In Romance with the Materials of Mobile Interaction A Phenomenological Approach to the Design of Mobile Information Technology

Abstract: This thesis deals analytically and through design with the issue of Human­Computer Interaction (HCI) with mobile devices; mobile interaction. Specifically, it is an investigation into and a capitalization on the multistable kinds of relations that arise between the threefold of human user, artifact, and world, and how dealing with this kind of technology and these relations in many ways must be regarded as different from mainstream HCI. This subject matter is theoretically, methodologically, and empirically approached from two to HCI unconventional outlooks: a phenomenological and a design-oriented attitude to research. The main idea pursued in this work is that while HCI for historical reasons follows a tradition of disembodiment, its opposite—embodiment—needs to come into view as an alternative design ideal when dealing with mobile interaction. The tradition of disembodiment in HCI, how it is applied within mobile interaction, and the conceptual switch in focusing on embodiment and human, technology, world relations are thoroughly analyzed and discussed. A proper understanding of these issues are seen as necessary for the primary purpose of this book: to provide designers of mobile interaction with the conceptual means needed to construct new and better styles of mobile interactions. To equip designers and researchers with the possibility of choosing an alternative path, the book provides a range of alternative conceptualizations for design, modeled primarily around phenomenological concepts such as embodiment, meaning, and involvement. In order to minimize the distance between these new notions and how they may be practically applied for design, four research prototypes are presented and discussed that all in different ways capitalize on these conceptualizations. The thesis concludes with an empirical-style study, which uses the Repertory Grid Technique to elicit the participants’ experiences of using a number of mobile information technology devices, including the research prototypes presented in this work.