Visitor orientation in context

Abstract: Building on a detailed philosophical basis, this thesisoffers visitor orientation as an alternative perspective onhuman-computer interaction with a focus on visitors and places.In our modern world we see that computers are no longerexclusively used as tools, but they also allow for theexperience of being visitors in a large variety of places. Someexamples of such places are online chat sites, web sites,online communities and 3D games. The work builds onVisitor Orientation in Human- Computer Interaction[Hedman?01]where the visitor oriented perspective wasfirst established and a series of studies were performed in 3Ddigital environments. Here the main task is to further refinevisitor orientation against the background of an extendedexamination of the history of philosophy and an ethnographicstudy of a mixed reality museum exhibition,Re-tracing the Past, which was conducted as part of theSHAPE project funded by the European Community. Against thisbackground, a design philosophy is developed that suggestssensitivities for visitor oriented design in human-computerinteraction. The thesis also provides many discussions oftopics related to human-computer interaction in relation topositions discussed in the history of philosophy, in particularwith respect to questions of place. It serves as a guide foranyone interested in understanding visitors and places withinhuman-computer interaction in a philosophically informedway.