Thinking.

I was reading this

1. B. Hillier, “Between Social Physics and Phenomenology: explorations towards an urban synthesis?,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Space Syntax Symposium, vol. 1, 2.

And started to make lots of links between Phenomenology/Ethnography and HCI. In essence David Seamon has made a lot of interesting noises about how the architectural theory space syntax links in with phenomenology mostly the phenomenology of space. Due to the focus on building from experience to create life in the streets. I see phenomenology/syntax as a very complementary views of the world. Hillier sees it as a bridge between phenomenology and social physics (his term).

I was talking about this with Paul and Riche saying how what I would like to do for HCI what syntax did for urban design. Effectively create a theory of object (software) which could be used analytically for design. Currently we operate from theories/practices of human (psychology) and society ( Ethnography ) which gives the computing people/designers little to contribute but interventions. Is this getting to the essence of HCI ( to use the phenomenology).

I guess what I'm looking for what is called space in architecture but for HCI. Space in architecture is a very abstract concept but is very familair (you by the building by the price per sqr foot), is not that which we build it is defined by what we build, it is what we build for and what architects think we respond to.

Richie said something interesting, when you are looking for a new house you look at the empty rooms and think what you can do with them. In HCI terms your looking for the affordances of the builds volume/void/space. But we don't talk about specific affordances the way space syntax can be specific and objective about space.

Going back to the rooms , when I look at Excel, or word don't think about what it is I think about what I can do with it. So Excel has a large 'interaction-space' for want of a better word. Clearly both Excel and Word set an agenda but are very flexible within in that realm. I'm still not sure what I mean.

Richie also had that zen moment about space defining the bowl. When you buy a bowl all it does is to define that space, with out that space it is not a bowl. Bill also talks about things forming from relationships of object, a table is just a number of chunks of wood until they form in a specific set of relationships. Perhaps the table is also the space it defines underneath it and above it.

I'm speculating but perhaps the space in things is the paths through the things we flow through when we use them. The orders of clicks and pages on a web site the sequences of clicks on a mobile phone. Are these paths essential uses of things are they part of our use of things?

M. recommended S. Todes, Body and world (MIT Press, 2001). to check out. Looks embodied.