse, Shaowen Bardzell. I certainly have enjoyed composing this series of posts,…
Mingxian posted an excellent question late last week about the problem of intention. If we look at camera angles in Bleu or La Strada, and we perceive that they relate fortuitously to narrative themes (etc.), and we attribute that coherence to the “director’s intention,” are we leaving structuralism/semiotics and heading back to phenomenology? My answer…
Read more Structuralist versus Phenomenological Notions of “Intention”
I have seen a number of posts and comments that grapple with the notion of “breakdown,” and I thought it might be constructive to clarify something. “Breakdown” in everyday English is a bad and destructive thing. “My car broke down.” “He had a nervous break down.” The phenomenological notion is derived from this, but as…
Interaction Culture 